MindsEye developer execs leave ahead of game’s release

Not many things instill confidence in the gaming industry these days. Constant studio closures, restructuring, and redundancies to make way for generative AI, which will be replaced with humans in six months because CEOs grossly overestimate the use of AI. Then there is harassment both in and outside of the workplace, and countless other horrible things going on. Nonetheless, issues have arisen with two executives of a new developer that is about to release its version of the GTA-killer, which makes sense given the people behind it. To have those two say, “I’m out.”… I don’t think that’s instilling a lot of confidence in MindsEye.

As reported by Eurogamer, the Chief Legal Officer and Chief Financial Officer for MindsEye developer Build a Rocket Boy have left the company. Interesting timing for the head of legal and top financial officer to leave, especially given that MindsEye is set to release next Tuesday. I know I’m in the minority, but I’ve been curious about this one for a while now, but CLO, Riley Graebner, and CFO, Paul Bland, have rather abruptly left the Edinburgh-based studio.

In his announcement, Graebner said on LinkedIn, “After three and a half years, my time at BARB has come to a close. I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished. During that time we more than doubled the size of the company to over 450 employees. We launched multiple products worldwide. We built the legal team and legal ops infrastructure from the ground up, working to systemize and automate.” Before going on to thank individuals and the usual sign-off things with these types of posts.

Meanwhile, Paul Bland has either deleted or turned his LinkedIn private, but Eurogamer has a screenshot of Bland’s experience on LinkedIn with his term as CFO ending in June of 2025. Eurogamer also makes a point of highlighting the speculation that is going around on the game’s Discord channels, speculation that has about as much bearing on reality as George RR Martin’s claims that he’ll finish a book.

Truth be told, there could be any number of reasons why these two have left at such a time. However, the timing itself causes a lot of concern within people’s minds, with suggestions of internal issues at the studio or otherwise. Graebner’s phrasing suggests that he has set up all he needed to and that he’s moving on, unless you’re in major legal trouble, I don’t know how much you’d desperately need that CLO role filled for the long-term. The CFO role being vacated is what is a little more “troubling,” especially as MindsEye is set to launch just next week.

What I will say is that MindsEye developer co-CEO, Mark Gerhard, has recently suggested that any negative reaction to MindsEye is a sort of smear campaign. When asked if he thought all negative reactions were financed by someone (or something), Gerhard said, “100 percent.” If anything, that’s the biggest internal conflict we could know about, but that would be a PR nightmare more than a CFO and CLO headache. So who knows at this point, certainly not a fan on Discord.

Build a Rocket Boy’s MindsEye is set to release on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC next Tuesday, June 10th. I certainly want to see more from it before I give an opinion on it, but I will say next Tuesday could be quite interesting.