Build a Rocket Boy Cuts About 170 Jobs, Shrinking Studio to Roughly 80

Overview

• The MindsEye developer carried out a third round of layoffs in the past week, with two sources telling Kotaku roughly 170 roles were eliminated and headcount fell to about 80.
• Reporters and fans pieced the news together from staff posts on LinkedIn and farewell messages in the MindsEye Discord, since the company has not issued a public statement.
• Co-CEO Mark Gerhard said on LinkedIn that the latest reductions follow what he called organized espionage and corporate sabotage targeting the game.
• The promised turnaround has not arrived, as the recent Blacklisted mission drew poor reactions and PC Gamer reported a peak of only 11 concurrent Steam players for the game.
• The studio had more than 800 employees at its peak, dropped to about 240 by March with a stated goal of near 100, closed its France office in March, and even an early distributor, IO Interactive, has acknowledged the project’s struggles.