‘Borderlands 3’ looks promising but needless CEO drama could kill it

The Borderlands 3 reveal on May 1 was almost great, if not for all the drama.

It was looking good at first for developer Gearbox Software. Despite the questionable choice to have embattled studio founder and CEO Randy Pitchford serve as the hype man on stage, the game does a fine job of making a case for its own existence.

Not that it’s a giant leap forward. This series has been largely dormant for five years. But with all the industry shifts lately toward more fully online “games-as-a-service” (think Destiny), Gearbox’s pitch of “more Borderlands, with cool improvements” is a tantalizing proposition.

The new game will stick with the first-person space Diablo vibe that’s defined the series since the very first release. The action plays out across a wider range of planets, but the heart of the game still revolves around amassing a stockpile of randomly generated guns that often perform in unexpected and wild ways.

The Borderlands 3 reveal was almost great, if not for all the drama.

At one point during the reveal presentation, Pitchford’s case for Borderlands 3 turned to the ways the game would — and wouldn’t — be monetized. This is where the trouble all started, though it wasn’t clear at that moment.

“We’re gonna do some kickass campaign DLC [or downloadable content] and I’m sure we’re gonna do all kinds of fun customizations like heads and skins [for your characters] but we’re not doing any of that free-to-play junk; there’s not going to be any microtransactions, there’s not gonna be any of that nonsense,” he said at around the 55-minute mark of the live stream. 

Let’s unpack that real quick. Borderlands has always expanded after release with DLC add-ons to the story that you could buy. Starting in Borderlands 2, there were also character heads and skins you could spend much smaller amounts of money on to customize your in-game appearance. They were popular, and reportedly a valuable source of income for Gearbox and publisher 2K in the game’s post-release life.

They were also, definitively, microstransactions. Pitchford misspoke when he said “there’s not going to be any microtransactions.” That’s fine, these things happen.

The real trouble came up when Game Informer published a story zeroing in on this error. Pitchford had said one thing, but 2K had subsequently confirmed that, yes, just as in past games players would be able to buy character skins. And Pitchford responded, clearly enraged.

Pitchford is fundamentally misunderstanding the role of the press in his response. He’s treating Game Informer like some kind of ally in spreading his/Gearbox’s message, when in fact the magazine’s writers work instead to inform their readers — and that includes answering questions when they come up.

Pitchford’s statement about Borderlands 3 including “heads and skins” but not having any microtransactions led to the natural question: does that mean customization items are all free? Any longtime fan can assume they’re not because such items were purchasable in past games, but Game Informer‘s writer did their job and got 2K to confirm it.

Rather than accepting the fact that he himself misspoke, Pitchford accused Game Informer of trying to “fuck” him over. He called the article’s reasonably asked and answered question “clickbait” and suggested his wording during the presentation was clear.

The episode was, to put it mildly, a bad look.

A social media blow-up quickly ensued. Borderlands fans started coming after Pitchford to take issue with his overreaction. He doubled down on defending himself and kept on going, even as people threw his own direct quotes right back at him. You can see some of his carrying on in responses on the above Game Informer tweet and even more in Pitchford’s subsequent Twitter replies.

The episode was, to put it mildly, a bad look. Microtransactions gaffe aside, Gearbox’s first dive into Borderlands 3 gameplay went well. It looks like a promising crowd-pleaser for fans that have been waiting five years for a sequel. But in responding the way he did on social media, Pitchford effectively shifted focus away from the game and on to his behavior.

Then things got weirder.

Someone asked David Eddings — a former Gearbox executive who also happened to be the voice of Borderlands’ most popular character, Claptrap — if he was returning in Borderlands 3. He said no. He hadn’t been paid for doing the role previously, probably because he was already a Gearbox employee. But Eddings, who has since moved on, said he wanted money in exchange for the work of voicing Claptrap.

(The “$12M payment” comment is a snarky reference to Pitchford’s aforementioned legal troubles. You can read more about that at the link up top, but tl;dr: there’s an allegation that he received a “secret” $12 million bonus some years ago that should have gone to Gearbox as a whole.)

Pitchford has a different view of things. When a Twitter user called him on Eddings not returning, the Gearbox CEO suggested that his former exec had in fact been given an offer, and that he’d turned it down.

That was echoed in a statement Gearbox provided to IGN.

Gearbox works to treat and compensate all voice actors at industry standards. We offer the opportunity for salaried employees to voice characters in the game, but is not a mandatory responsibility to their job requirements.

In this particular case, now that he was no longer an employee, we offered him an industry standard rate, but were not able to reach an agreement. We are confident and happy with Jim Foronda as the voice of Claptrap, and we are confident our fans will be too.

It would be easy to write this off as a case of “he said-he said” under normal circumstances. Pitchford’s and Eddings’ words aren’t directly at odds; rather, it sounds like Eddings (who, it’s worth noting, helped to popularize Claptrap) wanted some amount of money beyond what Gearbox was willing to pay.

There’s just one problem: this isn’t the only voice actor drama connected to Borderlands 3. Back in April, Pitchford had said that Troy Baker — a popular voice actor who lent his talents to the character of Rhys in Telltale Games’ spin-off, Tales from the Borderlands — had turned down an offer to appear in the sequel.

Baker’s own account is quite different. In a subsequent video interview with OnlySP, he points out that he wanted to return for Borderlands 3 but Gearbox had decided against it. And that maybe Pitchford knew about it, but maybe he didn’t.

“I think it’s interesting that Randy Pitchford tweeted out that I turned it down, and then he said he heard that I turned it down,” Baker said. “So maybe… I would fact check before I tweeted out to the internet.”

As you can see, there’s been a whole lot of drama here and none of it is very clear. Mistakes were made with the reveal and there’s at least some sign of disgruntlement from former Borderlands voice actors, but there are two sides to every story. And while Pitchford’s legal drama may be alarming, it remains unresolved — and therefore unproven.

The biggest headlines coming out of that reveal focused on Pitchford and his behavior.

That doesn’t mean there isn’t a problem. Look at the situation like this: Gearbox lifted the lid on Borderlands 3 after five years of silence. It should have been a triumphant moment for that entire team, especially with the game apparently making fans excited.

Instead, the biggest headlines coming out of that reveal event focused on Pitchford and his behavior. And it’s not because the media is trying to “fuck” him. He created these problems for himself — and unfortunately, for his entire team — by not explaining things clearly enough. Then, when members of the press did their due diligence in trying to clear up the confusion, he flew off the handle.

It looked bad, and it made Pitchford a difficult source to trust as the voice actor stories started rolling around. (Yes, the Baker story is technically from April, but it picked up steam again after what happened.)

Speaking as a longtime fan, I hope Gearbox can bounce back from this setback and deliver a game that makes everyone happy. But I also think Pitchford’s behavior has made it clear that the studio is going to continue to struggle with getting the message out while he’s the main Borderlands 3 hype man.

The next big test is E3 2019, which kicks off in mid-June. Will Pitchford show up once again and make a scene? Hopefully, for the sake of every talented creator at Gearbox, the answer is no.