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

[chikusho]

No, i am saying that there are situations where attack is justified form of action. I never said that you cannot criticism it either. If it sounds like that to you i suggest you read my post again. Attacking Gearbox for its lieing and deception does not make you "That jerk kid at the beach who kicks over sandcastles".

Not sure where you see harassment here either. That would require, you know, people harassing people, when we arent even talking about people but about a company.

Attacking someone or something means trying to hurt or destroy it. People who get a rise out of hurting others or destroying things are sadists. For one, that makes the statement factually true. Secondly, the context provided in the quoted paragraph means that critique is a positive; pointing out flaws, errors and misconduct is a form of criticism.

That leaves harassment, bullying, shit-talking, instigation and threats (among other similar things) as forms of attack. Neither of them are acceptable.

 

[Lightknight]

Look, Randy, if some of these posts ever reach you then I want to help you with this kind of stuff by getting you to think of this like I'm a major publisher. Trust me here, I have a lot of experience in software marketing to really tough demographics that spend millions of dollars on software and maintenance licenses instead of $60. You just lost yourself and another major publisher millions of dollars with a dud investment. I don't want you to dick around the issue like you didn't make any mistakes and would have done the same thing if given the same opportunity all over again. I want you to own the mistake and to say that you learned a ton from this debacle and will be able to smash it out of the park next time with the new found knowledge and wisdom. That your studio is clearly able to create epic games like Borderlands so this was an exception that you learned from and have been made stronger than ever by it.

That's how you do PR in a way that motivates publishers to invest in your studio and for gamers to get off your back as far as direct insults. Pretending like you didn't do anything wrong and like you STILL don't understand why it wasn't liked? That's going to result in a lack of confidence and an overall feeling that you can't be trusted. The Molyneaux effect, if you will. Please, consider hiring someone like me (really, anyone who has done a PR job right) as a PR consultant and you'll find a remarkably different landscape in the industry by following their advice. Spilling all about the project now was a good step but there was a lot of damage done by waiting too long on it. I get that you couldn't discuss things right away because the game was being sold and bad PR could product less revenue. But you've waited too long here and you could have sold it as a failed passion product a long time ago rather than just doing PR pickup at this stage to prepare for whatever games you want to put out next. When you don't talk, then you're the only person who isn't producing your own narrative. With a game panned this badly by large critics, you can't avoid to go silent or go false-PR preachy with it. You can still salvage things by being human and still expressing how excited you were to build all those places and to provide a sandbox where fans of the series can visit those places too. Pitch it more as movie tourism rather than an FPS and you'll land softer on your feet than you did.

"I read it in this way: we moved those people, we touched them - even the person who hates [your game] so much, you've affected them. That's why we fight, we're creating emotion and experience - and some people thrive on that type of feeling, some people are sadists."

The poor guy lost $10-15 million dollars of his own money on that project. There should be no way to think that the product was one that provided a meaningful emotional experience. Anger at the product's failure to provide a meaningful experience isn't itself a meaningful experience. I hope that article was somehow misleading in its quote of him. The guy was just pulling standard PR speak and maybe that's still what he thinks he's doing. But this is crossing the line if accurately cited into a territory of warping the world around one truth.

He can't just say, "Yeah... we dun messed up". He kinda tries to call it a "B-movie" and that's the closest he can do to admitting that its a flop but even B-Movies have their fans. I just saw "The History of Future Folk" last night. Clearly a B-movie that absolutely knocked it out of the park. B-movies are low budget. They aren't necessarily good or bad films. So it's a bad comparison unless he things the "B" stands for Bad instead of it just being a companion movie to the feature film which is where the b-roll name came from.

Yeah, the game was bad. Hopefully they embraced any constructive criticism they got and will use that in the future to rock new products in the way they rock Borderlands.

 

[Smooth Operator]

There is also that kid who never acknowledges his faults, grows into an adult and gets to run a game development company...
Well it is actually a good thing he voices his though process like this, makes it clear what sort of mindset is in charge of their projects and what to expect from them, or more importantly what not to expect.

 

[Strazdas]

Attacking someone or something means trying to hurt or destroy it. People who get a rise out of hurting others or destroying things are sadists. For one, that makes the statement factually true. Secondly, the context provided in the quoted paragraph means that critique is a positive; pointing out flaws, errors and misconduct is a form of criticism.

That leaves harassment, bullying, shit-talking, instigation and threats (among other similar things) as forms of attack. Neither of them are acceptable.

Yes, in this case trying to hurt company in retaliation of the company doing anti-consumer practices as a detriment, very much the same way court fines work to hurt false claimants as a detrimant against false claims.

Hurting somone does not necessitate sadism. Not sure why you want people to get a rise out of it either.

I never denied that critique is positive, merely stated that attacks can be positive in certain circumstances too.

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

With respect, sir, your sandcastles were hideous and deserved kicking.

 

[Sarge034]

As has been said before, it's masochists not sadists. Anyone who played those piles of shit must truly love pain. As for the outrage being assholes kicking your sandcastle. Sometimes it is, but this time...

 

[Redryhno]

As somebody who only just got into the Alien franchise and never played Colonial Marines, could somebody tell what was so awful about it?

Basically the demo shown was not representative of the final product, there's a couple side-by-side screenshots of the same places shown in the demo with the actual game, basically the product looked like it was made fifteen years before it was released while the demo looked absolutely amazing(I'm talking the difference between toddler stick figures and professional artists), add onto that that it appeared money was funneled to BL2 instead despite what was being told, Alien AI being a joke, with Michigan J. Xeno-Frog being the most famous example, the outright removal of characters from multiplayer that were promised, and a plethora of aged game mechanics.

It was just not a good game, even worse it was hyped to hell and back by Pitchford and said it was going to be the quintessential Alien game. About the only thing good about the game was the gun sound effects.

 

[bat32391]

To be perfectly honest, I don't give a flying fuck what Pitchford thinks. I got fucked real hard after pre-ordering Aliens: Colonial Marines. You monkeys used fake footage at E3 to make that piece of garbage look good and now you're acting liking the goddamn victim. You can take your bullshit shove it right back up your ass. Get fucked you cockgoblin.

 

[spartandude]

He is right though. Some people are sadists. I mean lying to consumers so they give you £40 then doing nothing to addressing their concerns and bragging about how much money you made.... god damn that is sadistic.

 

[Dalisclock]

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.

Yeah, I might have been tempted to pick this up for $4, just to see how bad it really is. However, Randy shooting his mouth off made me decide that I don't want to give him any money. I'll go spend that $4 on a cheeseburger or something.

 

[Someone Depressing]

"People who make fun of our bad games are less sophisticated and intelligent than us, the fatheads!"

You put your shit out to the public, they will tear it apart - and it is entirely their creative right to do so.

 

[pookie101]

silly muppet. PR 101 would of told him to say "yes we screwed up and we learning from our mistakes" blaming consumer just makes you look like a dick

 

[bossfight1]

Randy, as someone who adored Borderlands 2, lemme say that you are just being flat-out delusional. You flat-out lied to people with what the final product would be, people called you out on that lie while highlighting everything wrong with the game, yet you're convinced you did no wrong.

I honestly believe that, if directly confronted Pitchford about his lies, his denial would give him a nervous breakdown and he'd lash out.

 

[Metalix Knightmare]

Wow, two articles in one day that give me cause to say unflattering things about Randy Pitchford? And, er... fulfill my sadistic appetites in the process, apparently?

Oh Escapist, you shouldn't have!

Things is, he's not entirely wrong. Anything popular or widespread is going to have a large number of detractors proportionate to that popularity. Some of them are going to be needlessly petty and venomous. Gamers certainly aren't any better than anyone else at voicing their grievances in an articulate and respectful manner. And yes, some people just plain enjoy shitting in your cereal.

However, pointing to a pile of shit and saying, "That right there is a pile of shit", is not an act of sadism. Hell, I wish I'd been able to derive some form of sadistic thrill from a Gearbox game. Sure would have been an improvement over wishing the fucking thing could end so I can get onto another, better game, or maybe clean the bathroom.

Also, defending something that made people angry by saying, "Hey, we touched them with our finely crafted emotional experiences," is weak bullshit. It'd be like Warner Bros saying that the PC version of Arkham Knight must be a powerful bit of media to have "touched" audiences the way it did.

It's one of those things where I'd say "You know, he actually has a point" if it was coming from nearly ANYBODY ELSE.

Randy, on the other hand, is just completely untethered from reality by this point. He's like a more sociopathic Peter Molyneux.

Say what you will about Peter, the guy at least does actively TRY, and he seems to genuinely love being in the industry. He just keeps trying to write checks that the tech can't cash.

 

[Callate]

It sounds as though Pitchford is saying "We're making this beautiful thing, and most people like it, but the people who dislike it dislike it so much that they ruin it, and they're determined to make other people dislike it as well to affirm their point of view."

Okay, well, there's some truth to that; the people who are loudest on an issue aren't necessarily the ones who are right. Nor do the people whose passions cause them to want to remove people's teeth with rusty pliers necessarily have a more reasoned and accurate view of the situation than those who mete out their praise and criticism with a less absolutist bent.

But...

And you know there's a big enough but attached to the statement that Sir Mix-a-Lot would do a double-take...

It also sounds like Pitchford is working really hard to construct a reality that allows him to filter, if not shut out entirely, reasonable criticism.

You see, both DNF and A:CM were poor games. They were poor games based on the expectations they raised (DNF through a prolonged development, A:CM through an extensive and targeted advertising campaign), but also just poor games based on the competition within the genre at the time they were released.

And the bottom line is that Gearbox isn't making sand castles; sand castles are free. Gearbox is making creative products that they expect people to pay for, ones that people's lives and livelihoods count on people being willing to pay for them. When a significant number of people are saying that your products aren't worth what they're being asked to pay, you would be wise to listen.

It's all very well to keep a positive outlook and believe that your "children" are special. But you should at least try to wrap your mind around where the people who say your children are monsters are coming from before you write them off as having motivations that have more to do with wanting to cause you pain than wanting you to stop making monsters.

 

[someonehairy-ish]

You compare your games to a sandcastle but I think they bear more resemblance to a sandy bumhole. Irritating and unpleasant for veryone involved.

 

[FoolKiller]

But... but... YOUR GOD DAMN SAND CASTLE WAS BUILT UPON LIES!!

I'm literally speechless. I think I'm just gonna kick some sand castles in frustration.

Except it wasn't. The sandcastle wasn't built on lies. It was just not sand, rather shit. It was a rather spledid shitcastle that he was selling as a sandcastle. But apparently that makes me a sadist.

 

[Dragonlayer]

I have to respect a developer honest enough to just come out and say: "Everyone who doesn't love our game is a twat."

That said, I think he is somewhat groping towards a valid point: there's definitely a sizable subset of people who just want to hate something, anything about a game and often towards an unreasonable degree.

 

[Mikeybb]

Well.
He is right in this statement.

Some people ARE just sadists.
...as evidenced by certain game releases.
They certainly seemed to enjoy kicking over the sandcastle of my hopes and dreams for a colonial marines game with that release.

I always envisioned something else...

Four to six characters picked from marines,company man, synthetic, survivor style archetypes but then given voice actors and personality expanded upon by interactions during the quiet moments of the game (also to build tension).
Left for Dead style alien horde spawning under director guidance.
Special alien breeds for diversity, spitters, bursters, leapers, face huggers, praetorian guard taking up range, group splitting, elimination and 'tank' duties.
Multiplayer implemented in Left for Dead oppositional style, with specials on a respawn timer and player controlled.
Story told by the set pieces they travel to and encounter through the levels (refuel the apc, purge the reactor core, regroup and hold at the landing pad for extraction, etc etc.).
Settings from a hadleys hope style colony, alien landscape and facililty like promethius, a beleaguered starship suffering an infection, a larger devastated terrain of a colony, weyland yutani orbital facility being overrun...

Basically, Left for Dead with aliens exploiting the unique environments and characterful appearance of the setting.

 

[Poetic Nova]

Randy, as someone who adored Borderlands 2, lemme say that you are just being flat-out delusional. You flat-out lied to people with what the final product would be, people called you out on that lie while highlighting everything wrong with the game, yet you're convinced you did no wrong.

I honestly believe that, if directly confronted Pitchford about his lies, his denial would give him a nervous breakdown and he'd lash out.

I believe Randy was a magician before GBX was a thing.
Maybe he's working on his final vanishing act.