@mezza: Man I don't even know if I want a Borderlands 3 anymore, not after how Randy has been during the whole Battleborn saga. If someone new was heading the charge sure but now...I just kinda never wanna see anything from Pitchford again.

I don't like either game or the business reasons behind both of their creations, so it's hard to lean on either side in this war.

@takayamasama: I'm pretty close to feeling that way too sadly. Part of me is still holding onto hope that I can feel that Borderlands 1 magic again, but yeah, it doesn't even seem like they're capable of that anymore.

ESL and Ubisoft have had a Rainbow Six Siege pro league for a while now on PC and Xbox. They've done a really good job supporting the game.

@dharmabum: That's good to know. I should have said ESL instead of community, that's sort of who I meant.

It's weird to think he's promoting Battleborn in its own subreddit, when there's already one dedicated to pegging.

If I made something and found out there were then people making porn about it.... I'd probably tweet my surprise as well. Seems like people are blowing this out of proportion.

@thenewgameplusdotcom said:

I mean, I'd be surprised too but I'm just an average schmuck. It's more surprising that he didn't realise there would be porn of his characters, even after Overwatch fucked his game sales.

reddit.com/r/alienscolonianmarinesrule34

@mezza: @takayamasama: The further away we get from Borderlands 1, the more convinced I am that the game was a fantastically successful fluke for Gearbox.

A shame. I'm only interested in colonial marines fucking some aliens.

Oh well, maybe Randy will find that for me soon.

Everybody got fucked by Colonial Marines...

@avantegardener: This is a good post.

@rahf: I thought Brothers in Arms were pretty great as well. The latest one, not so much, but they had a good run with those first couple of games. That's pretty much the only Gearbox game I like, I think.

@thenewgameplusdotcom: It just feels like the tweet was more out of the "edgy" category, and I think this lands as the frontrunner so far for 2017's Please Stop.

Battleborn isn't a bad game. I really wish people would get off that shit. It's well-crafted and plays great.

Overwatch sold like crazy, came out shortly after Battleborn, and people made comparisons immediately without even considering what each of the games are.

With that said, fuck Randy Pitchford.

one might say this porn is of a "hobby grade" quality .....

Why didn't Skull Girls never got flak for making a flash porn game ? ??

I've never played any of Randy's games outside Brothers in Arms for a half hour, but boy, it does seem people are desperate to hate on him.

Deserved or not, internet dogpile culture is boring. Just, you know, go care about something else. Like chips! Mmmmm do I love chips. I know everyone loves chips, and yet, I can't even recall the last time I saw a thread about the tastiest chip flavours, and that at least is a topic that affects my life, which I can speak to from great expertise.

I don't know who is striving for more media exposure more at this point, Randy Pitchford or Vince McMahon

@darkbeatdk: yeah i agree. Brothers in Arms 1 and 2 were excellent and the highlight of Gearbox as far as i'm concerned.

Yeah, it's wildly unprofessional, and it's easy to read it as a move of desperation. It's hard for me to summon much feeling about this except bemusement though. Randy has been kinda weird for awhile...

I dunno, but it certainly isn't this.

The correct response is no response, just like every other video game company in the history of ever.

[edit] Brutal reply to that tweet:

@teddie: Gearbox is having their monday meeting . As always Randy is comparing Battleborn numbers and Overwatch numbers. 'Where did we go wrong?' Randy asks. 'I mean, it's a similar colourful teambased first person shooter. A game so similar to Overwatch should at least have some of that audience right? I can't think of one thing that Overwatch does that Battleborn doesn't!'.

'What about the porn?', someone remarks? 'Overwatch has porn. Porn is hot with our demographic. We need to capture those people by creating porn. Once created, we react to it to make people believe that people care about Battleborn'

A smile curls on Randy's mouth. 'I'm on it'.

It's an objective failure of a game, and I personally think the PVE elements were very poorly thought out, but yeah, I did have fun with the multiplayer beta. For all the people saying Titanfall 2 released at a bad time, Battleborn was put into a far worse situation.

To be fair, he should be used to it by now after all the Borderlands porn.

@shagge: I legit did not know that was a thing, haha. That DOES make it a little sadder.

I remember quite soon after Borderlands 2 was released, someone apparently made a very detailed and very professional looking graphic depiction of some of the female Borderlands characters engaged in lesbian sex. A heavily censored version was posted on the official Gearbox forum, but it was still removed pretty quickly. I would imagine there's loads of that sort of thing out there, if you go looking for it.

And, uh, I don't really have much to say about the actual post other than might as well throw shit against the wall and see what sticks. I've never touched Battleborn, and this approach won't change my mind. :/ Kinda silly to be honest, and it doesn't seem harmful or anything. Maybe to his pride? They just need to make Borderlands 3 already.

(Hmm, the first part of my post about the whole tracer thing just disappeared. Weird.)

Just realized that I should have named the thread "Randy Pitchford's randy pitch". What a waste!

@themanwithnoplan: Well, there's always some people out there cherry picking examples. Here's an example article from nymag.com

At this point in time it seems like some people are more concerned with letting everyone know how much no one cares about Battleborn than the devs are with marketing the game in any way. It came, it went, most shrugged and passed on the whole thing and that's about that.

I can see how some straight male gamers might be bothered by the idea that Tracer could no longer find them attractive, but that doesn't apply to me. No lesbian female fictional character has ever fictionally seen my penis without at least turning bi, so I'm safe.

Seriously though, to each their own and no judgement here, but fan fiction and even the idea of sexual cosplay holds no appeal for me at all. I'm attracted to people, not characters. Also seriously, I have no issue whatsoever about Tracer being gay. Unless I'm missing something, I don't see why anyone should care.

@spaceinsomniac: I firmly agree with Colin Moriarty on such topics. Things like gay characters wouldn't be a big deal if they just treated them like normal ass people, which is exactly what they are. It super stands out when they do something like they did with Tracer, because it makes it seem like a stunt, or that it's abnormal and meant to blow your mind, and often it feels pandering as well. I agree with his statement that The Last of Us did it perfectly. It handled two gay characters in very different, but impactful ways that actually made me smile after the fact.

That being said, I am the type of person who does not think of game characters as anything other than game characters, and I don't think I've ever found myself immersed in a game or taking the role of a protagonist. I never care what gender, race, sexual orientation the character I'm playing as is because to me it could not matter less. I enjoyed playing as a black male in The Walking Dead season one, just as much as I did playing as a possible lesbian (I can't remember if you can romance the other girl) in Life is Strange, and just as much as I enjoyed playing as your standard straight white male protagonist in Uncharted 4.

It just seems like a really off putting way to promote your T rated game. I know teens are going to see cartoon pussy if they want to see it, but it's not something the company or CEO should actively engage with.

@thenewgameplusdotcom: It's as important to have LGBT, non-white, non-male characters be a big deal as it is for them not to be a big deal. Your examples of them not being a big deal are great. Treating Lee and Max just the same as everyone else fits right in with the themes of those games. BioWare games have often had gay characters and fictional/non-fictional minorities play both major and minor roles, sometimes with a personal struggle directly related to those traits and sometimes letting them just be and not mentioning it whatsoever.

Characters being put front-and-center for their gayness doesn't make it somehow less good than them just being ignored for those same reasons. It would be one thing if "gay" was the depth of their character, but I don't see any reason why it's any worse for gay to be flaunted, either. It helps to promote open-mindedness and it can make the space feel more inclusive for people who have to deal with less-than-inclusive behaviour on a daily basis. The big roles are just as important as the small ones. People in those positions sometimes need a big star to look up to and to relate to. I'd imagine there are plenty of gay people who are fucking ecstatic that the poster child for their favourite video game isn't straight, and they're completely right to be pumped about it. It isn't often a gay video game character gets that treatment and it's even less often celebrated.

Honest question. Is Randy Pitchford the new Dennis Dyack? Has he claimed the mantle of dead beat dad of video games? He oversaw production of 2 or 3 decent games that made reasonable profits and afterwards decided to spend every morning from 9-11 am huffing glue in his office. I would be willing to put money down and say in 18 months, Randy is going to "leave the company to go in a new direction with a small team" and become the CEO of a Chinese F2P outfit. Certainly suits him better.

Imagine if you were a developer of some kind, saw something weird about your product online. Wouldn't you mention it on any public forum?

Don't forget to add the context of "this is also extremely common and has happened to your past games before without so much as a peep from you." That's pretty critical. Might as well tweet about people who breathe playing your game too. It's not special enough to suddenly merit a CEO spreading the word about it. I mean, if he's impressed, great good for him. It just is incredibly out of the ordinary, and is rightfully drawing negative reaction.

I'll never understand the hate for Battleborn

I guess we'll have to disagree here. I don't think "celebrated" and "inclusive" go together. There's a "that's really cool that you're different!" mentality in modern society that constantly makes people focus on their differences, rather than their similarities, and keeps diving people into groups. It's done with the best of intentions, but I still feel it's a mistake. If you want people to feel normal for who they are, treat them as you would anyone else. Making a big deal out of what should be thought of as a completely normal character trait is not what I would consider inclusive. While well-intended, it's kind of the opposite. Call it benevolent exclusivity.

That's not to say that stories shouldn't tackle issues such as racism, sexism, or homophobia, though. BioShock Infinite, The Witcher 3, and what little I played of Mafia 3 come to mind as good examples of that.

As far as Tracer is concerned, though, I don't really follow Overwatch, so I don't really know how her reveal was handled.

@mems1224:

1. There are a lot of people angry at Gearbox for a variety of reasons (Colonial Marines , Borderlands humor , Making a moba-ish game instead of a new Borderlands / Brother of Arms game )

2. There are a lot of people that want to see Randy Pitchford fall for his personality

3. Battleborn is an easy laughingstock because of it's extremely small playerbase

4. People dislike the humor, quips and the graphical style of battleborn.

5. People dislike Moba's or have found their own moba and laugh at other games that attempt to be relevant in that scene.

6. Overwatch players can show 'support' for their game by laughing at the not-quite-Overwatch competition. It feels good to bet on a winning horse.

That are the reasons that i can come up with.

Battleborn could've probably done alright if it wasn't for being timed right next to Overwatch. That comparison and the expectations that go with it, soured it.