Gearbox CEO Hints Borderlands 4 Discounts a Long Time Coming

[Cpt.Jank]

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.


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[TheinsanegamerN]

So the great liar Pitchford decided to shove his feet in his mouth again, eh? Borderlands 3 went on sale early because it's sales were very disappointing. Given the controversy, unless borderlands 4 finds a well of people willing to line up, the sales will be coming, and fast.

 

[Grimling]

so 80$ for the first Act to get started, then the rest of the game will release as DLCs for another 300$?

 

[Event Horizon]

This guy is letting his entire team down. This is why most companies let PR/marketing handle the social media accounts.

 

[Mrgravia]

so 80$ for the first Act to get started, then the rest of the game will release as DLCs for another 300$?

Which is why I won't be picking this up till the "game of that year" edition releases.

 

[JIWIL]

This guy seems pretty intent on not selling me his game.

 

[HeadRusch1]

Steam Sale $14.99 within the first 18 months.

 

[dia6olo]

I'm quite happy to wait as long as it takes, I haven't paid full price for any game in as long as I can remember, probably well over 10 years and I'm not about to start now, the max I now pay for games is around £25 and I can't even remember when I last paid that much!

 

[SSGBryan]

Which is why I won't be picking this up till the "game of that year" edition releases.

That has been my policy for years - I'm fine letting everyone else be the beta testers.

 

[evernessince]

That has been my policy for years - I'm fine letting everyone else be the beta testers.

Unfortunately, I've been seeing more and more developers keeping pricing high. They realized that if brands like Fromsoft, Activision, and Nintendo can continue to charge $30 - $60 years after launch, so can they.

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.

 

[mechtech]

Well all I have to say to that is

 

[GodisanAtheist]

Unfortunately, I've been seeing more and more developers keeping pricing high. They realized that if brands like Fromsoft, Activision, and Nintendo can continue to charge $30 - $60 years after launch, so can they.

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.

-Thats why it's important for folks to actually play some of those hundreds to thousands of games they've collected. I don't have much hope for gamers on this front, but I'd bet anyone who'se been at this for a while has already collected more games than they will realistically have a chance to play over their lives.

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.

 

[INSTG8R]

Then as a longtime fan an owner of every BL so far it will be long time until he'll ever see my money. I buy all the CoDs just for the SP Pal, trust me I can wait for a sale...

 

[LabRat 891]

This guy is letting his entire team down. This is why most companies let PR/marketing handle the social media accounts.

I hold 0 admiration for the tactic (or the person in-question) but, I'm 99% sure Pitchford is all-in on 'ragebait marketing'. Basically, "any publicity is good publicity" of old, mixed with "rage drives engagement" of today. Add-in a little controlled opposition, and you've got AAA Marketing that self-propagates (read: viral) while keeping attention away from more-legitimate criticisms.
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

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.

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

I hold 0 admiration for the tactic (or the person in-question) but, I'm 99% sure Pitchford is all-in on 'ragebait marketing'. Basically, "any publicity is good publicity" of old, mixed with "rage drives engagement" of today. Add-in a little controlled opposition, and you've got AAA Marketing that self-propagates (read: viral) while keeping attention away from more-legitimate criticisms.
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

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.

We've already seen the conversation about the story, the talking point now is "the story doesn't matter gameplay actually matters" which signals to me that the story sucks rocks.

Rage engagement hasn't been working very well the last half decade. People are sick of it.

 

[Event Horizon]

I hold 0 admiration for the tactic (or the person in-question) but, I'm 99% sure Pitchford is all-in on 'ragebait marketing'. Basically, "any publicity is good publicity" of old, mixed with "rage drives engagement" of today. Add-in a little controlled opposition, and you've got AAA Marketing that self-propagates (read: viral) while keeping attention away from more-legitimate criticisms.
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

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.

It's possible but I think that might be giving him too much credit. He's just a rude loud-mouth clown. He's good at one thing: uniting people against him.

 

[HisDivineOrder]

So the great liar Pitchford decided to shove his feet in his mouth again, eh? Borderlands 3 went on sale early because it's sales were very disappointing. Given the controversy, unless borderlands 4 finds a well of people willing to line up, the sales will be coming, and fast.

I'm pretty sure he also went all-in on Epic Game Store previously because his fellow head-up-his-butt Tim Sweeney and he were convinced Steam's as easy to copy as putting up a store and saying, "Open for business" with a few freebies to lure all the idiots over.

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.

 

[Vayra86]

Unfortunately, I've been seeing more and more developers keeping pricing high. They realized that if brands like Fromsoft, Activision, and Nintendo can continue to charge $30 - $60 years after launch, so can they.

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.

This is why the old playbook needs to be used again.

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.

I'm pretty sure he also went all-in on Epic Game Store previously because his fellow head-up-his-butt Tim Sweeney and he were convinced Steam's as easy to copy as putting up a store and saying, "Open for business" with a few freebies to lure all the idiots over.

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.

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.

 

[Bomby569]

that seems like a normal thing to say, please don't wait for sale buy now, sales will never come, trust me bro. Inb4 sales are coming because units sold have dropped.
They make most of their money in the 1st couple of months. Stop making a drama out of everything.

 

[b1k3rdude]

Which is why I won't be picking this up till the "game of that year" edition releases.

This, and its what I did for 1-3 and playing them with steam in offline mode toavoid the the epic online services b$. And if the latter trick dosent work, then it will be of to the high seas for me.

 

[sephiroth117]

Then my purchase will be a long time coming.

Really not in a rush, I have at least Dune, mgs delta, death rising 2, DK, metroid prime 4 in my backlog this year

 

[ZoneDymo]

This guy is letting his entire team down. This is why most companies let PR/marketing handle the social media accounts.

and yet, from Gamers Nexus, its often much more honest and therefor better to talk to the engineers rathen the PR who has no clue what they are talking about.
And then there are complete muppets like Frank Azor who needs to F off asap.

 

[Quicks]

Crazy if he thinks this game or any game for that matter is worth 80$, will wait for the 25$ discount.

 

[RogueSix]

Which is why I won't be picking this up till the "game of that year" edition releases.

Yep. GOTY and a DEEP sale. I don't care how long it takes. I got time and patience (and an insane backlog ).

 

[neatfeatguy]

Unfortunately, I've been seeing more and more developers keeping pricing high. They realized that if brands like Fromsoft, Activision, and Nintendo can continue to charge $30 - $60 years after launch, so can they.

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.

The adage "vote with your wallet" does work, but only if enough people do it.

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.