MindsEye, a game that feels a smidge underwhelming—given it was from one of the brains behind Grand Theft Auto—is out, and public reception is not doing so hot. With “mostly negative” Steam reviews and some poor first impressions by PCG’s own Tyler Wilde, who didn’t find much to be charmed with, MindsEye is not doing much to capture anyone’s imagination.
But if you listened to Build a Rocket Boy co-CEO Mark Gerhard back in May? It was all a conspiracy by a fleet of paid-for bots, or something. You can read the full statements in the story I just linked, but Gerhard claimed there was “a concerted effort to trash the game and the studio”, and implied he believed “100%” that the incoming negative reception was financed by someone with some disposable income and a fleet of “bot farms”.
If the court of public opinion that’s been dragging this game over the coals is indeed financed (I am starting to think it’s unlikely), whoever’s doing it has some very deep pockets. Or they might just not exist.
The CEO of IO Interactive, publishers of MindsEye, certainly doesn’t seem to think they do. In a recent IGN interview that surfaced during release day, Hakan Abrak replied to the line of questioning with a flat denial: “I don’t know. I don’t believe that. I don’t believe that. I just think the game should speak for itself on June 10.”
I’m pretty sure the game has spoken for itself at this point—even during the Summer Games Fest, I wasn’t exactly taken with the trailer, which showed off a fairly middling third-person action game set to Mad World. It displayed all the energy of a game from 2009 that’d tripped into a cryo pod and awakened, gasping for air, in 2025.
Gerhard’s Q&A crash out reminds me a lot of the CEO of No Rest For the Wicked’s very normal comments first implying, then denying, that negative Steam reviews would destroy the studio. Or Randy Pitchford’s recent panic after a wayward comment about gaming prices went down like a lead balloon.
That is to say, I think it’d be beneficial if CEOs kept their anxieties to themselves from time to time—for their own sakes, and their studios. Mindseye certainly wasn’t going to set the world on fire, but Gerhard’s comments have turned the game from a flop into a punchline to a joke he, himself, set up.
I actually went to see Build a Rocket Boy’s two projects back in 2023—Everywhere, and MindsEye. My trip was mostly focused on Everywhere, and all I saw of MindsEye was an unoptimised and fairly unremarkable AAA videogame cutscene.
Meanwhile, I felt as though Everywhere had some potential, basically being a huge custom games platform with programmable enemy AI and game rules, a level editor, an in-game economy with stamps to share with friends, and so on. That’s a potential I feel is growing further in the rear-view as games like Fortnite and Roblox cement their offerings. Releasing MindsEye first, and to some crushing critical reception? It certainly isn’t giving me much hope.
Read the full article here
