Here is why I will only forgive Pitchford when he apologizes for Colonial Marines.
http://www.gamespot.com/videos/aliens-colonial-marines-interview-with-randy-pitch/2300-6377485/
http://www.destructoid.com/gearbox-community-day-pitchford-duke-and-2-000-fans-204101.phtml
This is the crux of it. He acknowledges that he owes a debt to the Alien universe. He claims that Gearbox only do licensed games when they love the license, unlike other studios that are doing 'a work for hire' type of situation.
Then Gearbox farms the project out to Timegate to make the campaign so the internal team can focus on Borderlands 2 or whatever.
That's what I'll always want an apology for. You can't claim you owe a franchise a debt and go on about how you're making the game because you love that franchise... and then farm it out to someone else.
Fuck him.
By all accounts Sega wanted to sue Gearbox over the whole thing, but couldn't due to the terms of the contract. SEGA released the game as Gearbox delivered it to try and recoup some of the money they had invested in the project. Basically, by all accounts it went like this: Sega paid Gearbox to make A:CM believing that A: Gearbox would make themselves and B: Gearbox were committed to delivering a product up to standards. Gearbox took that money, and paid someone else to make the game for *Iess* than they were paid with minimal involvement from Gearbox staff. The rest of that money was spent on funding the development of Borderlands and Duke Nukem Forever.
Now there was nothing in the contract saying Gearbox *couldn't* do this, and they delivered a 'finished' game on time as per the terms of the contract.
If you want to blame Sega for something, blame them for taking Gearbox at face value, and blame them for shipping that awful game in an attempt to recover some of the money they paid Gearbox to make the game.
Pitchford spun Sega the same lies he spun all of us. That Gearbox loved the franchise. That Gearbox was indebted to the franchise and really wanted to make a great game based on the movies. If Sega didn't care about the quality of the final product, they'd have gone with someone else. Hell, they could have got Timegate to work directly with them for a fraction of what they paid Gearbox. They thought they were working with a developer who would deliver the best game they could, not a developer who would pay someone else to deliver a mediocre product that met all the contractual obligations.
