So, we're now 7 days away from launch
from Mind's Eye. And yesterday on Monday
the 2nd of June, both the chief
financial officer, the CFO, and the
chief legal officer, the Seattle, both
announced their resignations from Build
a Rocket Boy. Now, these are some of the
most senior people in the business. And
there's quite a bit in this video that I
kind of want to touch on and go through.
And yeah, let's just start from the
bottom. So, firstly, where did this
information come from? Well, last night
I received a couple of messages from
Builder Rocket Boy employees, both
former and current, and they all sent me
LinkedIn posts from both the chief
financial officer and the chief legal
officer. Now, the chief legal officer
actually supposedly resigned a few
months back, but it was only announced
today. But the chief financial officer,
apparently, no one was aware that the
chief financial officer was resigning.
It kind of came out of the blue and from
nowhere that anyone can really
understand. Now, one of the questions I
had for a couple of Builder Rocket Boy
employees was why would the chief legal
officer announce their resignation on
the same day as the chief financial
officer when the chief legal officer had
resigned some while back? I thought
maybe it was to do with an embargo or
contracts or NDAs or something.
Supposedly not. More realistically, it's
to do with some of the stuff that's
happening within the business and some
of the backlash from the community and
the wider media. A popular theory, and
it is just a theory that I've seen from
Builder Rocket Boy employees, is that
it's just to kind of publicly distance
themselves from the business and to say,
"We're not part of this." Which begs the
question, if that is the case, why why
would they do that? Now, I'm not going
to speculate about the quality of the
game or anything. The game comes out in
7 days time and we can play it and we
can see. But when it comes to the
operational side of the business, it's
very clear that there's trouble in
paradise. And this this uh it's not a
good look, let's be honest. Now, since I
did my previous videos interviewing
Build a Rocket Boy employees, both
current and former, I've had so many
more reach out to me. We are well into
double digits now. We're getting closer
and closer to 40 employees that have
reached out. A lot of these people have
sent me emails from the same email
addresses that are their contact info on
LinkedIn and they are verified employees
and they have contacts within Build a
Rocket Boy. Like, you know, half their
friends on there were employees at
Builder Rocket Boy. So, these are
verified employees that we can check and
approve. And the sheer volume of emails
is the concerning thing here. I've spoke
to a couple of journalists that have
been doing kind of reporting on gaming
for the best part of 20 years. And all
of them have said that amount of sources
coming forwards for a games developer
that is really small and still an indie
games developer is almost unheard of.
And if anything, it's an indication of
clear problems within the company. Now,
with all of that being said, the
argument has come up that all of these
people are just disgruntled employees,
which is a very fair argument and
assessment to make, and I would agree.
But you could equally argue, why are
they disgruntled? Now, a key word that
comes to mind throughout all of this is
optics. Obviously, it's no secret that
this isn't a great look for the company,
especially with everything that's been
happening recently surrounding the game.
But to have two senior people announce
their resignations on the same day in
any company would be weird. Now the
chief financial officer obviously is an
important job within the business but
their kind of main responsibility is to
liaz to do with the finances whether it
be from investors or to the operational
side of the business. For example in the
case of take 2 interactive the chief
financial officer Laney Goldstein her
job is to report on the financials of
the business to investors. And when it
comes to the release of games, reporting
on the financials of the business to
investors is extremely important to have
your CFO resign a week before your games
to come out. And obviously investors are
going to want to see reports. It's not
good optically from any standpoint. That
raises a lot of question marks. Now, one
of the biggest questions I've been
receiving over the past 12 hours since I
announced this on Twitter is why isn't
every single gaming outlet covering
this? Well, there's a few key things to
note. Firstly, the news came through me
and I just happened to be the first
person that was told about it. I'm not
saying that like I'm the best source in
the whole world, but obviously we can
verify it's true from LinkedIn, but
maybe the media hasn't had time to pick
it up yet. But the other thing is, and
this is one that's a bit contentious,
you'll see that a lot of gaming outlets
that report on games, if they are part
of the marketing cycle with a games
developer, for example, IGN are the
official release partner for the
trailers for Mind's Eye. Gamer Rant's
been heavily involved in the public
facing like PR and publication side of
things. For example, when Leslie Benzes
has something to say, Gamer Rant is the
outlet that's chosen to publish that.
Now, all of these articles are the sort
of companies that if they have a
financial incentive to collaborate with
a company are less inclined to post
negative information about them. And
I've noticed this a lot about Build a
Rocket Boy and Minds Eye. So, it's
absolutely no secret that the, you know,
the influencer previews where YouTubers
were able to see the game early,
obviously, they were badly reviewed. Um,
not just from myself, but like from
pretty much everyone that saw them that
decided to make a video, it wasn't
overly positive about how Mind's Eye as
a game looked and some of the issues
that were present just weeks before
launch. You'll notice that some of the
biggest gaming outlets that cover
everything in news didn't cover it if
they were having ads on their website
for Mind's Eye. So, this is where some
of my kind of like I know it's quote
unquote true journalism. Some of these
outlets and articles and all this stuff.
I'm not saying like game rant is, but
like from a general person, if they see
IGN, they'll go, "Oh, they're the gaming
news people." It comes across as a as a
little bit kind of like a conflict of
interest internally for them to report
negatively on the game. So, I'm not
necessarily blaming them, but I'm just
saying that it's a reason to us why none
of the negative stuff about Mind's Eye
has been published by these by these
outlets. Now, since a lot of the
negative news around Mind's Eye started
spreading all over the internet, we've
started to see so many different
articles and outlets report on Mind's
Eye, but completely not even mention,
hint at, acknowledge, or in anywhere
except that there could be possibly any
issues with the game, not talking about
all of the general buzz on social media.
And to be honest, like most of the
general publications from YouTubers, the
general public, wherever it might be, is
all negative. And there hasn't been any
sentiment hinted at that by any
mainstream media. For example, Variety
magazine just did an interview of Leslie
Benzes and it was the most corporate
looking interview I've ever seen talking
about direction of the business and all
of this. And there was no inference in
there at all to anything about how the
game has been received from early access
events from or even how it's been
received from the trailers. like to
completely gloss over that and to not
mention that and not bring that up makes
it look like this is potentially a paid
PR piece. It's also very very very
interesting that none of these outlets
are receiving early access to the game.
So no one including YouTubers, including
magazines, is receiving the game early
to create a review. Normally the way it
works is you're given the game early and
then exactly at release time is when you
can publish a review. But of course, if
the reviews come out from the second the
game's released, and if they are
negative, that will affect how many
people actually go ahead and buy the
game. So, Builder Rocket Boy deciding to
not allow any magazines or press get
hold of the game in advance. It puts a
question mark over the belief that they
have in the game will be good
internally. Like I said, the game could
be amazing, but we can just look at what
they're doing around the game and the
way that they're handling themselves
from the marketing point of making sure
people don't play the game like a day
before it comes out. People have said
that this is to stop the game from
leaking. Magazines like IGN and all of
these companies aren't going to be
leaking the game out to everyone.
They're going to be writing their
reviews and they'll publish them when
the embargo is lifted. I mean, Grand
Theft Auto 5 when that came out, that
was one of the biggest games of all time
and that game was given to the press
early to review. The same thing applies
to Red Dead Redemption 2. That was given
to the press early to review. These are
games that had far more anticipation
than Minds Eye did. So positioning this
in a way where it's just to prevent
leaks is absolutely insane considering
how Builder Rocket Boy leaked their own
leaks and tried to make out like their
game had leaked when in reality they
published the leaks themselves. It I
don't know question mark red flag. So
yeah this is my overall view sentiment
thoughts and feelings on what's
happening at Builder Rocket Boy at the
moment. It's very clear that there
appears to be problems internally at
Builder Rocket Boy. Of course, in the
interviews I did, we did go over that.
But this, you know, a week before
launch, two senior people, very senior,
some of the most senior people in the
business resigning. Yeah, it's not good,
is it? Thanks for watching and I'll see
you all in the next one. New beginnings
on the cusp. Not too old to adjust. Old
dog, new tricks. Remember I was just a
pup, something dirty in my cup. Clean
soul, good karma is a must. Still my
shooter in the cut. I was stuck inside a
rut. in a rut. Played the game, made
bank, move G. Anything to get a buck.
You won't find me in a club. In the
club.