Randy Pitchford has revealed something surprising over the weekend.
We just reported on the pre-order bonuses that you can get if you buy Borderlands 4 before its launch this Friday. There’s an extra special bonus at the Epic Game Store.
Mad Moxxi On Fortnite
A Mad Moxxi skin is joining the Psycho Bandit skin in Fortnite. If you pre-order Borderlands 4 at the Epic Game Store, you can get these items from the Mad Moxxi Bundle:
- Mad Moxxi (w/ Shader Off variant)
- Moxxi’s Tip Jar Back Bling
- Underdome Megaphone Pickaxe
As explained in the FAQ, you can use the items in this Mad Moxxi Bundle when playing Fortnite on consoles. You just need to log on to the same Epic/Fortnite account on the console that you are playing.
Randy Asks A Strange Question
Randy Pitchford noticed their Borderlands Twitter account promoting the Mad Moxxi skin. He quote tweeted them and asked this question:
Is it true that the pre-order incentive Psycho Bandit skin in became one of the most valuable skins in Fortnite sometimes fetching over $2k when trading on eBay?
What are the odds this bundle becomes worth much more than the price of the game it is promoting?
By asking this question, Randy revealed that he doesn’t know how Fortnite’s economy works at all. We’ll explain how this all breaks down, and what he may have heard.
How Fortnite’s Economy Works
Epic doesn’t allow players to sell skins to each other. The best they can do is gift a skin to another player, with no item being exchanged.
Furthermore, they can only gift a skin when it’s available in the Fortnite in-game market. Epic has basically thwarted any attempt fans would make to sell skins.
Why Randy’s Question Doesn’t Make Sense
Of course, there is one way to sell skins, and that would be if you sold your entire account to someone else. This may be what Randy heard about.
But even then, nobody would buy a Fortnite account to get that Psycho Bandit skin. Epic has brought back the skin, as well as multiple other skins, into their in-game store so that newer fans would get their chance.
Randy made this follow up tweet after seeing what fans told him:
I am honestly ignorant of how the Fortnite economy works. Nothing against Fortnite – I thought the game was super fun and cool.
I’ll try anything, but as a player I guess I’m mostly into big premium games and weird indie stuff.
We like to imagine that game developers are avid gamers themselves. Hideo Kojima and Masahiro Sakurai are famously voracious gamers. But not all game developers can play games to catch up with their peers that much.
But then, even if the Borderlands games are imperfect, we’ll make a bold prediction. We don’t think Randy has to worry about losing the Borderlands fandom by ‘losing touch’ with modern games. The looter shooter is an established genre, fans know what they want from Gearbox.
Early previews seem positive about what Gearbox has come up with this time, so Randy can keep away from the perils of live service yet.
