Borderlands 4 is out in the wild, and while it's enjoyed some critical and commercial success right at launch, its launch has also been a bit of a mess with technical issues galore. That's unfortunately not uncommon for major triple-A releases, but what hasn't been improving the situation is how Gearbox boss, Randy Pitchford, has been responding to it.
Pitchford has a history of making comments online to players that don't always go over so well, and we don't have to turn the clock back too far to remember the last time his comments caused a stir with Borderlands 4. Last time, it was about the game's price. This time, he's telling "4K stubborn" players that it's actually their fault that the game his studio released isn't running very well.
Most studios, when they launch a big game that has technical issues, put their heads down and get on with fixing it, and that's what Gearbox is doing, but most studios also don't have to deal with their boss going online and making players even more upset about the whole situation. It's not what anyone on the Gearbox team had in mind for launch, and as spotted by Gamesradar, it has Baldur's Gate 3's publishing director, Michael Douse, feeling bad for the rest of the team trying to get the game fixed, and ensure that players have the best experience possible.
"Just lock Randy in a cupboard for 6 months," Douse commented on X (formerly Twitter). When some responded that Pitchford is better off not being cut off, and that they prefer his honesty over an corporate-approved message, Douse agreed, but clarified, "I feel bad for his teams who are just trying really hard to make players happy."
On the one hand, Pitchford's brand of unmitigated honesty stands out because it's not what you hear from almost anyone else in the industry. Game development is hard, and Pitchford telling players to do it themselves if they think it's so easy isn't exactly an unfair response. Even the biggest studio with the biggest team is going to miss major and minor technical problems. It's not easy work, and players are often too quick to forget that.
But it's not like Borderlands 4 just has a few frame rate problems, and players are spending their hard-earned money on a game that should at least run without crashing. It's getting fixed, and that's great, but that doesn't take the sting away from knowing you've spent money on something broken. Though, as Pitchford has told players who have an issue with it, they can "Please get a refund from Steam" if they want.
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