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[IbizaPocholo]

https://www.dallasnews.com/news/cri...vish-lifestyle-money-now-police-cant-find#nnn

The Pitchfords
Amid his personal troubles, Martin got a job as a personal assistant with the Pitchfords in 2014. His starting salary: $45,000 a year.

Randy Pitchford is the CEO and president of the video game development company Gearbox Software. His wife, Kristy, owns and operates the restaurant and coffee shop known collectively as Nerdvana Frisco.

By early 2015 Martin was charging his personal expenses to the Pitchfords' American Express business account.

Purchases included designer clothes, jewelry, electronics, hotel stays, airfare and even Amazon movie rentals. He had a self-admitted "addiction to fine shoes and blazers." Photos on social media show him wearing top-of-the-line clothes in bold patterns and vibrant colors.

In 2015, Martin bought a home in Frisco's tony Newman Village with a market value of $591,000. Real-estate site Zillow describes the house as one with "custom renovations by interior designer John Wright Martin" that are "tailored for a lifestyle of luxury."

He racked up hundreds of dollars a night when he visited The Round-up Saloon in Dallas, court records show. The Pitchfords said they learned those larger bills — including one for $657 — paid for a round of shots for everyone at the bar on Cedar Springs Road.

Martin got "better and better at finding ways of spending our money," Randy Pitchford said.

That included big parties. One event that combined art, music and food and drinks promised a night of "indulging the senses" at the historic penthouse atop Le Meridien Dallas, The Stoneleigh. The invitation posted online boasted an event "masterfully curated by designer John Martin."

A theft case is pending in Dallas County, where Martin is accused of bouncing a check for catering and space rental at the luxury hotel shortly after that event last year.

Check the link for the full story.

 

[Pallas]

Some people just want it all ... Good grief, that’s a lot of money for personal stuff.

 

[LegendOfKage]

Martin got "better and better at finding ways of spending our money," Randy Pitchford said.

As opposed to Pitchford, who got worse and worse at finding ways to spend Sega's money. Allegedly.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliens:_Colonial_Marines#Controversy

Colonial Marines drew a significant controversy.[75] According to a report, Gearbox had been moving people and resources off Colonial Marines onto Borderlands and Duke Nukem Forever while still collecting full payments from Sega as if they were working on the game.[76] When Sega discovered this misconduct, they temporarily canceled Colonial Marines, leading to the round of layoffs at Gearbox in late 2008.[75] Gearbox outsourced a significant portion of development to other developers to compensate for their mismanagement.[77] While Sega initially denied such outsourcing,[21] sources claimed otherwise, suggesting that the game was rushed through redesigns, certification and shipping, despite being largely unfinished.[77]

 

[Woo-Fu]

The real question is who reviews the credit card statements?

 

[Handy Fake]

The real question is who reviews the credit card statements?

It was meant to be Pitchford but he outsourced it to TimeGate Studios.

 

[McCheese]

Maybe the thief will return it to SEGA.

 

[Hendrick's]

How much does this guy have to have that much stolen and not notice?

 

[deriks]

Pitchford is the definition of bad luck in the industry

 

[bati]

How much does this guy have to have that much stolen and not notice?

That was my first thought as well. How do you not notice instantly that so much money goes missing?

 

[TheSHEEEP]

Hope the parties were worth it!

That was my first thought as well. How do you not notice instantly that so much money goes missing?

By not looking/not caring.
If I had shitloads of money, I wouldn't be looking at the details, either. At least not regularly.

 

[The Skull]

Don't suppose it's Sega taking the money back for Aliens colonial marines?

 

[Grinchy]

If he had kept that down to a few hundred grand, he would have gotten away with it.

 

[Nymphae]

Reading shit like that infuriates me - I cannot imagine treating someone else's money that way, particularly someone who has employed you in a pretty cushy little job.

On the other hand, how dumb do you have to be to not notice this is happening to you, and rectify the problem?

 

[TheUsual]

Reading shit like that infuriates me - I cannot imagine treating someone else's money that way, particularly someone who has employed you in a pretty cushy little job.

On the other hand, how dumb do you have to be to not notice this is happening to you, and rectify the problem?

It is pretty disgusting how people will take advantage of others when unchecked.

Reading this sounds like a lot of the money was being siphoned off from business accounts. Wouldn't there be an auditor to catch this stuff earlier (article is only saying a lot came from their AMEX business account card. Not sure if that's only for their restaurant. )

 

[The_Mike]

Hope the parties were worth it!


By not looking/not caring.
If I had shitloads of money, I wouldn't be looking at the details, either. At least not regularly.

That could explain your lack of wealth.

 

[jadedm17]

How much does this guy have to have that much stolen and not notice?

To extend on that : How much does one need to steal, like if he stopped at 2
Million would he be fine? 2.5? Crazy, I got anxiety the time I took a Monster from my work years ago.

 

[Zewp]

It is pretty disgusting how people will take advantage of others when unchecked.

Kinda like that time ol' Randy dropped the Colonial Marines turd on us.

 

[Jaxx_377]

You just gotta keep the withdrawals and spending in check lower amounts spread out. These rich people never keep track of their spending. You gotta remember one of the cardinal rules of grifting.

You can shear a sheep may times
but skin him only once.

 

[Douche McBaggins The 3rd]

Pitchford got battleborned right here. He got grifted good. Shook n took.

 

[Clear]

Kinda like that time ol' Randy dropped the Colonial Marines turd on us.

Sorry but SEGA were entirely to blame on that one. They knew what they were selling; they promoted, duplicated, and distributed it, and took their share of the profits. Turning around and saying "hey, Gearbox fucked us", was always horseshit because they made their problem, the consumer's problem.

This all occurred on SEGA's watch, supposedly a major publisher and platform holder, yet apparently so inept at managing its own products that it wasn't aware of the quality of milestone builds all the way to final. I'd also recommend people compare the rest of their output during that gen, did the makers of the various other stinkers they put out (like say, Golden Axe or Iron Man which both have sub-50% Metascores) rip them off too? Or was it simply a case of Sega's western production management being incapable of hosting a piss-up in a brewery?

Hint: I worked on an outsourced SEGA project during that time, and yes they were that bad.

 

[WaterAstro]

Wow, how hard is it to track your money?

This guy is such a con man. Hope they catch him, but it seems like they might not get the money back. Don't know where he kept the stuff he bought since he kept buying things.

 

[demigod]

I'd like to know how he bought a 600k house with his salary.

 

[Do Make Say Think]

I'd like to know how he bought a 600k house with his salary.

Might want to read up on the 2007 financial collapse.

 

[demigod]

Might want to read up on the 2007 financial collapse.

?
He bought the house in 2015. Unless he paid cash, its REALLY hard to buy a house in that range with his salary.

 

[MiguelItUp]

Sorry but SEGA were entirely to blame on that one. They knew what they were selling; they promoted, duplicated, and distributed it, and took their share of the profits. Turning around and saying "hey, Gearbox fucked us", was always horseshit because they made their problem, the consumer's problem.

This all occurred on SEGA's watch, supposedly a major publisher and platform holder, yet apparently so inept at managing its own products that it wasn't aware of the quality of milestone builds all the way to final. I'd also recommend people compare the rest of their output during that gen, did the makers of the various other stinkers they put out (like say, Golden Axe or Iron Man which both have sub-50% Metascores) rip them off too? Or was it simply a case of Sega's western production management being incapable of hosting a piss-up in a brewery?

Hint: I worked on an outsourced SEGA project during that time, and yes they were that bad.

Yes, but what happened to Timegate was more-so on Gearbox, and not SEGA. I've worked with people that were at TG during that period. Some very, very messy waters.

Not to mention I'll never forget what one of my directors told me when I was in my first industry gig. He said Pitchford was one of the biggest snakes he had ever met in his entire life.

I would never let them (Gearbox) off too easily.

 

[The Alien]

I guess you really cant say its karma ......ok, yes you can.

Nobody noticed a $600k house?

 

[blastprocessor]

Is this the largest theft ever cause that’s a crazy amount

 

[ipukespiders]

Calm down everyone and put down your pitchfords.

 

[Deleted member 738976]

Guess it's time to make Borderlands 3.

 

[bitbydeath]

?
He bought the house in 2015. Unless he paid cash, its REALLY hard to buy a house in that range with his salary.

He did pay cash didn’t he? Randy’s cash.

 

[EDMIX]

LOL, he didn't even just steal a bit, went around and stole 3 MILLION! lol, who isn't going to notice THAT massive discrepancy? Person was "assisting" themselves to dat bank vault!

 

[Red Crayon Aristocrat]

You reap what you sow.

 

[sol_bad]

Totally off topic but Gearbox isn't even top tier. Yet Randy makes so much money he doesn't realise 3 million of his own money went missing. How can anyone defend shitty monetization plans having this knowledge?

 

[LegendOfKage]

Guess it's time to make Borderlands 3.

It was time to do that five fucking years ago.

 

[Iced Arcade]

Someone is bad at managment

 

[halfHedge]

Magic.

 

[Clear]

Yes, but what happened to Timegate was more-so on Gearbox, and not SEGA. I've worked with people that were at TG during that period. Some very, very messy waters.

Not to mention I'll never forget what one of my directors told me when I was in my first industry gig. He said Pitchford was one of the biggest snakes he had ever met in his entire life.

I would never let them (Gearbox) off too easily.

For me its more about not allowing SEGA to fob off the blame for a mess entirely of their own making on somebody else. They could've contracted Satan himself to develop it and the fault would still be on their side. Pitchford may well be the biggest douche in the universe but he was not the one who PUBLISHED the game. It really is that simple.

 

[MiguelItUp]

For me its more about not allowing SEGA to fob off the blame for a mess entirely of their own making on somebody else. They could've contracted Satan himself to develop it and the fault would still be on their side. Pitchford may well be the biggest douche in the universe but he was not the one who PUBLISHED the game. It really is that simple.

It really isn't that simple, at least this particular situation isn't. I wish I could provide more information, but I can't as I was not directly involved in. I only know what I know through multiple members of the QA staff from Timegate that I've worked with.

I hear ya. It's easy to blame SEGA as they were apparently so incredibly hands off on the entire situation. But, personally, I still hold the blame of the situation primarily over Gearbox as they rendered and provided false/pre-rendered gameplay footage that got the fans hyped, myself included. Then they pushed the entire project onto a smaller developer and gave them an ungodly timeframe to complete the game which lead them to complete and utter failure. Just so they could work on something else in-house while ensuring it "got done".

All in all, I just prefer to blame GB over SEGA a bit more. It's unfortunate when publishers select a developer for a project, only to see that it underdelivers, and then they release it anyway. But who knows, when it comes to cost there are only so many companies out there that would be willing to pass it to another developer, or completely can it. I think just releasing it is a more common route, though I wish it wasn't.

Okay, I'm done with this topic here, I feel like we've gone a bit off the rails too much. My bad! Lol.

 

[Woo-Fu]

Someone is bad at managment

Cloud Imperium Games is hiring. Too soon?

 

[CloudStrife_ca]

Is that where V Bucks really go?

 

[Clear]

It really isn't that simple, at least this particular situation isn't. I wish I could provide more information, but I can't as I was not directly involved in. I only know what I know through multiple members of the QA staff from Timegate that I've worked with.

I hear ya. It's easy to blame SEGA as they were apparently so incredibly hands off on the entire situation. But, personally, I still hold the blame of the situation primarily over Gearbox as they rendered and provided false/pre-rendered gameplay footage that got the fans hyped, myself included. Then they pushed the entire project onto a smaller developer and gave them an ungodly timeframe to complete the game which lead them to complete and utter failure. Just so they could work on something else in-house while ensuring it "got done".

All in all, I just prefer to blame GB over SEGA a bit more. It's unfortunate when publishers select a developer for a project, only to see that it underdelivers, and then they release it anyway. But who knows, when it comes to cost there are only so many companies out there that would be willing to pass it to another developer, or completely can it. I think just releasing it is a more common route, though I wish it wasn't.

Okay, I'm done with this topic here, I feel like we've gone a bit off the rails too much. My bad! Lol.

While I agree this is a little off-topic, I'd argue it does have some relevance when it comes to public perception of the situation in question. I mean the whole A:CM thing has very much colored how people perceive Pitchford and by extension Gearbox, its the source of severe prejudice in some quarters.

Just to reiterate though; bad external production can wreck projects irrespective of the quality and work ethic of the developer involved. The evidence of carelessness and incompetence on SEGA's part is obvious in the final product, and as I mentioned it was hardly an outlier among their production slate around that time. Golden Axe, Iron Man, the PS3 port of Bayonetta, the list goes on.

The point I'd stress is that this suggests a pattern of mismanagement; the pro-SEGA argument being that A:CM fell way behind schedule because of Gearbox under-staffing the project, but I'd counter that based on my experience it seems equally plausible that feature-creep and flip-flopping on the part of SEGA's external production staff could alternatively be to blame for slipping. Bear in mind SEGA could have pulled the project and/or reassigned it to another dev all the way to the point where (based on what we've been told) they basically refused to pay milestones, and apparently handed over promotional duties to Gearbox directly. This last thing being a giant red-flag, why was the publisher not the one showing the game? Was the producer having a day off?

Regarding the Timegate situation, I can't speak to it other than to say that presumably management at that company signed off on the deal/schedule, and that the dev-time allotted was ultimately SEGA's, because again, they were the publisher. In the final analysis it was just another layer of outsourcing.

The bottom-line being of course that despite the saber-rattling and cries of foul on SEGA's part, as far as I'm aware no legal action was taken by them against Gearbox directly, and the developer was even dropped from the (failed) class-action suit for false advertising. That stuff's worth looking into btw as it really shows how shambolic SEGA's PR/management was throughout, as is the "Bryan Danielson" leak (the root of the Gearbox stole from SEGA story) but only if you factor in how evidently partisan the writer is, and the implicit portrayal of SEGA as being serially incompetent.

And with that, back to your scheduled thread discussion

 

[DonF]

He got pitchforded

 

[Stuart360]

God everything about Gearbox is so sleazy and awful to me lol, i can't stand them and wont buy their games anymore. I'll never forget the ALIENS debacle.

 

[Gander]

Greed.

He could have lived very comfortable on that salary and maybe asking them from time to time to borrow a little.

 

[MiguelItUp]

God everything about Gearbox is so sleazy and awful to me lol, i can't stand them and wont buy their games anymore. I'll never forget the ALIENS debacle.

Honestly I was never really a fan of theirs for awhile as Borderlands became their one trick pony so to speak. I thought it was a fine series, but found it dull rather quickly, then they just kept coming, haha. Yeah, then A:CM happened, and I'll never forgive them for that either.

There have been many an interview that paint Pitchford to be a pretty sleazy person. Someone that says one thing, yet hardly delivers what was ever really promised. More than once. Maybe even several times.

Still a shitty situation for him, I still can't understand how someone could get away with something like that, and so easily. Especially that sum of money.

 

[TheSHEEEP]

That could explain your lack of wealth.

*sniff* ;(

 

[dirthead]

Pitchford is the definition of bad luck in the industry

Fixed