Build a Rocket Boy co-CEO claims people are being paid to trash Mindseye

Build a Rocket Boy, a studio started by former Rockstar producer Leslie Benzies, has been working on its first project called Mindseye, slated for release on June 10. Mark Gerhard joined the company as the co-CEO last year and has been part of the upcoming project. With the latest gameplay trailer released on May 27, Gerhard has made some strong claims about the negative comments surrounding the game.

Over at the Mindseye official discord, Gerhard claims that the negative press around the game is a “concerted effort” against Mindseye and the studio. The discussion got heated when Gerhard responded to a comment asking if he thinks the negative reactions towards the game were financed by someone, to which he said “100%” and followed up by “Doesn’t take much to guess who.”

One of the members in the Discord named ‘Cyber Boi’ had previously shared concerns about the upcoming game. Addressing comments referring to those concerns, Gerhard explained that he never claimed Cyber Boi was paid by someone but that there was a “concerted effort by some people that don't want to see Leslie or Build A Rocket Boy to be successful that are making a concerted effort to trash the game and the studio. Its pretty easy to see the bots and the repeated replies to any content that we put out.”

Seeing as how serious and consequential his claims of paid negative comments were, users tried to call him out but he somewhat backtracked and said, “No I never said that. I do KNOW that there are bot farms posting negative comments and dislikes.”

The Discord discussion follows the latest trailer for Mindseye that explains the story of the game, as well as some of the mechanics and the build mode. The original trailer as well as the latest one saw lukewarm response with some comments calling it “a generic AI parody of what video games look like to regular people” and “a low budget game trying its best to come off as a high octane big budget AAA release.”