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Randy Pitchford only has time for Colonial Marines praise, [losing money on Aliens]

And if you don't get my reference, it's because references only work if they are based on something a lot of people understand. Otherwise it's stealing.

Wah?

That's not how plagarism works.... (altought I agree in this case that it seems like stealing, but not because "referencing")
 
I was going to check out the Borderlands games at some point because I've heard good things, but fuck, I refuse to give money to this company after the Aliens fiasco and the tales and behavior surrounding it.
 

cyberheater

PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 Xbone PS4 PS4
Publishers would be fools to contract out to Gearbox after this.

Gearbox really got themselves into a pickle. They better hope Borderlands can sustain them.

I bought the first one but I'll not be buying anything else from Gearbox ever again. Not unless they publicly apologies and keep working on the game and release patches to fix it.
 

AkuMifune

Banned
Allusions can definitely be obscure without "stealing", and famous authors have used obscure allusions in the past. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allusion.

It's one thing to use an obscure allusion (use your allusion). Another to contact an artist, inquire about working together, never contact them again and then "allude" to their work.

But I'm not going to fight the lone salmon swimming upstream here. If you want to give him the benefit of the doubt, go ahead. To me, that stinks.
 
Publishers would be fools to contract out to Gearbox after this.

Gearbox really got themselves into a pickle. They better hope Borderlands can sustain them.

Eh, this is a bad story for them, but not terrible.

Sega probably won't work with them again unless they can really put the whip to them, but most publishers are probably going to assume they are getting a Borderlands and not a Colonial Marines.
 

dEvAnGeL

Member
people need to vote with their wallets, im done with gearbox products, borderlands is a fun game but by no means its an excuse for the crap they have pull twice already, shame, real shame
 
The thing I don't get about this whole situation is in order to get milestone cheques you have to deliver milestone builds. This is how the publisher evaluates what a developer is doing and how the project is going. Sega might've initially been unaware of Gearbox shifting employees away from A:CM to Borderlands but Gearbox had milestones to deliver and agreed upon goals to reach with each milestone build. Sega would have known something was going horribly awry when the milestone goals were continually not met, goals kept slipping, getting pushed back and the progress shown in the milestone builds was worrisome or unsatisfying. If Sega cancelled the game back in 2008, they knew what was up, the question is why did they throw good money after bad. Borderlands success? Betting on Gearbox's new found e-cred?

Everyone in this situation is an asshole, Sega, Gearbox and Timegate. It's just that Gearbox are the biggest ones because they're at the epicenter of it all. Randy Pitchford may have been the one sitting there, pimping the game at press events, lying to consumers with a vertical slice that is in no way indicative of the final product...but all parties involved knew. Sega knew. They're all complicit. This is such a shit show.
 

thumb

Banned
It's one thing to use an obscure allusion (use your allusion). Another to contact an artist, inquire about working together, never contact them again and then "allude" to their work.

But I'm not going to fight the lone salmon swimming upstream here. If you want to give him the benefit of the doubt, go ahead. To me, that stinks.

I hear you on the business argument. But we have only heard one side of this. And all the artist said is that they had contacted him to potentially direct some cut scenes. That's it. That request doesn't preclude them from alluding to his work, however awkward it may be in retrospect. Anyhow, I don't want to derail this conversation. Thanks for considering my points.
 

AkuMifune

Banned
Also, I feel sorry for Sega, but I don't. Gearbox is like the teenager in high school that has the really old parents who had him late in their lives and he gets away with all kinds of shit and just lies to their faces and they have no clue whatsoever.

"That's great dear! Enjoy church at midnight on a Friday!"

Or something.
 
After all of this demo betrayal, I wish him all the worst for his personal career. This twitter farce is just another piece of the ugly puzzle.
 
Pretty low and disgraceful thing for someone of his standing to do ... I can't wait for the full truth to come out further down the line ...
 

Kuroyume

Banned
They're a lousy developer. Boderlands comes around and all of the sudden people think everything they touch would turn into gold.

I wouldn't blame them for DNF forever though... That may be the one good thing they did. Finally got that game out and killed the curiosity.
 

Evolved1

make sure the pudding isn't too soggy but that just ruins everything
I hear you on the business argument. But we have only heard one side of this. And all the artist said is that they had contacted him to potentially direct some cut scenes. That's it. That request doesn't preclude them from alluding to his work, however awkward it may be in retrospect. Anyhow, I don't want to derail this conversation. Thanks for considering my points.

I recommend you read the articles about gearbox's "eleventh hour" art direction change for borderlands... read their own words and how they take credit for it.

It is so gross.

Maybe in a little while I'll dig up the articles and post some quotes.
 

Wallach

Member
Nice heel turn, Randy. Can't wait to see him cut a promo about Colonial Marines 2 and how you're going to buy it even if you don't like it.
 
Randy Pitchford = Carter Burke (screwing people over for a percentage)

Awesome.

Honestly, I know it sucks but seriously in the interest of your company, Randy, tackle this shit head on. Grow a pair of balls, and address the games issues and critical reception. People will respect you for it, and maybe even buy one of your games down the line. As of now, you have a huge number of burnt customers.
 

Loxley

Member
They're a lousy developer. Boderlands comes around and all of the sudden people think everything they touch would turn into gold.

I wouldn't blame them for DNF forever though... That may be the one good thing they did. Finally got that game out and killed the curiosity.

Not that I'm defending Gearbox, but again, their Brothers in Arms games were genuinely great (with the exception of certain parts of Hell's Highway). In a time when there was a new WW2 shooter coming out every week, the BIA games managed to stand out as something unique and interesting.
 
Maybe the profiles are from fans who wanted their positive comments to be heard over the negative backlash the game is getting. Saying that they're fake profiles seems like a stretch.
 

Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
Couple of basic observations based on Jim's (blatant hatchet-job) piece on Destructoid

Regarding chair-swaps. Standard practice and a necessity for all independent developers running multiple concurrent-projects. Bottom line is that milestone payments are always made based on the proviso that the deliverables are provided to the publishers satisfaction.

So, if the designated progress isn't being made, the publisher is entitled to withhold payment or cancel the project altogether. At every step, its up to them. If Sega's external producer(s) wasn't up to the task... fault is still on them.

As to the alleged surprise factor of the title shipping; once again you need to question how Sega arrived at the decision to launch, and how many bugs were KS'd in order to get the title in shape to pass platform lot-checking.

Point being: I really couldn't give a toss about Gearbox or Randy Pitchford specifically. It just bugs me that people are rushing to blame them so squarely when everything points to it being SEGA's fault!
 

Yasae

Banned
Most writers / musicians / directors don't publicly taunt their naysayers by dismissing criticism.
Musicians typically don't lie about what's on the album. WTF is the point of that? Movie trailers lie (though usually not in content) but there's 15 gazillion of them and we know they only show the movie in the best possible light. Pitchford is a director, and while his enthusiasm is an excellent directorial quality, this under-the-rug twitter sweeping is crazy.

I just don't understand how you can be that close to a game and not take proper responsibility for its quality to some extent. See: delusional.
 

Recall

Member
Maybe the profiles are from fans who wanted their positive comments to be heard over the negative backlash the game is getting. Saying that they're fake profiles seems like a stretch.

Fans making new accounts just to have their positive opinions heard sounds like the stretch. Seriously that sounds absurd.
 
Can't believe borderlands stole their look

Also shocked that they stole olly moss zig zag lines for the posters. Just flat out stole them

Never buying a gearbox game
 
Point being: I really couldn't give a toss about Gearbox or Randy Pitchford specifically. It just bugs me that people are rushing to blame them so squarely when everything points to it being SEGA's fault!
If it bothers you that much then don't come in threads about it.

Gearbox developed the game, Gearbox get the blame.

I agree though, SEGA shouldn't have kept giving the hacks at Gearbox more money. It should have been shut down for good in 2008.
 
I was going to check out the Borderlands games at some point because I've heard good things, but fuck, I refuse to give money to this company after the Aliens fiasco and the tales and behavior surrounding it.
Buy it used, no money to GB, and you get to play a fun game. That's what I'd do
 
Point being: I really couldn't give a toss about Gearbox or Randy Pitchford specifically. It just bugs me that people are rushing to blame them so squarely when everything points to it being SEGA's fault!

There seem two be two camps, not necessarily mutually exclusive, here: those that dislike Gearbox for the game being shit, and those that dislike Pitchford and upper-management for being snake oil salesman. I have no doubt Sega was inept in their overseeing role as publisher, but that shouldn't excuse Gearbox's actions. 6 years this game has been announced for (and who knows how long in development, since it was a PS2 game originally) and Gearbox were able to bring out Borderlands and its sequel -- and "polish" DNF -- in this time, but we are expected to believe they didn't funnel the funds into their own IP a la Silicon Knights and Free Radical?

Stealing from the stupid doesn't make it any less deplorable.
 
Publishers would be fools to contract out to Gearbox after this.

Gearbox really got themselves into a pickle. They better hope Borderlands can sustain them.

Or you know... come up with better contracts that don't allow this sort of company behavior?

2K and Ubisoft seemed to make out just fine with them...
 
Hum...Ubisoft might have figured something out when they dropped Brothers in Arms: Furious 4.

First off, gearbox released at least 3 BiA titles under Ubisoft, where were Ubisoft's complaints then when the games seemed have both critical and commercial success?

Secondly, unless you have proof that Ubisoft dumped their BiA contract because of shady company dealings, than I am not sure you can even make this argument. That being said, the last I heard, Furious 4 was still in development, just no longer a BiA game.
 
"Pay for our education"?

What the fuck. Is he implying that he should be making profit whilst it dawns on Gearbox that they made a shit game? I don't even understand that quote, albeit twitter is ambiguous at the best of times.
 

antitrop

Member
"Pay for our education"?

What the fuck. Is he implying that he should be making profit whilst it dawns on Gearbox that they made a shit game? I don't even understand that quote, albeit twitter is ambiguous at the best of times.
Basically, "We will use Aliens: Colonial Marines as a learning experience and move on from it" and "We're not making a profit on this game".

Both are which are questionable statements in their legitimacy.
 
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