Friday, June 27th 2025
Gearbox CEO Hints Borderlands 4 Discounts a Long Time Coming
Gearbox Entertainment CEO, Randy Pitchford, seems unable to keep his foot out of his mouth when it comes to the launch and pricing of Borderlands 4. A recent comment regarding the possibility of an $80 launch price already landed him in hot water with the gaming community, although that was resolved shortly after that when the launch price for the new looter shooter was revealed. Now, however, Pitchford has taken to X once more to comment about the pricing of Borderlands 4, this time potentially raining on the parade of patient gamers who are generally happy to wait out the launch hype in search of a better deal. However, despite Pitchford's proclamation, Borderlands 3 was available for significantly less than the launch price as little as a year after release.
In his post on X, Pitchford called out a current Steam Summer Sale deal on Borderlands 3, saying that it took "over 5 years" to get similar discounts and for the game to reach subscription services, and that it will take even longer for Borderlands 4. "And to set expectations, it will be even longer before this kind of thing happens in the next cycle with Borderlands 4," obviously, it's unclear how the community will react to Borderlands 4, but Borderlands 3 launched in 2019 and was already 50% off by May 2020, according to SteamDB. The price dropped by another 25%, for a total discount of 75%, in November 2021, and it was given away as a free game on the Epic Games Store in May 2022.
Sources:
Randy Pitchford on X, SteamDB
In his post on X, Pitchford called out a current Steam Summer Sale deal on Borderlands 3, saying that it took "over 5 years" to get similar discounts and for the game to reach subscription services, and that it will take even longer for Borderlands 4. "And to set expectations, it will be even longer before this kind of thing happens in the next cycle with Borderlands 4," obviously, it's unclear how the community will react to Borderlands 4, but Borderlands 3 launched in 2019 and was already 50% off by May 2020, according to SteamDB. The price dropped by another 25%, for a total discount of 75%, in November 2021, and it was given away as a free game on the Epic Games Store in May 2022.
33 Comments on Gearbox CEO Hints Borderlands 4 Discounts a Long Time Coming
I mean, just look at Sekiro and Dark Souls games, still $60 and $40 respectively (for DS2). IMO that's just crazy. Dark Souls 2 was released over 10 years ago and is still $40 on steam.
It feels pretty crummy to be a customer nowadays. You don't own your games and you seem more and more companies attacking the one good thing digital games had, sales.
Thankfully indie's exist, they have been the strongest part of the industry for awhile now.
By all rights we should be able to wait the publishers out.
I'm pretty small fry at 350 games in my library, I've played and beaten ~150 of them. And that's over 20+ years.
Game pricing has been getting a lot stickier and it's undoubtedly a collective effort by publishers to try and train gamers out of the "sale" mindset Steam worked everyone into.
For example: Does anyone even know/care about the gameplay or story of Bl4, right now? All the discussion and controversy is seemingly centered around pricing and Pitchford's commentary :confused:
After trying Bl3, I wasn't at all interested in a Bl4. But, because of the artificial controversy, I'm regularly reminded of 4's existence. :shadedshu:
Rage engagement hasn't been working very well the last half decade. People are sick of it.
And then BL3 and the spin-off both flopped on PC after being Epic exclusives. Not saying EGS is the only reason, but not saying it's not a reason as part of a group of reasons.
The AAA industry is pushing towards services - they want the maximized sale price and whatever doesn't sell like that, still gets sold to service providers, so people can play it in some shitty subscription for X time.
I simply present my middle finger and move on. Tons of stuff to play and find wherever I want. I'll invest my money in the developers that truly earn it - as in, the proceeds will be going to new projects and decent pay, and not shareholders dreams that exist mainly to kill off creativity I thought I used to pay for.
They can shove their corporate shit right back in their mouths.BL3 flopped because this franchise ran out of ideas after (during?) part 2.
EGS might have had something to do with, but it can't be much.
And BL4... will meet the same fate.
As far as I'm concerned this is a dead franchise. Call of Duty / FIFA crowd material at this point.
They make most of their money in the 1st couple of months. Stop making a drama out of everything.
Really not in a rush, I have at least Dune, mgs delta, death rising 2, DK, metroid prime 4 in my backlog this year
And then there are complete muppets like Frank Azor who needs to F off asap.
I avoid purchasing any game on Steam/EA/Ubisoft/EGS and I don't give my money to third parties that provide keys to these platforms either (such as Humble Bundle, Fanatical and so on). If a game I want isn't coming out on GoG (a place I can actually have control over how I use the game; download the files to my side for storage, install the files when I want without needing to even be online or need some form of DRM and install them where I want) then I won't pay money towards it.
I'd love to have games come back to a physical medium, but even then that can bring issues of DRM into play with software such as SecuRom or still requiring a link to a digital platform such as Steam. This is why I feel GoG is leaps and bounds better over physical media and why I only support GoG.
To each their own, but you can't complain about the issues of not owning your games if you're part of the problem. Sadly, most people are okay with giving up owning products for the small convenience of having access to things from anywhere they are.
Like movies/shows that stay on streaming services and no longer are sold on DVD/Blu-ray. I don't want to be forced to paying a continuous fee to a rental company (streaming service) to access shows/movies I like. I end up finding places to buy pirated shows from on disc so I have them when I want to use them. I can play them on my dvd players and copy them to my server to view when I want to from where I want to. I'd much rather have my money go to the studios that created the content, but if they're not willing to sell them on disc, then I guess some other third party will get money for it.
As for Borderlands 4, I won't waste my money on it. The original was fun and the second one was pretty good, but the pre-sequal and third one sucked so I'm not about to let my brother (who will one day want to buy us copies on Steam) waste his money on a crappy franchise. There are better games out there worthy of his and my money, Borderlands 4 isn't one of them.
They have updated all their games Terms of Service, turning this game (Borderlands 3) as well as all of their other games into literal spyware.
Important Info in Terms of Service:
• Mods are a bannable offense
• Display of Cheats/Exploits is bannable
• Forced arbitration clause and a waiver of class action and jury trial rights for all users residing in the United States and any other territory other than Australia, Switzerland, The United Kingdom, or The Territories of The European Economic Area
• You can be banned for using a VPN while connecting to online servers
• Cannot access game content on a Virtual PC
Collected Data Types:
• Identifiers / Contact Information: Name, user name, gamertag, postal and email address, phone number, unique IDs, mobile device ID, platform ID, gaming service ID, advertising ID (IDFA, Android ID) and IP address
• Protected Characteristics: Age and gender
• Commercial Information: Purchase and usage history and preferences, including gameplay information
• Billing Information: Payment information (credit / debit card information) and shipping address
• Internet / Electronic Activity: Web / app browsing and gameplay information related to the Services; information about your online interaction(s) with the Services or our advertising; and details about the games and platforms you use and other information related to installed applications
• Device and Usage Data: Device type, software and hardware details, language settings, browser type and version, operating system, and information about how users use and interact with the Services (e.g., content viewed, pages visited, clicks, scrolls)
• Profile Inferences: Inferences made from your information and web activity to help create a personalized profile so we can identify goods and services that may be of interest
• Audio / Visual Information: Account photos, images, and avatars, audio information via chat features and functionality, and gameplay recordings and video footage (such as when you participate in playtesting)
• Sensitive Information: Precise location information (if you allow the Services to collect your location), account credentials (user name and password), and contents of communications via chat features and functionality.