{"id":783126,"date":"2026-09-26T10:36:15","date_gmt":"2026-09-26T10:36:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/783126\/"},"modified":"2026-09-26T10:36:15","modified_gmt":"2026-09-26T10:36:15","slug":"mindseye-ex-gta-developers-studio-faces-closure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/783126\/","title":{"rendered":"MindsEye: Ex-GTA developer’s studio faces closure"},"content":{"rendered":"

Benzies set up Barb in 2016 – the same year he left Grand Theft Auto maker Rockstar Games after a legal row over unpaid royalties.<\/p>\n

It began work on Everywhere, intended to be a multiplayer role-playing game set in a futuristic city, before pivoting its focus to action-adventure MindsEye.<\/p>\n

The project attracted a lot of interest and, according to company documents, external<\/a>, Barb had managed to attract more than \u00a3233m of investment by 2024.<\/p>\n

Former staff previously told BBC Newsbeat<\/a> the development process had “no coherent direction” and accused senior managers of failing to listen to their concerns.<\/p>\n

Following the game’s turbulent launch, between 250 to 300 members of staff were made redundant.<\/p>\n

Shortly before this, during an all-staff call, Benzies alleged “internal and external” forces had conspired to hinder MindsEye’s release, and vowed to root out “saboteurs” within the company.<\/p>\n

When Newsbeat asked Barb about this, it released a statement saying: “Leslie and the entire senior management team take full responsibility for the initial launch [of MindsEye].<\/p>\n

“The version of the game that was released did not reflect the experience our community deserved.”<\/p>\n

Since its release, the company has failed to attract a bigger audience to the game with a series of fixes and content updates.<\/p>\n

After further layoffs, reports last week suggested the remaining workers at the studio had also been let go.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Benzies set up Barb in 2016 – the same year he left Grand Theft Auto maker Rockstar Games…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":783127,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[59,86,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-783126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-gb","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=783126"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783126\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/783127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=783126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=783126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=783126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}