Gearbox CEO On Gamer Criticism: "Some People Are Sadists"

[Colt47]

Randy is not inspiring any trust with his public postings. The only way he is going to get any trust back for Gearbox after the Aliens fiasco is to make a game and actually deliver on what gets shown. I kind of wonder if he got goaded out by Jim thanks to his last episode on youtube.

 

[Xan Krieger]

As an added joke it seems Aliens Colonial Marines is 75% off this weekend on Steam. Oh Randy, we're living in a post-steam refund world, watch your profits drop.

 

[Tuesday Night Fever]

No, Mr. Pitchford, I don't feel compelled to stomp on anyone else's sandcastle. I only want to see yours get stomped. I supported you, even after Duke Nukem Forever, because I still liked what you and your people were doing. I figured that any problems with DNF were because of its insane development clusterfuck, the majority of which not connected to Gearbox, and you were just doing the best you could with what you had.

Then Aliens: Colonial Marines came along. Few games make me as excited as the announcement of Gearbox making an Aliens game made me. I loved Borderlands, and watching all of your interviews about Aliens: Colonial Marines made it look like you and your team actually cared about the franchise and wanted to do right by it. Your enthusiasm when describing all of the little environmental nods to the movies, the sheer glee on your face as you explained a plausible "sonic electronic ballbreaker" weapon system, the pride in your voice as you spoke of the game's story and canonical place within the timeline of the movies... goddamn was I excited. I even broke my "no preorders" rule for this game. But it was all an act, one specifically performed to get Aliens fans like me to preorder.

And what did I get for my faith in you and your team? A broken piece of shit which neither looked nor played like ANYTHING you'd talked about. A broken piece of shit barely even worked on by Gearbox proper. A broken piece of shit that was under-funded because resources were diverted to Borderlands 2. A broken piece of shit that you lied your ass off about through a fake smile every step of the way, even long after the point where you and the people at Gearbox knew what kind of condition the final product would be in. A broken piece of shit that, still to this day, you try to claim you were nothing but an innocent victim of. More lies.

You fucked up, Randy. Maybe if you'd just apologized and admitted that you fucked up with Aliens: Colonial Marines, that you were more focused on Borderlands 2 and that's why A:CM suffered, then I probably would have been able to at least forgive you for it. But you didn't. You showed your true colors as a deceitful snakeoil salesman, and THAT is why I wouldn't feel any sorrow if your sandcastle were to be stomped. You only have yourself to blame for losing this particular fan.

 

[Erttheking]

http://www.quickmeme.com/img/7a/7ab313300fe995842454a7aaa3b865b3926a7498abb0ccfbd58136a219b8d573.jpg

I used to be on your side you ****. I thought it was unfair that Gearbox couldn't live down Alien Colonial Marines while they were still making good games. Now? You deserved WORSE than you got.

Frankly at this point I consider it a miracle that you didn't royally fuck up Homeworld for everyone who loved it.

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

So there you go. According to Pitchford's speech, all of you guys complaining about how laughably broken Colonial Marines was are just that jerk kid at the beach who kicks over sandcastles.

i like you steven

 

[Loonyyy]

"less sophisticated mind"

Unlike of course, Mr. Pitchford's mind, which goes straight to insulting his critics rather than releasing games which are worth buying. For some reason, I don't think he's a qualified psychologist or social researcher, but rather the frontman for a scam artist of a studio that keeps releasing broken games that they acquire long past the point where they have any relevance, and then selling them on the reputation of Borderlands, the original property, and of course, deceitful trailers. Or hell, even more recently, selling the same game again.

Disappointed I picked up The Pre-Sequel in the steam sales now. Last Gearbox product I'll pay for.

 

[Loonyyy]

The other irony here is that GG doesn't really seem to target big companies like Gearbox anyway. You hear orders of magnitude more every day about "Wu" or "Quinn" than you've heard in the lifetime of GG about Gearbox.

Could you not? I mean seriously, could you GGers not do this? It's an incredibly annoying derail, meant to start more petty bullshit. In fact, several of the people involved in various slap fights are in this very thread, condemning Pitchford. Hell, I don't think I've read a single post in support of him(Ok, maybe one, and it didn't mention GG). So could you please not?

 

[WarpedMind]

Randy Pitchford is fast approaching Phil Fish/Latter-day Cliffy B in terms of being a loathsome turd of a human being.

Hell, at least Phillipe Poisson was just a douchebag, not a LYING douchebag.

 

[Redryhno]

The other irony here is that GG doesn't really seem to target big companies like Gearbox anyway. You hear orders of magnitude more every day about "Wu" or "Quinn" than you've heard in the lifetime of GG about Gearbox.

Could you not? I mean seriously, could you GGers not do this? It's an incredibly annoying derail, meant to start more petty bullshit. In fact, several of the people involved in various slap fights are in this very thread, condemning Pitchford. Hell, I don't think I've read a single post in support of him(Ok, maybe one, and it didn't mention GG). So could you please not?

Might wanna go look at the guy's post history, he's not pro-GG...though I don't think he's had a single post that wasn't connected to it in some way. Just ignore, guy's not interested if he can't bring GG into literally every conversation.

OT:

Oh look, Pitchford opened his mouth and said something again. Isn't that sorta natural anymore? Guy's been deflecting and blaming the audience for everything since around Borderlands 1 came out and people had problems with it.

Then the Sega blamegame, the GOTY editions of their games not actually giving all the DLC while implying they do in addition to them costing far too much, Gearbox really has alot to answer for if they want to keep being a company, because Bordercashcow is starting to dry up and while Battleborn looks interesting, I see it staying around slightly longer than Evolve only if it's EXTREMELY lucky considering it looks to be really similar to Overwatch. And as we all know, even a bad Blizzard game(personally all of them since they started their WoW bull) will sell enough that you can wipe your ass with nothing but the cases for the rest of your life and never use the same one twice.

 

[Hairless Mammoth]

This is just great. If Pitchford keeps this up, he will be providing Jim Sterling with enough topic material for weeks.

Listen, Randy, you didn't make a sandcastle for yourself, that someone came over and demolished for no good reason. You are in the "sandcastle business." You showed your customers pictures of big, elaborate sandcastles, with functional drawbridges and other neat bells and whistles, that you would make for them. When it came time to see the final product, you took their money first and, before running off, revealed something a child would be embarrassed to admit building, with the extra little features broken or not there. Then you deny any wrongdoing, gloat about how you got out of the inevitable lawsuit, and years later still call the critics of your actions "sadists." They didn't stomp on your sandcastles. You did it to your own, then tricked many into buying them.

Stop dodging the real issue and own up to your mistakes. Even Sega themselves came out to say many of their games were horrible and they could have made much better games. You can admit you made one or two stinkers and regain some of the lost trust from your continued manchild allegations.

P.P.S. I think this quote about sums up what I think of Randy Pitchford:

"There's a lot of online bullies and haters and bloggers. We stand up to them, and I think we're the only ones that ever have as restaurant owners. And they come and they try to attack us and they say horrible things that are not true."
-Amy Bouzaglo, Amy's Baking Company

That is a perfect analogy for Pitchford and many other game makers who think they can do no wrong, despite clear evidence they did.

It would be great if there was a Gordon Ramsay of video game development. Even if they never really changed, at least the primadonna devs will get an earful in person for a few weeks.

 

[vallorn]

The other irony here is that GG doesn't really seem to target big companies like Gearbox anyway. You hear orders of magnitude more every day about "Wu" or "Quinn" than you've heard in the lifetime of GG about Gearbox.

Could you not? I mean seriously, could you GGers not do this? It's an incredibly annoying derail, meant to start more petty bullshit. In fact, several of the people involved in various slap fights are in this very thread, condemning Pitchford. Hell, I don't think I've read a single post in support of him(Ok, maybe one, and it didn't mention GG). So could you please not?

Dynast isn't GG, he's an Anti. And it annoys GGers as well how said Antis will just bring up GG in the most unrelated of threads. It's silly, derailing and just needs to stop.

 

[CaitSeith]

we're creating emotion and experience

Well, he's telling the truth right there. Disappointment and being conned qualify as emotion and experience respectively.

 

[Vigormortis]

Stay classy, Randy.

And if I'm honest, I'm not sure which I find more fascinating:

That Randy is still trying to shirk off responsibility for Gearbox's litany of bullshit over the past few years, or that people will still give Gearbox a pass because "muh BORDERLANDS!!!1!1"

Oh well. Regardless of all that, I learned to steer clear of Gearbox's products long ago, thanks in no small part to A:CM, DN:F, and Borderlands 2. Randy's recent comments only reinforce that decision.

 

[Mazinger-Z]

Some people ARE "sadistic assholes" but that's human nature. What's worse is to use this tiny minority of sadists to smear and disregard legitimate criticisms.

Oh, and, in this case, Mr Pitchford you don't make an outright lie in your "Vertical slice" trailer and then expect people not to be mad when the kobe beef filet mignon you promised turns out to be fried dogshit.

When people with the reach of TotalBiscuit and Angry Joe pan your game, the problem isn't your audience.

 

[Steven Bogos]

I can't hate on Pitchford. I don't think he's talking about all critics and criticisms, that's just guardian being shit at journalism.

 

[Johnlives]

It's starting to make sense, Gearbox are making the games bad on purpose. The bad games get the greater emotional response and an emotional response is what he's after.It probably won't make for a great business model but it might be art. If only I could have a mind as sophisticated as Randy's.

 

[Calbeck]

"Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford"

Also claimed, last year, to have received a bomb threat at his offices in Plano, Texas. He claimed to be afraid that turning over the key in his car to start it might get him killed.

He made a rather big to-do about calling the police, then taking pictures of the bomb squad at work and tweeting them. He never DID resolve the story, either, leaving it hanging as though it had been a legit threat and thanking the Plano PD for their professionalism.

So I tweeted the Plano PD and asked them whether or not there'd really been a threat.

"No sir, it was nothing." Short, to the point, and quite at odds with Randy's posturing --- which was in nestled right around the time that a higher public news profile for Gearbox might well result in higher seasonal sales.

EDIT: Ah, here we are...

https://twitter.com/RoyCalbeck/status/518964553112379392

 

[JLF]

Randy can argue as much as he wants that his products are a work of art.
They are I will not argue with that.

Sadly they are not in my taste or many others taste for that matter.
So thank GOODNESS that steam lets you have a refund for products that do not represent what was promised!

 

[MysticSlayer]

So let me get this straight, Randy: You enjoy seeing people's responses to lying to them, failing to live up to your promises, and selling them a load of shit for $60? Just when I thought you couldn't make yourself look like a worse human being, you...

Oh, why am I talking like he's reading that. He isn't going to read it. That would require facing criticism, and if there's one thing Randy is good at, it is shutting his ears and going "LALALA" every time he receives criticism. These comments are just further proof of that.

 

[TristanBelmont]

I'm normally against doxxing but if anyone wants to pull it on Pitchford I don't anyone will get too angry.