Pitchford Blocked Me

Among the sea of abuse and hate being directed at him on Twitter, I tweeted Randy Pitchford asking many times (as have countless others) what the deal was with Colonial Marines.

All of his tweets since the games release have been dropping shift codes, not much insight as to the problem.

He finally tweeted today saying his twitter was only for positive feedback or some such shit. I replied stating that he was essentially putting his fingers in his ears about a bad product his company shipped. Lo and behold, little old me actually got a reply saying "we have countless paths for feedback and are learning many lessons. My personal twitter is my own. Also, blocked..."

Yes his personal twitter is his own, I am after his personal opinion.

Is this guy for real? I wasn't trying to stir up shit or hate on him, I genuinely wanted to know what on earth happened as I'm sure many people do. The level of maturity he has displayed is frankly beyond belief.

I'm sure when someone in the game press finally gets a sit down with him he will completely pass on any A:CM questions.

Douchebag.

It's his personal twitter and if he doesn't want to deal with brats then he doesn't have to.

EDIT:

Also, he just said this;

Randy Pitchford ‏@DuvalMagic

"You're welcome to say whatever you want, of course. Know that I will tend to block users who I believe are not offering value, but injury."

That pretty well sums it up.

Yeah, that guy is a "pitch" man that will try to sell you on anything. But when can he do motherfucker gotta eat. Also fuck Gearbox straight up lied to THE CONSUMER with fake screens and fake demos

I think he was being pretty reasonable to be honest. I don't have to respond to people who annoy me on my twitter why should he? If you think he has a responsibility to make a comment fine but like he said twitter is not the place.

Also

You don't have the right to demand it from him. Also grow up.

@jasonr86: Then why does he plaster his company and games all over his personal twitter? How am I a brat please?

I don't know why you are even bothering. The fact that the dude went out and said all he said about the game, being his dream project and all that, and then what they did shows he doesn't really care what is said in public from him.

I would find something better to do with your time. I think we all know the shady things Gearbox did and they've caught plenty of blowback.

Well, you can exactly expect him on a public forum to bad mouth the game while they are trying to sell the damn thing. In a year or so from now I'm sure we'll hear him talk more about the failings of the game. You are right though he could be handling the criticism better.

DuvalMagic has lost his charm!

Randy Pitchford's twitter hasn't had anything insightful or interesting as long as I've read it. I actually don't know why I still follow it. Guess I'll go unfollow now.

I don't think you can call it your personal twitter if you use it to promote your company and their products. Giving out codes is real personal guys.

@theguy: Grow up? I'm sorry?! I'm npt trying to antagonise the guy I just want to hear what on earth happened with the game just like everyone else!

But he's obviously not going to say that while the game just came out. You're wasting your time.

Find something else to do man.

@mikkaq said:

I don't know. I would call it personal because it is up to his discretion to decide what he does or doesn't do with it. If he wants to promote his company then so be it. It's his choice. Also if he doesn't want to deal with angry people trying to drag a response out of him then that's his deal to. I think the part that is obnoxious about this whole thing is the OP's people that he is owed a response from Pitchford and that, since he didn't, he's a "douchebag". As I said before the dude sounds like a brat.

lol. As if he's gonna talk to you. No offence but face the harsh reality that you are a nobody. If and when he feels like making a comment about A:CM it will be plastered across IGN or Gamespot or another tabloid pos website. He will eventually comment on the game as it will drive a few more sales and keep it in the press for another week.

I find this whole debacle almost worse than Mass Effect ending. But maybe that's because I never assumed an Alien game was going to be good in the first place. And even if I did, I wouldn't hassle Randy Pitchford on twitter because I needed some form of "explanation." I just either a; wouldn't buy the game. Or b, if I did, chalk it up to a poor purchasing decision.

Entitled people are the worst.

His and Gearbox's whole handling of the situation has been extremely bad from the get go. He's only digging himself deeper and deeper into the untrustworthy hole that he's been in since the 2011 E3 demo.

He does seem a bit "sensitive"

I think what they did is rather disgusting, but it's the mans personal account. If people are being dicks and harassing him then he can do what he wants

Are we seriously debating a person blocking another person on Twitter?

The end is truly near.

Maybe he doesn't want thousands of people harassing him 24/7? Maybe you should give the guy some fucking breathing room?

why would randy pitchford want to tell you? why do you feel you are entitled to an answer? you aren't a journalist, just a guy being annoying/possibly rude with a bunch of other guys on twitter.

if you want to know what happened to the project there is a ton of stuff documenting that

Why do you think he should give a shit what you think? Why do you think he owes you an explanation? He doesn't. He certainly seems like a douchebag (that become evident following DNF), and his company made another shit game (which apparently a bunch of suckers actually bought). You know what though? It happens. Move on. No one owes you an answer. It's not his job to field questions from random people on Twitter. I'd have blocked you too.

I'd have to agree with the OP here. When Borderlands 2 came out, they told us that one of the best ways to get Shift codes was to follow Randy on Twitter. I, like many others, did. I can tell many others did by how fast some of those codes went. Now with all those followers he's advertising A:CM through a means which we were directed to via another Gearbox Gearbox product. So when he advertises his game there, and that game turns out terrible and extremely misleading from things that they were saying, i.e. the whole "dream project" thing, he's filtering negative input behind the excuse that it's his personal Twitter.

He can do whatever he wants with his Twitter. I don't want to sound rude, but you should really get over it. He doesn't have to give out his personal opinion if he doesn't want to.

His job depends on this product selling well. Do you really think he's going to say anything negative about it on the largest public forum in the world? I know I wouldn't.

Maybe I'm just cynical, but the fact that you didn't quote the tweet you sent to Randy Pitchford makes me think you were probably being kind of an asshole. You took the time to quote his response, but you brush over the tweet you sent him. Without knowing the context for why he blocked you, it's impossible to say one way or the other whether he was right or wrong.

And that's totally fine. It's great, in fact.

But it's the fact that I did get a reply stating he would block me.

I could honestly give 2 shits what the guy thinks about me. Frankly, I don't care.

What I do care about is having a game previewed, promised and advertised as one thing and the final product people bought being something completely different. In business that's pretty much fraud and as CEO of the company that developed it he should comment on the issue at hand and not stick his fingers in his ears.

I'm not trying to flame him or spam him or hate on him or whatever it is people do on the internet. I just want to know why the game turned out the way it did.

He should give a shit what I think because I am his customer.

Anyway, too much internet for one day. Pub!

Someone on Jeff's tumblr compared Randy to a used car salesman. Its a fitting description. Overly enthusiastic but obviously doesn't believe his own crap.

As for getting answer for why A:CM is terrible it's not gonna happen while the game is still brand new and trying to sell. Wait a year of two and there will probably be some sort of lengthy post-mortem detailing what went wrong.

Ha ha what. You can get mad at someone for not personally apologizing to you about everything you don't like? Doooope.

Does Spielberg have a twitter? Because I thought Lincoln was a little slow and I'm his customer so he should explain the pacing issues to me.

What did you expect him to do? The guy's blocking people like Jim Streling so he isn't going to respond kindly to these questions. I don't agree with the guy but he can do what he wants with his twitter. Also creating a thread about this is silly.

Because it being personal means he can do whatever he wants with it. Even if it were an official Gearbox Twitter account, it wouldn't be OBLIGATED to answer your questions about the quality of a recently released product. You might think it's bad business, but it is what it is.

He doesn't want to respond to big questions like that on Twitter, especially about something as sensitive and recent as this Aliens thing. That's smart business, to make sure all of your official responses are filtered through PR or Media Trainers. That's what those people are paid for.

And you think we got answers from Bioware with all the ending thing? Them being very open to the fans/customers and all we didn´t. You think that he would actually tell you the minutia of the game´s development? Also I think all you people take twitter to seriously (or like how many people get into trouble from posting on it ... its friiggin internet , who gives a damn???? D:

There's not a single CEO out there who uses their Twitter account for personal use.

He explained why he was blocking people, aka he didn't want a feed full of people being negative for negative's sake, and he blocked you for doing just that. Who gives a shit.

Outside of Borderlands, Gearbox isn't exactly a powerhouse developer and they were working on a licensed product. No real surprise it isn't good.

We're getting a live feed of Pitchford digging himself a deeper and deeper grave. It's quite amusing, really.

This is exactly why i don't like twitter. Just because you magically have access to someone doesn't give you the right to demand anything of them, nor does it oblige them to deal with you.

Seriously. There's no way he could craft a satisfactory answer in 140 characters, so why should he even bother replying?

Re-read the first sentence of your post and put yourself in his place. Of course he blocked you, anybody would in the same situation.

don't be vindictive. there's no sense in hounding the guy. just don't buy his stuff. would a mea culpa really change the fact that they released a bad game? just move on, it's only a video game.

Twitter is the best social media outlet for the internet to harass people for absolutely no reason, isn't it?

Can't really blame him for blocking people who are bugging him on his twitter. Do those people actually expect him to give a decent response when his hands are likely tied by both PR and the twitter character limit?

My personal twitter is my own.

More Twitter drama, huh. All I have to say is Fuck Ryan Davis

I only laugh at those who, in 2013, still pay sixty US dollars, in advance, for a game that they haven't made sure is worth the money.

Just stop pre-ordering and paying for games only because of their names and some well directed promotional videos, what are people morons? Let the game be out, make sure it's a good game, then go and buy it, not the other way around.

@officegamer: You're probably right, but there's still some fun to be had in looking forward to a game.

doesn't mean you have to preorder it.