A new report has emerged which may shed some light on why ill-fated third-person shooter MindsEye flopped so disastrously when it launched earlier this year, and the reasons are probably going to sound pretty familiar to you.
In an article for the BBC, reporter Tom Richardson spoke to former staff who worked for developer Build a Rocket Boy (which underwent a hefty round of layoffs earlier this year following MindsEye's release).
An ex-developer known as "Jamie" (which isn't their real name) told Richardson that Everywhere, the user-generated content sandbox which was BARB's initial focus, was "quite special", but that once the studio's focus shifted to MindsEye, boss Leslie Benzies "never decided what game he wanted to make".
Jamie says there was "no coherent direction" on MindsEye's development, and that Benzies would routinely request huge changes to features or missions in the game. Jamie says the team referred to these bug and feature requests as "Leslies", and that they "had to be taken care of" immediately.
Additionally, former staff at Build a Rocket Boy allege that MindsEye was developed under crunch conditions, with staff routinely working additional unpaid overtime hours during the week in order to finish the game....
