LogIn"I think it does more long-term harm than good to your reputation."
Among the myriads of things MindsEye – Build A Rocket Boy's infamous third-person shooter that somehow made The Day Before look like a success story – can be criticized for, one of the most glaring is the fact that it launched in a blatantly unfinished state, with the developers hoping to complete and polish it post-launch – a feat only two games have managed to pull off so far.
Criticizing this approach is none other than Alex Hernandez, the voice actor behind MindsEye's protagonist Jacob Diaz, who recently voiced his displeasure with developers releasing incomplete games at full price, stating that, from his perspective as a gamer, this business model ultimately does more harm than good to a studio's reputation.
Speaking with Check It TV, Hernandez expressed his frustration with game developers releasing games riddled with issues, only to fix them "post-mortem, post-release," pointing out that MindsEye wasn't the first to do this and citing CD Projekt Red's Cyberpunk 2077 – one of the two aforementioned games that actually made a comeback – as a notable example.
"I'm not a businessperson, I've no idea why this decision gets made. I will just say that from a consumer perspective, and I'm sure a lot of people feel this way, I think it does more long-term harm than good to your reputation to release something that feels like it is in a state of less than 100% and then charge 100% of the price," commented the actor.
BARB
"You have to be honest with your consumer," he continued. "In fact, I, as a player, would rather be told, 'This is in beta. I know you've been waiting for this for a long time, but this is a beta release.' So, whether you get to play it for free on some sort of invite list or for $20, $30, $15, insert price, I don't know what the model would be, but it's a much smaller fee. 'So please come interact with our thing, give us feedback, but know it's not done.'
Obviously, beta is a thing, an already pre-established practice, so I'm not sure what drives companies to essentially carry out beta testing without calling it that. I, as a consumer, would rather have someone be up-front because then I know what I'm signing up for."
BARB
Speaking of MindsEye, recently, Build A Rocket Boy confirmed that the studio is about to undergo layoffs in the near future, with reports indicating that over 100 people – 20% of the studio's workforce – are about to get fired.
The cuts come in the wake of MindsEye being officially crowned the worst game of 2025 so far, with its Metacritic page currently showing a user score of 2.6/10 and a gaming journalist score of 38/100 – making it the lowest-rated title of the year by both measures.
Don't forget to join our 80 Level Talent platform and our new Discord server, follow us on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Telegram, TikTok, and Threads, where we share breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.