MindsEye Flopped So Badly That Its Publisher Is Questioning If It Should Publish Games Ever Again

I refunded my copy. Looking at the Metacritic score (37), I'm glad that I did...

Ive held off on playing my copy. After the first combat encounter i thought it would be best to wait for the September patch to give the game a chance. However as you said the August update didnt happen and their twitter has been silent since July.

Red Flag the game. Like seriously there was so many red flags prior to release i'm shocked people actually bought it.

All I know when I first saw it at the state of play (I think from last year) it looked bad to me, like there was something serious wrong with it. I got a lot of hate for it but I was right

I see the past tense version of Build A Rocket Boy you snuck in PS

A more experienced publisher would have seen the writing on the wall. And how much of the budget was injected into Leslie Benzies’ face.

Dont publishers and dev teams have regular reviews of the current build to ensure the project is on track?

Given the dev’s CEO who claimed there was a coordinated negativity campaign against his game, the publisher should maybe sneak in a “no whining allowed” or “for gods sake keep your mouth shut” clause in any contract they make with a developer for future agreements like this.

That plus…you know…not releasing a bland buggy pile of code could help with the next project they do. If any.

It’s a shame IO Interactive got saddled with this…thing.

This huge turnaround won’t come most likely. This studio isn’t CDPR and they are already affected with layoffs. Even the support with patches stopped massively. There hasn’t been a new patch since months.

The best thing I can say about this game and company is thry kind of flew under my radar. I honestly think I haven't read a single word about it anywhere but here. Not having an Amazon Prime TV show about it is probably a good thing. Not for anyone involved in making or publishing the game, but the rest of us have had enough gaming negativity for awhile now. Even getting a Switch 2 hasn't helped, I hardly touch it.

4 of my next 5 nights will be watching (American) football and the rest of the month we're finally watching all of Andor. Gaming has lost it's way, and us in the process.😩

I believe the mistake was to have a single platform release when they would have been better releasing on both the PlayStation and Xbox.

I might buy it on sale just to see how bad it is. It's got mostly negative on steam.

This again shows that growing feeling that publishers don’t know the product they are releasing. Had they taken the time and reviewed the game they would have seen it was a mess. But corporations seem to think they have a right to have their products purchased without consideration of the product and ultimate quality.

This is all such *****. Should IO publish again? Absolutely not. How they saw this game and allowed it to ship in the state it was in is just insanity. They knew what they were doing. Trying to make a quick buck.

The damn IO ceo even walked on stage with build a rocket boy and hyped this unfinished garbage at a games show weeks before release.

Average just doesn't cut it when people are struggling with cost of living and 'high' gaming prices. People aren't going to spend £70 on 'Average' or mediocre, they'll be saving their money for 'must haves'.

As games have risen a LOT as well as the decline of used and trade-in stores, the increase in the Digital sales/Hardware, I just don't buy as many games a year as I used to and I also am far less willing to buy a game I'm 'unsure' of.

At one point, I'd buy a game based on its cover art, its name/title, just because it was a 'new' release, just because I'd heard of it (even if I couldn't remember if that was positive/negative), because an artist had let their music/art be used in their game etd. There were many games I bought, but never finished even the first level/mission etc because I didn't like the 'game-play'. Now, I won't buy a game unless I'm convinced I'll play it to completion or at least spend a LOT of time playing, won't buy any game until I've read at least 10 different reviews and with more 'emphasis' put on the independent reviews (I trust Platform based sites the LEAST when it comes to reviews - especially with First Party releases and/or Rival Platform reviews). Anyway, the point is, I feel I need to do quite a bit of research and/or investigating (inc waiting for User reviews and feedback) before I'll part money and I doubt I'm the only one.

If more and more are being more diligent with their cash, not buying games at launch just because they are new and/or have an interesting concept that appealed but because they actually delivered a fully realised and ultimately 'great' product that lives up to, if not exceeds their expectations, then Publishers who push out 'mediocre' or 'Average' games, broken or unfinished projects (not yet games if barely or not playable) etc and expect 'premium' money are going to be disappointed when gamers don't buy...

@Rodimusprime13 “I believe the mistake was to have a single platform release when they would have been better releasing on both the PlayStation and Xbox.”

…are you somehow being sarcastic or do you genuinely not know this thing came out for PS, XBox and PC?

IO should have and did know better or could you know played the game before releasing it. They have their own successful franchise and a second one due out soon (007) so how they let this slop out the door when they knew what video game standards are expected is beyond me, other than they wanted the money.

Correct me if I'm wrong but don't we normally hear when games go "gold". I don't recall seeing anything about MindsEye going gold so it probably went copper instead.

@PocketHotDogs Copper? I'd say it went flopper.

@dskatter I didn't even know this game existed and only read the article. From Metacritic it seems to be gamers either love it or hate it. And much of the people who don't like it is because of technical issues.

Where is the line crossed when Devs go from optimistic vision of what they will deliver, to just plain lies about what they can do.

I don’t know if selling their future game on "cinematic brilliance, [an] innovative game creation system, and a constant stream of fresh premium content" is just misguided optimism, incompetence, or deliberately misleading.

@rjejr Gaming has lost it way? For you maybe but this year had been fantastic for gaming. Also this game never flew under the radar, it was literally covered by all gaming media and Youtubers.

@Rodimusprime13 Nothing of what you said addresses my question.

If a company as old as Sega could get hoodwinked by Gearbox over Alien Colonial Marines, then IO Interactive shouldn't feel that bad,(& there are other publishers long gone back in the 8bit & 16bit era who scrambled on last minute rewrites from scratch when they suddenly found out a game was in such dev hell it needed "something" to ship out)!

That said,it should serve as a cautionary tale to keep an eye on how things are progressing before rolling out the marketing machine.

@Frmknst That's a bit of a stretch.

@Frmknst It objectively is, though. Unless you’re counting all the store-slop one has to wade through in the PS store these days.

If only they questioned the state of the game in production before release.

@dskatter might even be worse than some of those lol idk what this guy is on about

I remember hearing people were getting refunds, and I just automatically assumed the game had been shut down. My mistake... but sounds like that's a mistake on their behalf, too!

I wish this game was better. Plenty of room for a game of this scope, they just can't be *****

@DennisReynolds You lost me at "YouTubers". Fortunately it was the last word in your post, but still. 😂

It is in part just me, I'm aging out, but both my college age kids are gaming much less on consoles as well, mostly on their laptops, not phones. And it mostly feels negative on here and NL. Between the failed GaaS, cost of the hobby, AI taking jobs, mass firings, years between releases, review bombing, it's not exactly sunshine and rainbows. E3 out and 24/7 Geoff Keighley I think pretty much sums it up for me.

I'm happy for you, and all the long suffering Silksong fans, and the other happy gamers, but I think in general the honeymoon is over, we need therapy to keep the marriage going now. Worth saving for sure, but it's not Christmas morning anymore. More like hungover NY Day.😂

@rjejr Games are selling more then ever, Sony have made huge profits this gen, consoles wars are over, AA gaming has entered its 2nd Golden Age, Indies are stronger then ever, Switch 2 is killing it, Capcom are back in their prime, Baldur's Gate 3 exists, E33 exists. Gaming is pretty great right now.

That's too bad. I was looking forward to the hours of glitch videos for their next game. The ones for Mindseye were hilarious.

@rjejr I'm 51, have been a hardcore gamer since Space Invaders came out, and I play games now more than ever. My biggest issue now is I want to play everything (well, at least the games that are carbon copies of each other every year, such as Ubisoft, EA, etc). There are a lot of cash grab sinkers like Mindseye, but we've also had some really brilliant games lately. With so many outlets such as Twitch or Youtube now, it's easier than ever to weed out the stinkers. My kids also are both console gamers as well.

@BAMozzy Your average is someone else his best game. I have 6/10 i like more then some heavy hitters. That said this game is not avarage its terrible. A fun 6/10 game that is technical fine is no issue. Trainwrecks that will be patched or not are one nog issue though. Fun games that work are no issue these release and patch later those are the issues.

Maybe if they didn't gamble on a circus, they could have actually invested in real talent.

🤣🤣🤣🤣 way more ego than true talent. Sitting on your laurels, simply trying to use name recognition:

"Former [insert game] dev"

"creator of [insert game]", etc.

That's a major bummer for IO. I had forgotten they were involved at all. I guess it's a hard lesson. I'm sure we won't hear much more about it, but they must have been concerned about the status of the game prior to launch.

We will hopefully see the sequel soon.

MindsEye 2: Neo Berlin 2087

I'm still going to ignore the smear campaign and pick this up once it's hit the bargain bin.

I enjoyed it. Even planning on going for the platinum.

A game that can do things, but yeah it's state of things and people thinking oh they have a reputation, past work versus current era, skills and so on, do devs just eat up someone's conversation skills and are that dumb as it seems many in this industry are and are so dumb and can't tell the difference, it's just hilarious XD, yeah uh that doesn't apply to everyone let alone vets of any kind pulling away from publishers.

The sooner any idiot developer/publisher gets their head out of their butt and understands this of game design or reputation/conversations, the better.

But I bought Balan, didn't care about the staff behind it, got my Rayman 3 suits game regardless of how unfinished or lack of buttons to other things it had, fair design in it at times and glad got it physical. So to me I'm not against the game. I had my fun with it. I've played worse. Sure the 'chao garden' could have had more depth too but the main levels were pretty good. But I had no expectations for it either. I've tried Nights, I've not played Sonic Adventure, so to me I didn't care what it was similar to, who made it, etc. I just saw a game that seemed fair. Ratchet Rift Apart was eh and Psychonauts 2 was good just didn't play much of it. Balan I played most of it. I enjoyed Bodycount even if it's previews/alpha state were better then the actual game.

Publishers can be particular but they also have curbed what we know of games these days, even if nowadays I ignore most of the marketing and seek what I'm looking for that doesn't apply to everyone, sometimes for the better some games came out back in the day or these days, sometimes for the worst, it varies.

But these veterans have sometimes too much heavy budget spending with less budget or too much ideas/not enough to eliminate/change, keep in, other things worth more time, recapturing something or similarities to their past games (without the license) or try something new they aren't familiar with and it all varies and they miss some details or think it will land but people are particular on design, performance and vibe among story/graphics, setting and more.

It needs to work.

Sometimes audiences are picky and sure it can't always be like that thing it was inspired by or staff used to make, I mean engines and design of physics, character feel, etc. has changed a lot too.

So sometimes audiences going off of reference/nostalg (or their preferences, versus others being more open and saying what could work) does not help but when a game is that bad then it's another factor and level of things in execution and audiences are fair to point it out, get refunded/never purchase it, etc.

Maybe they should be looking inward at the terrible 007 game that is not 007.

I remember seeing so many people defending this game left and right for no reason and after seeing some gameplay...I just don't get it lol it just looks like a by the numbers shooter game that was cancelled around the PS3/X360 gen before suddenly coming back, and it would have been better off if they left it behind. And don't get me started on that laughable free roam mode.

I actually like the game.

@Frmknst Only true if your whole library of games to play consists of shovelware garbage that you'd find on a digital store. If you actually stick to only getting games that really interests you or are of decent quality, and then play this, you'd realize quickly how much of a waste of purchase Mindseye truly is.

Also the "better than 99.99% of games" comment that i usually see when people are defending mediocre games is starting to get old. Barely even feels like a praise and more of a replacement for "better than nothing". And honestly, I ain't wasting $60~ on a game that's just "better than nothing".

Just gonna leave this food for thought:
IOI was also the name and branding of the villainous VR ISP of Oasis in Ready Player One.

The company was nothing but wall-to-wall boardroom greedmongers and abused gaslit drone employees under constant pressure and surveillance for "productivity".

The parallels write themselves and it's still disturbing