How the hell did this topic turn into mindless politicization?
Whatever.
Let's talk instead about Battleborn and WHY it has received so much ire. I think it's no surprise to people that Gearbox is, for a lot of people, on par with EA at this point. Gearbox has, several times now, fleeced both its publishers and the users who supported it.
So when Randy Pitchford himself was trying to clarify what the goal of the game was, and it was this:
Who else do you have to blame for no one being interested but yourself, Randy, you dense tosspot? Yes, this is the person I trust with a long-term content-driven project of which I'm expected to pay retail price for.
But maybe I'm just biased. I have a very strict 'No Gearbox' policy in place when it comes to purchasing. Maybe I'm not the best one to be asking about it.
Except, it's very clear that Battleborn doesn't have a single thing that hooks anyone in. The characters look bad, the gameplay looks stale and not very quick, and the main hook of the game appears to be the virtual treadmill of imaginary items.
So is it really any surprise that Blizzard comes along, the people who nailed the virtual treadmill of imaginary items and continues to make gross amounts of profit off it to this day, and completely stomps Gearbox at its own game?
It's probably a moot point anyway, it's already speculated that Battleborn will be Free to play by the end of the year [https://mmos.com/news/battleborn-rumored-to-go-free-to-play]. So if nothing else that will at least get people looking in its general direction.