In July this year workers at Build a Rocket Boy, a video game studio in Edinburgh, were called to an all-staff meeting.
Their first ever game, a sci-fi adventure called MindsEye, had been released three weeks earlier - and it had been a total disaster.
Critics and players called it “broken”, “buggy”, and “the worst game of 2025”.
Addressing staff via video link, the company’s boss, Leslie Benzies, assured them there was a plan to get things back on track and said the negativity they’d seen was “uncalled for”.
Then he pivoted, alleging “internal and external” forces had been working to scupper the MindsEye launch.
He told the assembled workers - who’d been informed they faced redundancy just a week earlier - there would be an effort to root out “saboteurs” within the company.
“I find it disgusting that anyone could sit amongst us, behave like this and continue to work here,” he said, according to a transcript of the meeting verified by BBC Newsbeat.
Staff who worked at the studio say they were stunned - and not only by the strength of the language. They simply didn’t believe him.
As far as they were concerned, there was no conspiracy - and the reasons for MindsEye’s failure were clear.
Not so much paranoid, more desperately looking for excuses. Sabotage couldn’t make a game turn out that poorly unless every non-saboteur was fully asleep at the wheel. It’s poor direction plain and simple.
Exactly this. I had been hoping that Benzies going his own way would be good news but I suppose this tells us a lot about the behind the scenes of R* instead.
I had completely forgotten this limp puppet corpse of a game had come out at all. I saw 0 marketing for it, saw a ton of bad reviews and then it disappeared into the void.
I’m actually more surprised to see any further news about it, given it felt like the kind of thing that folds a studio in half.
Hadn’t heard of it at all. I just skimmed a walkthrough video. It doesn’t seem bad, but I don’t play a lot of F/3PS. What makes it a “limp puppet corpse”?
From the article, sounds like the company founder is a complete bell-end, had no clear vision and kept changing his mind on everything. Half the games developers in Edinburgh probably used to work for Rockstar and will know all the ins-and-outs of developing a GTA clone, but if you keep fucking them around then you’ll end up with a mess.
From the reviews, sounds like even when it’s not being a buggy mess, it’s boring and the plot is completely stupid. You can hotfix the bugs and performance issues away, but if the underlying concept is shite then you can’t really polish that into something good.
Really? It was such a massive flop and was so entertainingly bad it became an instant meme, and ironically turned into one of the most memorable releases of the year - just for all the wrong reasons.
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What a paranoid dipshit.
Not so much paranoid, more desperately looking for excuses. Sabotage couldn’t make a game turn out that poorly unless every non-saboteur was fully asleep at the wheel. It’s poor direction plain and simple.
Looking everywhere for a reason why but never looking in the mirror.
Exactly this. I had been hoping that Benzies going his own way would be good news but I suppose this tells us a lot about the behind the scenes of R* instead.
He sounds delusional AF.
I had completely forgotten this limp puppet corpse of a game had come out at all. I saw 0 marketing for it, saw a ton of bad reviews and then it disappeared into the void.
I’m actually more surprised to see any further news about it, given it felt like the kind of thing that folds a studio in half.
Hadn’t heard of it at all. I just skimmed a walkthrough video. It doesn’t seem bad, but I don’t play a lot of F/3PS. What makes it a “limp puppet corpse”?
(Will go look for some of the reviews though).
From the article, sounds like the company founder is a complete bell-end, had no clear vision and kept changing his mind on everything. Half the games developers in Edinburgh probably used to work for Rockstar and will know all the ins-and-outs of developing a GTA clone, but if you keep fucking them around then you’ll end up with a mess.
From the reviews, sounds like even when it’s not being a buggy mess, it’s boring and the plot is completely stupid. You can hotfix the bugs and performance issues away, but if the underlying concept is shite then you can’t really polish that into something good.
Word. I’ve never heard of it and GTA-adjacent games are up my alley.
Really? It was such a massive flop and was so entertainingly bad it became an instant meme, and ironically turned into one of the most memorable releases of the year - just for all the wrong reasons.