LogIn"Do I have like the opposite of the golden touch, like the sh*t-brown touch?"
Build A Rocket Boy
MindsEye, an action-adventure by former GTA developer and producer Leslie Benzies, was launched to a spectacular disaster, with only 42% positive reviews on Steam. The fallout was so bad that Alex Hernandez, the actor who played the protagonist, thought it was the end of his career in games.
Speaking on the FRVR podcast, he said that his face on MindsEye's box art was "the flip side of the blessing that it is" to be on the cover. And he knows what he's talking about: he was also Lincoln Clay from Mafia 3, which failed to impress players as well.
"I'm not a superstitious man, but I can’t help but have some kind of Spidey Sense, like, 'Is it just me?'" Hernandez said. "Do I have like the opposite of the golden touch, like the sh*t-brown touch, everything I touch turns to poop?"
Hernandez has previously criticized developers for releasing incomplete games at full price. Build A Rocket Boy's CEO, however, blames the studio's struggles on "saboteurs" inside and outside the company.
But I'm afraid it will be hard to erase the status of one of the worst games of 2025, saboteurs or not.
"Just the response," Hernandez continued, "I was like, 'I might never work in a game again' Because one of the caveats of being the face on the box is that people, rightly or wrongly, will associate all of their opinions and, more importantly their emotions, about this game with my face. After about two days of allowing myself to wallow, and my wife being very supportive... you move on. Because for me to sit in that wallowing, it doesn't allow me to learn."
He understands players' wrath, especially on the internet, as "the attachment to the experience and the product is so strong, the feelings are so strong, and the internet is an anonymous place where people will share things they would never share to your face."
"They just wouldn't look you in the face and say, 'everyone who worked on this game deserved to die, this is f***ing awful, these guys are idiots.' No one would ever say that to your face. And, I think, at the same time, you're entitled to that."
Hopefully, Build A Rocket Boy and other developers will learn something from stories like this.
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