Randy Pitchford has made some new comments about Borderlands 4 that may have derailed Gearbox’s hype train.
On Twitter, a fan using the handle oldgoldsot asked Randy this question:
Randy, this game better not be 80 dollars. Don’t take that risk, alot of gamers aren’t gonna pay 80 dollars and feed this notion of constant increase of the price tag
You are the CEO, you have some say with the price when it comes to your publisher
Randy then provided this now infamous response:
A) Not my call.
B) If you’re a real fan, you’ll find a way to make it happen. My local game store had Starflight for Sega Genesis for $80 in 1991 when I was just out of high school working minimum wage at an ice cream parlor in Pismo Beach and I found a way to make it happen.
Starflight was a space exploration game originally released on IBM PC compatibles in 1986. Like Star Control II, this extremely ambitious game brings in combat, diplomacy, trading, and open sandbox gameplay.
Randy is alluding to the game’s sole console port to the Sega Genesis, which released in 1991, a year before Star Control II’s debut. While you’ll find many fans who’ve heard of Star Control II, possibly because of its reputation as one of the greatest games of all time, Starflight came first, and it’s the only one between the two that came to consoles.
Randy is making a point that he believes Borderlands 4 promises such a huge experience, that gamers would be willing to buy it, in the same way that he was willing to pay $ 80 for Starflight back in the day. In fact, if we adjust it for inflation, Randy paid the equivalent of $ 188.43 today to get Starflight in 1993.
Now that we’ve taken the time to understand the point Randy was trying to make, we can talk about how transparently bad this response was. It’s coming weeks after Liberation Day tariffs ended with a deal between the US and China, but not before upending the global economy. We don’t know if oldgoldsot is American or not, but either way, gamers are facing a lot of FUD about if they can afford video games. Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa told investors that American gamers were worried about being able to afford basic necessities.
So this comes across as incredibly insensitive, but what’s even frustrating is the first point. If Randy had simply left it with saying he didn’t get to decide Borderlands 4’s price, that would have ended this conversation with oldgoldsot. We don’t even know if Borderlands 4 will actually cost $ 80, as you may have noticed Randy didn’t even confirm or deny that.
But there is one final thing that could work in Randy’s favor in this regard. Because as insensitive and tone deaf this statement comes across, it’s possible that he’s just correct. And Randy may know this because he knows the industry data, and he’s the only person willing to say it in public (and in this way). This certainly wouldn’t be the first time that online discourse around gaming turned about to be fake and bogus. But for the sake of American gamers who were worrying about basic necessities, even if they won’t hinder Borderlands 4’s success, Randy should have simply not said this.
