$80 for Borderlands 4 too costly? Randy Pitchford says, "If you're a real fan, you'll find a way to make it happen"
$80 for Borderlands 4 too costly? Randy Pitchford says, "If you're a real fan, you'll find a way to make it happen"
If Randy Pitchford was a real CEO he would find a way to make $60 games
He's too busy collecting child porn to bother with running his business.
Uh, source? It seems like if this were true he'd be in cuffs.
What?
Randy pitchford?
THAT Randy Pitchford? The Randy Pitchford that, because he loves magic tricks, downloaded himself some squirt porn (sfw youtube link to moistcritical) on the same thumb drive as company secrets, and then left it at a Medieval Times? The same Randy that grabbed the Claptrap VA by the junk because he was tired of voicing Claptrap for free and had the audacity to ask to be paid so Pitchford tried to intimidate him? The same Randy Pitchford that somehow "lost" millions dollars of Segas money causing Colonial marines to bomb so that they could fund Borderlands 2 and Duke Nukem Forever He's also not above putting journalists who bad mouth him in his games as petty revenge.
Fuck that guy. Fuck anything he says.
No, no, you don't understand, the girl was doing a magic trick! He only consumed that just barely legal content with professional interest in mind.
Holy shit, I knew about the "magic trick" girl and thought he was a quirky funny man, but assaulting an artist to force them to work for free? What a fucking asshole
If I recall the feud correctly, Eddings previously worked on Claptrap as a favor for free (or next to it). As far as the back and forth on Twitter indicates, when he said he wanted "Id like to be paid this time", Pitchford initially pushed back, and then offered "2x union rates" (whether Pitchford actually offered that or said it on twitter afterward to garner sympathy we may never know), but Eddings refused the offer since gearbox was (at the time) about to make its 3rd lootershooter in a monsterously successful chain and he was one of the most prominent side characters. Thats what triggered Pitchford to attempt to intimidate him in front of a hotel elevator.
Bro is a blight on Gearbox. And no one is sure how or why the board hasn't gotten rid of him.
Hi Randy, fuck off lol
Too much games to play on the market to justify the urgency to buy it at release for 80 bucks. they now compete with free to play, gamepass, Indy games, piracy, and tons of past games with lower cost.
The fomo of newly released games is low when most games are released in shitty state and need 1/2 months of patches/fixes and that's not even taking in consideration that the best experience is when all the dlcs are released and make the game finally complete.
The AAA industry is fucked. In a world where quality games are released each weeks they are often but even the best way to have fun with our limited time, like tepid Ubisoft games...
Yeah I'm really starting to feel like we're gonna see a lot of these companies shift from doing big AAA games to instead publishing small indie games. Almost all of these big companies have indie publishing arms now and as they start to see good profits from those without having to take on the cost of paying devs themselves I wouldn't be surprised if they start cutting back on their own dev teams and shifting to that.
Honestly I am all for if it means that we get original games again from big studios, I can't get hyped anymore for yet another sequel or remaster.
Honestly, in my opinion, there's too many games to justify buying it at all. I enjoyed one and two when I was a kid, and there wasn't competition for the genre. Three I think was free on Epic or something, so I played and it was fine, but not great. I don't expect much from four, and there's companies I'd actually like to support instead.
I can't tell you exactly why, but as much as I played and replayed borderlands 1&2, the third one didn't interest me at all, I can see that the recipe used the same ingredients but it just didn't taste the same to contribute the metaphor. It just bored me and my wife during our coop campaign, and we didn't have any desire to continue our playthrough. I hope they get it back with four but I don't trust them enough anymore to buy it blindly anyway.
I found a way already, it's called patience. Works well for basically any non nintendo game.
You can still (for the moment) be patient with Nintendo games if you're OK buying second hand
Or just pirate and emulate Nintendo games. They're such scumbags that they make piracy morally correct
Unfortunately, the real appeal of the Borderlands series is multiplayer. The games are alright in single player mode, but multiplayer is where it really shines. And cracked copies likely won’t work with multiplayer, because they use game servers for matchmaking.
IIRC all of the past ones have worked over LAN, including over a private VPN if you so desire. I definitely played pirated copies of 1 and 2 with my mates. I had no real desire to get very deep into 3 because the campaign storyline was so stupid, but I don't doubt you could.
It's only online matchmaking with randos that you'll be blocked from, which if you ask me is not really that much of a detriment.
Theseus' ship? Borderlands 4 is just the projectfile of borderlands 2 with every part replaced? 😱
Would be better than 3
I can make it happen? Okeydokey! 🏴☠️
Can't wait to play it...in 2035 summer sale. Maybe I'll even get bored in under 2 hours and get the instant refund.
Randy actually needs to see this. It’s reality.
Oh I'll find a way alright.
You'd think he'd be better media trained by now. But no, here goes the foot in the mouth.
He got the horrible Hand, Foot in Mouth Disease.
put it on my wish list
buy it for $15 in a year
yawn
I feel like if it drops that much in one year, it's probably a pretty shit game anyway right?
If it being Borderlands 4 wasn't enough of a tip considering the stellar writing we had on pre-sequel and 3.
Real fans "Find a Way" Yarr.
TIL a lot of people aren’t real fans.
I'm not a huge fan of Borderlands. I like the stories. But I don't like the loot goblining. Constant hunt for ever higher damage numbers.
There's only 1 company I'll pay $80 for a new game. And that is Ryu Ga Gotoku. Cuz they don't miss. No bad half finished launches. No bad games. Every game is a masterclass in Peak.
I'm the opposite, I don't give a monkeys about the story but I like the loot goblining.
That said a borderlands came on the gamepass the other week and I was so excited to lure my boy into co-op with me for the first time in ages. It wouldn't stop crashing. I googled it to see if they were aware and all I could find was the company sucking it's own dick about having already released the final patch to stop it crashing so many times. I wouldn't say I'm thrilled about the idea of dropping $80 on a day one release.
I’m a Loot Goblin that spacebars through the story too, but Borderlands hasn’t been able to scratch that itch in a long time.
The last one I played was Tina’s Wonderland and everything about it was a slog. I didn’t care about any of the loot or any of the fights and I definitely didn’t care about the story.
I'll add Factorio to the list of games that deserve the $80 tag. $40 for base, $40 for Space Age expansion. Or don't get Space Age and go with the mod that spawned Space Age (although not exactly the same).
I get it's a bit of a niche genre, though. The factory thing the way Factorio does it isn't for everybody.
I personally prefer mindustry
Can you recommend me a starting point? For someone who has no experience with these games, or any Japanese games besides Soulsgames and RE4 remake.
Feel free to roast me in the process.
But I don't like the loot goblining. Constant hunt for ever higher damage numbers.
I honestly don't know how people play this game. Every 12 seconds coming across new gear. Can't do it.
It's not like I need to do the math to figure out which gun is better and why. Find something with green arrows? Hold E to equip it immediately. If I use it for a bit and dislike it I'll just swap back to what I was using before and mark it as junk so I sell it next time I buy ammo or fill my inventory.
It didn’t used to be like that and they actually mentioned in the deep dive that they’re getting back to the way it was before. Like the point of the game is loot goblining, but they’ve promised not to inundate the player with legendary weapons every twelve seconds so that you actually have time to savor the weapons you get between good drops.
TIL real Borderlands fans are pirates.
Yeah, the way to make it happen is adding it to my wishlist and waiting for the price to drop to at least $40.
Borderlands isn't that good, Randy. Is anyone that much of a fan of a genetic shooter who's only distinguishing feature was the art style and the number of guns? (which I found got tiresome pretty quickly.) I played and enjoyed the first one, but from what I've played of 2 and the Pre-sequel, it was just more of the same so I haven't bothered since.
Randy's a twat. I'll pick that shit up for $20 next Christmas
🏴
Looks like fitgirl will be getting my business instead
Found a way!
Yeah, I'll fucking pirate it LMAO
I've been a big Borderlands fan for 10+ years. I played through the first one multiple times and loved it. My wife and I bonded over BL1 when we first started dating.
Was super excited for BL2, and have played it many times throughout the years.
But the pre-sequel was a let down, and BL3 felt soulless and lacked the same spark as BL2.
Tiny Tina Wonderlands was great, and felt like a return to what made BL2 so fun.
All that to say, I don't have high hopes for BL4, nor will I be paying $80 for it. It just feels like they're coasting off the brand name at this point and trying to exploit longtime BL players like myself.
What's your take on the telltale game?
Not OP but Tales from the Borderlands 1 us my favorite of the telltale game collection and has some of my favorite music videos ever and wears its emotions on its sleeve for you to empathize with its characters in clever real ways.
I never played the Tales from Borderlands myself, but my wife did and she really enjoyed it. She said it added a lot to the story lore presented in BL2.
I did enjoy the Walking Dead telltale game along with the Wolf Among Us, though.
Remember how Randy Pitchford funneled money that was supposed to go to Aliens: Colonial Marines into Borderlands 2 (and Duke Nukem Forever lol)
How the fuck do you leave a USB stick full of child abuse material at a fucking Medieval Times and get away with it?
Laws only apply to us poors.
Weinstein? Diddy? Epstein?
I think the more apt description would be that when you’re got something that makes other people money, then you will be protected. When that ends you’re fair game.
I also agree that the more money you have the better defence you can get, but I don’t believe laws only apply to the poor. That’s hyperbole.
Not a fan. Borderlands 3 made it happen.
Real fan?
Bitch please. We've put up with your crap for so long and we still play it....
Get out of here with that horse shit. Get fucked. Fuck you, and the horse you rode in on. At best, I'll wait for a sale, at worst, I'm never playing your goddamned franchise again because you've run it into the ground with enshittification.
I bought the full collection last year for like $50. $20 for the first three and all DLC, and like $30 for the complete Borderlands 3 (I had gotten the other ones so decided to just get the full series).
Then I actually went and got Wonderlands and had an actual blast playing it.
I'm absolutely ready to pay 80$ for a game. But then I don't want to see scummy shit like lootboxes or advanced access in it. If I pay 80$ I expect to see a game release that isn't half-baked and has to get fixed with hotfixes and patches over the next two months but that just works out of the box and that doesn't try to get me to spend even more money on it. That also includes no content that they've already produced being held back for DLCs.
This has always been my counterpoint for the Nintendo haters when they complain about price. (Although they are a shit company in several other ways) Because when my daughter wants a new switch game if its a top tier Nintendo title its going to be a finished game with zero bugs and zero concern about problematic content for me.
Exactly. That's why I buy Nintendo games near release and am patient for PC games.
Guess I'm not a real fan 🤷♂️
I guess me and my several thousand borderlands hours are not a real fan then? The games weren't worth $80 even when they came with goodies. They're not worth $80 without the goodies. I'll just wait for a sale.
I'll just leave this skull and bones flag right here FOR NO REAL REASON!!!
The video game landscape is already filled to the brims with more games than I need to play for the rest of my life and you want me to hurry up to pay for a game as it comes out, to ditch out the full price when my computer would suffer for the lack of latest gen hardware when I could easily find a large amount of fantastic games for less than 10 bucks and comfortably max out their settings?
Like, the witcher 3 with all its DLC, a fantastic game which is 10 years old but got a free graphics upgrade and with all its DLC, worth hundreds of hours of gameplay and a memorable experience is less than 10 bucks, as we speak, both on steam and gog.
Most people already have more games than they have time to play. Patient gamer has never been more rewarding. We fall too often for the fear of missing out the experience and hype of a new launch...
I finished GTA 4 and 5 like a year ago, on my steam deck. I couldn't care less if these games came out like 10 years ago. It gives me the flexibility to play them how I want to.
100% agree. I no joke own about 900 games I haven't played between steam (most bought when I was young and naive, probably bought like 10 games in the last 10 years now I know better), epic free games, and playstation plus monthly "free" games (not even counting the catalogue you now get access to), yes they're technically not entirely free but I'd be paying for plus regardless so they kinda are.
Now as a lot of these games weren't chosen by me, by no means do I want to play them all, and some are duplicates across platforms. But if even 10% interest me, that's still 90 games. I probably play games at a rate slower than 1 per month. That's years of games to me. And more will be stacking up in that time. I haven't bought a game in like 3 years and it's entirely possible I'll never buy a game again at this rate.
Well guess I ain’t a massive fan then. Shame
Or we'll boycott you shit ass companies
And my way is, wait a few years for the deluxe edition to come out on sale.
Shit, I waited until BL3 was free on PSN, and I'll get around to it someday.
Also, let's not forget the new EULA regarding shift accountsAlso, he made his 'fans" wait while bl3 was only available on the epic store. Fuck this dude, I am done with the franchise.
How is the game being available make people wait? Did PC get the release before consoles?
Steam customers are out of the loop. We could access the game through epic store, but it's a separate account, and not everybody has/want one. Hence the wait to release on Steam.
For small indies it makes sense to publish on the pc epic game store a year earlier to get fundet for simply releasing the game there earlier.
A lot of smaller indies used that time as a kind of early access and got later super popular on steam, the main pc game store.
But for a big studio to do something like this is scummy
They already have a playerbase and a big budget
I dont even know if payment was involved but there is no other reason i can think of that explains this
Yarrow. Matey. Captains orders are to take to the high seas!!!!!
I agree, but when you wouldn't let Aspyr do a Linux port for BL3, I stopped being a "real fan".
If you're a real fan, Randy, you find a way not to fuck up the franchise, but so far after Borderlands 2 you managed to deliver us disappointment after disappointment. So fuck off, I'll pirate 4 to play it for 3 to 4 hours after which I'll delete is because it sucks as expected. If I manage to reach 40 hours of gameplay, which is 2 euros per hour, I'll buy your game. But we both know this isn't going to happen, right Randy?
Stop buying Gearbox slop. Jesus fucking christ people. Why are they still getting a free pass for being objectively shitty developers?
Tbh, most AAA games are ass nowadays
Arrrrrr!
I got bored with Borderlands 3 in one hour. Copy pasta gameplay and I’m tired of the art style and humor. I only paid a fiver but I wish I had bought a burger instead.
I thought Borderlands was lots of fun, but not four games (for now) and a movie (for now) worth of fun. Even two games was pushing it a bit. You can only stretch things out so much.
I can barely justify 50€ for a massive game like Baldur's Gate 3. I'd never pay that much for any other game that is not on this scale. But 80 bucks? The fuck are they thinking?
They don't have any dlc lined up yet so not being to sell you empty promises on top of a normal game price is really tugging at Randy's purse strings.
/s
I got Borderlands 3 free on Epic Games, and it still sit there not being played. Guess it's time to leave this franchise for good.
Pitchford gives off some strong “do you guys not have phones” energy. He’s so out of touch it’s astounding.
Well, new Doom is 90€ I aint buying that garbage. 80+ € or bucks for a AAA always online slop is just a NO.
I've found a way to play every Borderlands game, 2 is my fave, and not pay more than 12 usd, for the 3rd one which I didn't even get halfway through 'cause it's boring AF - I love Steam sales and don't have FOMO
Shut up. Dingus.
Weeps in Canadian
I’ve been paying $80 the whole time! Now I have to pay even more!
Either way I won’t be buying Borderlands 4 for like $100 I can tell you that much.
Borderlands 3 was the first game I didnt even bother finishing, just super boring lol
Dead Island 2 is free on Epic currently, and probably more fun than Borderlands 4; BL 3 wasn't written well, and i assume the same for BL 4. A shame, BL2 is one of my most played FPS
I was excited for borderlands. Now I'll wait for them to make it 70% off
mm yes gatekeeping and money shaming, that'll convince them.
Lol Randy actively taking the winds out of his own sails.
I hope he rots in piss.
I'm a huge borderlands fan. I will not be buying this for $80 lol.
More like 80 plus gamers not supporting the NintenoDONT greed trend.
Give us guaranteed emploment of the staff that built it, and you get guaranteed pre orders?
It's like they don't understand how piracy works.
In today's dollars, my local video game store in 1991 was selling Wizardry for the NES for $141.
Fuck, the average AAA Atari 2600 game was $99 in today's dollars. Games like Pitfall and Pac-Man.
Just some perspective. I'm going to go yell at a cloud or something, now.
I'm actually OK with games costing a bit more to sell if they cost a lot to make; god knows, the devs deserve to get paid properly. But, one, that money won't actually make it to the devs, and two, any time Randy Pitchford is for something it's really hard not to automatically be against it, on the assumption that he's so consistently wrong about everything, and just such an unbelievable piece of shit, that just assuming he's in the wrong is the safest bet.
The trailer for the new borderlands looked like the most soulless, boring cash grab. Anyone put much time into it yet?
I'm really bad about buying new games at launch where I like the franchise and getting burned (looking at you bf2042).
However with all of the stupid politics, tariffs, and recession coming in the US, I'm sure the hell not buying this at $80, even if I'm a long term borderlands fan. I have way too many games in my library I should be playing/finishing anyway.
I hope others speak with their wallets as well.
I don't condone this, but we already had $60 games 10 years ago. If you simply add inflation you'd be at $81 today. That doesn't even take into account that modern games also have larger budgets compared to back then.
Video games really are a cheap hobby comparatively speaking. I still wait for sales of course :)
Games have also gotten massively cheaper due to distribute due to digital downloads being the most common, and they're making way more sales due to gaming having a much larger audience.
The main reason these games have ridiculously inflated budgets are because execs are pushing for more management, which in turn push for oversized teams making design-by-committee out of fear of making something people don't like. The gamin industry doesn't get to make excuses anymore. Them being unable to reign in their development budgets aren't our problem. They need to figure out how to offer games at a lower price, because they're going to run out of customers willing to pay otherwise
Actually around half the budget of an AAA game is just marketing cost. Which feels wasteful, but if you need to recoup hundreds of millions it might be necessary.
Games have been surprisingly inflation resistant. I paid $70 for Playstation games in the 90s.
ugh. i wont even pirate it. gross
To quote LazyTown: Yar har, fiddle de dee...
I will never buy the game out of spite
That's what he thinks.
Suck my cock pitchford. Hope the game bombs as bad as the movie fuckwad.
I am not a reaI fan ?.I am ok with being a "hypothetical" fan and buying it later at a reasonable price
Since I didn’t enjoy the handsome collection I wouldn’t buy it at any price, but even for games I do enjoy I wait until they are on sale preferably with the DLCs included
Guess we all know what we have to do
Arr, matey
I didn't want borderlands even when it was cheaper.
SUS USB Randy Pitchford?
Likely pedophile Randy Pitchford.
They never fixed the bugs in Borderlands 3. Let me rush out and get this
Imagine preordering a game in 2025.
Or wait the number of years it takes to be on sale for $20.
Yarrr Matey, they'll find a way.
My game backlog has reached mars so I am in no hurry. Still havent even started tiny tina's wonderlands.
Nope, just would play Tiny Tina's Wonderland again honestly, which I got for around $10 when it was heavily on sale a year ago.
Yeah, no.
Idk. I think gamers are overly upset about $80 games. While I am sympathetic to not wanting the price to go up, the fact of the matter is that brand new video games cost pretty much the same as they did 30 years ago, while the cost of everything else has basically doubled in that time. I know it's probably not what is going to happen but if $80 video games are what it takes to get us away from shitty microtransactions in full price games, then I'm all for it. I know the crowd on Lemmy will just say they should make less profit and do neither but that's just not how the world works right now and nobody is going to do that.
Food for thought- here are some prices in 1996 and today
New video game: 1996- $67 (Super Mario 64), 2025- $70
McDonald's Big Mac meal: 1996- $2.45, 2025-$9.29
Base package Honda Civic: 1996- $10,360, 2025-$24,250
Average apartment - 1996- $550/mo, 2025- $1,540/mo
Median annual income- 1996- $20,109, 2025- $50,200
Doesn't one of these stand out?
And let's take this outside of the myopic view of only looking at inflation.
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/video-game-industry-revenues-by-platform/
Console gaming revenue: 1996 - 7 billion, 2022 - 30 billion
Let's look at specifically Nintendo here since we're talking about Super Mario 64
https://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/pdf/2001/011121e.pdf
2001, 664 million in profit, adjusted for inflation in 2022 dollars, 1 billion.
2022, 1.7 billion dollars in profit.
You forget that in 1996 the gaming pool was also magnitudes smaller compared to today and despite all of the whining about increased development costs, which I also think is bullshit but that's a different conversation, profits have increased to keep up.
So my opinion, no there's absolutely no justification for a 80 dollar price point when you look at the over all picture.
The real answer should've been "the fuck you want, you're willing to pay the same for a Switch game.."
Yarrrrr
I've found a way.
Randy Pitchfork?
If I was a real fan.
Nah na na na na na na na na
Thank you Gwen Stefani for saying all the na's for me.
I won't be buying any game that costs $80 not when I have a mountain of games in my Steam Library, many of which are getting played thanks to the Steam Deck and if that's not enough I have Game Pass too so why the hell would I even consider paying $80
Yeah, Randy, I find a way to make it happen, it's called Xbox sale. That’s how I bought Borderlands 3. Which I haven't played yet. And don't get me wrong, Randy, Borderlands 2 is one of the most fun games I've played, I'm definitely a real fan! I'm definitely a video game enthusiast, I have a ginormous backlog on both Xbox and Steam.
Aw, he’s telling people to pirate it. What a thoughtful guy.
You wouldn't download a shit to give.
That's legitimately how I read what he was saying at first.