Blade Runner Game Would Have Killed Gearbox, Says Studio Boss

[Logan Westbrook]

Blade Runner Game Would Have Killed Gearbox, Says Studio Boss

Multi-million selling games and Blade Runner aren't a great match according to Randy Pitchford.

Gearbox seemingly has a knack for securing the rights high-profile sci-fi movie properties. As well as the Aliens license, which it is using to make the long-anticiapted Colonial Marines game, Gearbox also got its hands on the Blade Runner license. Unfortunately, Gearbox didn't get to make the Blade Runner game it wanted to as everyone at the studio liked having a job just a little bit too much.

"That game would've cost like $40m to make and sold about 600,000 units - and that would have been the end of us," studio boss Randy Pitchford told Official PlayStation Magazine. He continued, saying that it was essentially a choice between its vision for the game and making money, and that the two weren't especially compatible.

"There's no rational business model that would have allowed that to make sense," he said. "If we'd made it with a business model that did work, it would not have been the Blade Runner game we all would have wanted."

Blade Runner is a seminal sci-fi movie, which was released in 1982. It was loosely based on the Phillip K Dick novel, "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep," although it took the story in a much different direction. The movie - in which Harrison Ford plays a cop tasked with hunting down a gang of escaped biological robots called "replicants" - explores themes of compassion, identity, and humanity, people have debated whether Ford's character, Deckard, was really human for decades. While the movie wasn't a huge success on release, it has proven incredibly influential, and works like anime Ghost in the Shell, the game Deus Ex, and even the Battlestar Galactica reboot have all taken inspiration from it.

As Pitchford says, it's hard to imagine a Blade Runner game that does the movie justice. It's not impossible though, just tremendously difficult. Perhaps the best way to make a Blade Runner game would be to go the same route that Gearbox has taken with Colonial Marines, and make a game set in the same universe, but use different characters. It's a tactic that's worked before - the 1997 Blade Runner adventure game told a parallel story and sold over a million copies - and there's no reason why it couldn't work again.

Source: CVG [http://www.computerandvideogames.com/309798/news/pitchford-blade-runner-game-wouldve-been-the-end-of-gearbox/]


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[Sgt. Dante]

That's a bit of a shame, I see what he means tho, to be true enough to the story they would have to sacrifice a large chunk of their audience and it would almost seem like an indie game. (with a much larger budget)

But the company has to make money, so it would end up making sacrifices against the license, which would be a terrible shame.

 

[TitanAtlas]

i reckon Prey 2 will solve all hopes and dreams of every fanboy... :3

though it was a great movie, i always dislike the videogame adaptations from movies.... they're not very good 96% of the times....

 

[Jumplion]

I saw Blade Runner and I just couldn't get "into" it, you know? Like, I tried my best to really like it, but I just couldn't over its incredibly slow burn that never really gave me an explosion. Maybe it was the version I watched, as there's a dozen and one different versions of it, but I just don't think it was for me.

That being said, a video game based off it would be interesting, and it's a damn shame that Gearbox has to choose between a successful game or a visionary one. Then again, they've funded failures before (*coughcoughDukeNukemcoughcough), so taking a hit for integrity, while being financially stupid, would certainly earn them a place in many gamers' hearts.

 

[GiantRaven]

As Pitchford says, it's hard to imagine a Blade Runner game that does the movie justice.

Not really, considering one already exists.

 

[LiquidGrape]

Frankly, I wouldn't want Gearbox to do a Blade Runner game anyway. I see nothing in their recent history which would suggest their administrative staff are capable of grasping anything deeper than a bullet embedded in someones abdomen.

As Pitchford says, it's hard to imagine a Blade Runner game that does the movie justice.

Not really, considering one already exists.

Also, this. Westwood truly did a fantastic job.

 

[Realitycrash]

As Pitchford says, it's hard to imagine a Blade Runner game that does the movie justice.

Not really, considering one already exists.

First girlfriend owned it. She actually beat it, and me, a five year older "hardcore gamer" couldn't without cheating.

 

[BlueHighwind]

600,000 units, let me do some maths with that.

Let's say it sells for 40 bucks each copy. That's 40 x 600,000... which means only 24 million. Yeah, this is financial suicide.

 

[Uber Evil]

600,000 units, let me do some maths with that.

Let's say it sells for 40 bucks each copy. That's 40 x 600,000... which means only 24 million. Yeah, this is financial suicide.

But at ~$40,000,000 to make, they'd be 16 million in the hole.

 

[Andy Shandy]

600,000 units, let me do some maths with that.

Let's say it sells for 40 bucks each copy. That's 40 x 600,000... which means only 24 million. Yeah, this is financial suicide.

However they did say that it would cost around about 40 million to make so that would still be a pretty big loss of 16 million for them.

If they kept on making losses that big (assuming they would stay afloat after that loss anyway), it would be financial suicide.

As bad as it may sound, most games are made to make a profit.

 

[Christopher Nilssen]

Maybe Randy should do a Kickstarter.

 

[BrotherRool]

I think it's actually a movie that worked well as a game. The key thing that made Bladerunner a success, and the key thing that all the movies it's inspired copied, was it's art design.

I imagine the most fitting type of gameplay would have been Assassins Creed: Brotherhood multiplayer style, intermixed with some creepy chase scenes and Arkum Asylumesque detective vision. Have a couple of conversation battles, which just takes scripting, it wouldn't even need motion capture, because well, they're robots anyway. Also they should have had Max Payne levels, where you just walk around and the environment does stuff, with no shooting or gameplay at all. (except for nervous shots fired at shadows)

The really problem is it wouldn't have been a good shooter, which is what Gearbox would have wanted.

There wasn't even really much plot to Bladerunner to follow, even less than in the books.

 

[El Gostro]

Wow,very few to none remember the excellent bladerunner game from 97,first one I got for teh first PC I ever got with my own money...aaah good times,too bad games like that have made mecompletely oblivious to announcements of new features and complexities in current gen games...

 

[Don Reba]

Oh, come on, I would have bought two copies!

As Pitchford says, it's hard to imagine a Blade Runner game that does the movie justice.

Not really, considering one already exists.

That was a good game. Blade Runner is a a special case, though. It is a movie based on an excellent book that not only does the book justice, but stands as a work of art in its own right. Matching that with a game would have been tremendously difficult. Actually, I don't think Gearbox could do it with any budget.

 

[ImprovizoR]

Bioware could pull it off. So could Valve.

 

[WanderingFool]

I saw Blade Runner and I just couldn't get "into" it, you know? Like, I tried my best to really like it, but I just couldn't over its incredibly slow burn that never really gave me an explosion. Maybe it was the version I watched, as there's a dozen and one different versions of it, but I just don't think it was for me.

Well, Bladerunner is not a action movie in the purest sense. I love Bladerunner, but when I watched it for the first time when I was young, I could stand how slow it moved. It, atleast IMO, is a movie you need to think about while watching it.

I think the idea for the first Bladerunner game is an idea to fallow. Instead of following the story of Bladerunner, make your own and have it run parallel to the main story, maybe have cameo set pieces from the movie.

 

[RandV80]

I saw Blade Runner and I just couldn't get "into" it, you know? Like, I tried my best to really like it, but I just couldn't over its incredibly slow burn that never really gave me an explosion. Maybe it was the version I watched, as there's a dozen and one different versions of it, but I just don't think it was for me.

Well, Bladerunner is not a action movie in the purest sense. I love Bladerunner, but when I watched it for the first time when I was young, I could stand how slow it moved. It, atleast IMO, is a movie you need to think about while watching it.

I think the idea for the first Bladerunner game is an idea to fallow. Instead of following the story of Bladerunner, make your own and have it run parallel to the main story, maybe have cameo set pieces from the movie.

Yeah I watched Bladerunner for the first time too just 2 years ago and wasn't entirely impressed. Not because of the slow paced, I was fine with that, I just that it didn't age well because of the extremely heavy 80's influence and some bad sci-fi. The concept of replicants is actually really good sci-fi, the bad part is... well the movie is set in 2018! I know people were more optimistic about the space race back in the 70's/80's but really? That much advancement in 35 years? I guess it seemed like a good idea at the time.

So yeah I can see the good parts about the movie and how it would have been great at the time, but the poor timeline and 80's style overdose dropped it down a few marks watching it for the first time in 2009. One thing I'm curious about though, since it seems like there's a long standing debate about whether Deckard was a replicant or not, and I did pick up on that obscurity in the movie, but if he is one how how do they explain him getting his ass kicked so badly? Replicants are supposed to be stronger than man, yet he basically gets tossed around like a rag doll until he can shoot them with his gun.

 

[BlueHighwind]

600,000 units, let me do some maths with that.

Let's say it sells for 40 bucks each copy. That's 40 x 600,000... which means only 24 million. Yeah, this is financial suicide.

However they did say that it would cost around about 40 million to make so that would still be a pretty big loss of 16 million for them.

If they kept on making losses that big (assuming they would stay afloat after that loss anyway), it would be financial suicide.

As bad as it may sound, most games are made to make a profit.

Which is exactly what I said. Financial suicide.

 

[Signa]

This is why I still like Gearbox. They are willing to not make a bad game for a profit if it means they can't make a good game for a loss. Ok, reading that sentence back doesn't make a lot of sense, but it's what they do!