Gearbox CEO Sounds like a Jerk in Conference Speech

Being the upstanding American citizens that you are, I bet you didn’t know there was a game development conference happening this week in Brighton, UK. Well, since I’m currently in Europe and being a treasonous hound to my fellow Americans, let me be the one to inform you, so you can keep your hands unstained. It’s called the Develop conference, and today, Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford decided it was the perfect venue to make an ass of himself.

Gearbox, as you might know, has been having some strange years. As the developers behind Borderlands, they’re doing quite well… but they were also the developers behind two disappointing critical flops, Aliens: Colonial Marines and Duke Nukem Forever—the latter of which wasn’t just bad but outright hateful in its humor and attitude.

Well, those failures apparently haven’t been sitting well with Mr. Pitchford, who took the opportunity to attribute the negative press that surrounded the game to sadists. And I quote:
 

"There is always the person who's got to stand on the sandcastle, they must crush it. That's their way of relating to that. It's typically a less sophisticated mind. There's a dark part of us all that likes the idea of crushing a sandcastle, but most of us will respect it and let it be. If you're making entertainment on a grand scale, if you're reaching millions, there will be tens of thousands of people who absolutely hate us, and some percentage of those will take it upon themselves to let us known how they feel. I read it in this way: we moved those people, we touched them - even the person who hates [your game] so much, you've affected them. That's why we fight, we're creating emotion and experience - and some people thrive on that type of feeling, some people are sadists."

 
Right, so, the games weren’t broken, hateful, unfun or crude: people just wanted to piss on his parade. Okay, fine, fair enough, the guy has faith in his company’s product. But… maybe a little bit too much faith, because not soon after he decried the haters, he came out with another surprise announcement.
 

"I did not acquire the [Duke Nukem] franchise merely so people could experience Duke Nukem Forever. That was, sort of, the toll to pay to give Duke Nukem a chance at a future. So yes. In fact, we've done some concept development. The challenge is that Gearbox is very busy. A faster way would be if the correct developer would become interested and we'd work with them."

Or, to translate, "We didn’t realize we had bought a sinking ship, and we’d like someone else to take the wheel." Perhaps I’m being a little cynical, all things considered, but this guy certainly picked a weird time to talk to the world about his most famous failures. The way I see it, he could have focused on these two games—which were horrible and deserve their reputations—or he could have spoken about Borderlands. Or Battleborne, their upcoming new game. But instead, he lingered and made himself look like something of an aloof jerk in the process.

But then, he must be doing something right, so I guess I’ll just have to sit tight, wait for “Duke Nukem Foreverer: Eternity Edition” to see what kind of sand castle I’m going to be standing on next.