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Did Leslie Benzies’s New Studio Really Spend $270 Million on MindsEye?

The $270 million figure is not verified as MindsEye’s budget. Company losses, fundraising and the game’s negative launch reception tell different parts of the story.
Length4 min Posted Quest giverVGSources Team
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No verified figure shows that Build A Rocket Boy spent $270 million developing MindsEye. BBC Newsbeat reported £202.6 million in company losses across 2020–2024, while investor RedBird Capital announced more than $110 million in funding for a portfolio that included MindsEye, EVERYWHERE and ARCADIA. Neither number is a confirmed budget for the game alone. MindsEye did receive a sharply negative launch reception, but the sources available do not establish its sales or financial return.

What does the $270 million figure actually measure?

The available reporting does not substantiate $270 million as MindsEye’s individual development cost. That distinction matters: company-wide losses, money raised by investors and a single game’s production budget are different financial measures. None can be substituted for another without evidence linking it to the game.

Figure What it measures What it does not establish
£202.6 million, 2020–2024 Build A Rocket Boy’s cumulative losses over the period, as reported by BBC Newsbeat from published company documents. MindsEye’s development budget, or the amount spent on any one project.
£59.1 million, 2023 The studio’s largest single-year loss in the BBC Newsbeat report. A one-year MindsEye budget or a game-specific loss.
More than $110 million, announced January 17, 2024 A Series D funding round announced by RedBird Capital Partners to support the launch of EVERYWHERE, MindsEye and ARCADIA. How much of the financing was spent on MindsEye, or whether it was spent at all.
$270 million No game-specific budget or audited expenditure at this amount is established by the sources available. A confirmed development cost, sales shortfall or loss on MindsEye.

A company loss is not the same as money spent on development: losses reflect a company’s financial results, not a project-by-project ledger. Fundraising is different again. It is capital secured to finance a business or its work, not proof that the same amount was used or lost. The exact conversion or calculation behind the $270 million headline framing is not established by the cited reporting.

Why was Rockstar veteran Leslie Benzies running a new studio?

Leslie Benzies left Rockstar Games in 2016 and founded the company that became Build A Rocket Boy, according to BBC Newsbeat. The studio pursued a broader slate than MindsEye. Its initial project was EVERYWHERE, while ARCADIA was also among the products RedBird named in its 2024 funding announcement.

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BBC Newsbeat reported that MindsEye began as an experience intended for EVERYWHERE before the studio shifted focus to making it a standalone game. The game was developed and published by Build A Rocket Boy, according to its Steam listing, and launched on June 10, 2025. Steam describes it as a single-player, story-driven action-adventure thriller set in the near-future desert city of Redrock, with creation tools and additional playable content. That is the storefront’s product description, not an independent assessment of the game.

What did former employees say went wrong?

In an October 19, 2025 report, BBC Newsbeat interviewed former employees who described shifting direction, management choices and feedback they felt went unaddressed. These are attributed employee accounts, not an independently established or exclusive explanation for the game’s problems.

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The same BBC report said developers described crunch in the run-up to release, including extra unpaid overtime and later promised leave. Staff linked that period to stress, mistakes and recurring regressions. Those details are also employee testimony as reported by the BBC, rather than a proven ranking of the causes of MindsEye’s launch problems.

The BBC said it had verified a transcript of a July 2025 all-staff meeting in which Benzies said: “I find it disgusting that anyone could sit amongst us, behave like this and continue to work here.” The report placed the remark in the context of Benzies alleging that internal and external forces had tried to undermine MindsEye. It does not, by itself, resolve the former employees’ accounts or establish why the game struggled.

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How badly did MindsEye perform at launch?

BBC Newsbeat reported major performance problems and bugs at launch, including visual glitches, and noted that Build A Rocket Boy had not provided advance review copies. Metacritic’s page contains strongly negative contemporary critic-review excerpts. These sources support describing the initial critical reception as deeply negative; they do not establish how many copies the game sold or how much money it lost.

Steam’s user reviews give a more qualified snapshot. The listing showed 54% positive among 1,635 English-language reviews and 62% positive among 29 recent reviews in the snapshot accessed on October 8, 2026. Those percentages are changeable storefront ratings, not critic scores, sales figures or a universal judgment. The smaller recent-review count is a separate time-window sample, not a replacement for the total review count.

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Can MindsEye fairly be called a $270 million flop?

“Flop” is defensible as a description of a game that opened to severe criticism and reported technical problems, but the $270 million cost claim is not verified as a MindsEye-only budget. Without title-specific spending, sales or revenue figures, it is not possible to calculate the game’s return or demonstrate a $270 million loss. The evidence supports a narrower account: Build A Rocket Boy had substantial reported company losses, raised significant capital for several projects, and released MindsEye to a poor initial reception.

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