Gearbox Software (2011-present)

Gearbox Software
This company really grinds our gears.
Type: Subsidiary Founded: February 16, 1999 Founder(s): Randy Pitchford Brian Martel Stephen Bahl Landon Montgomery Rob Heironimus Headquarters: Frisco, Texas, United States Key people: Steve Jones (president) Dan Hewitt (CCO) Parent: Gearbox Entertainment Subsidiaries: Gearbox Studio Québec Gearbox Studio Montreal Notable works: Borderlands Brothers in Arms Homeworld Website: https://www.gearboxsoftware.com/

Gearbox Software is an American video game development company based in Frisco, Texas. It was established in 1999 by developers from companies such as 3D Realms and Bethesda Softworks, with one of the founders, Randy Pitchford, as CEO. The company initially created expansions for the 1998 game Half-Life, then ported that game and others to console platforms.

In 2005, Gearbox launched its first independent set of games, Brothers in Arms, on console and mobile devices. It became their flagship franchise and spun off a comic book series, television documentaries, books, and action figures. Their second original game series Borderlands was released in 2009, and by 2015 had sold over 26 million copies. The company also owns the intellectual property of Duke Nukem and Homeworld. Gearbox was acquired by Embracer Group in February 2021, becoming its seventh major holding label.

Bad Qualities

1. The Duke Nukem franchise got ruined because of them.
   • First, by the release of Duke Nukem Forever, which is considered to be one of the biggest failures in video game history due to being in development hell for 15 years, only to come out as an awful and extremely disappointing game.
   • Second (and this is the worst part), to sell their edition of Duke Nukem 3D named 20th Anniversary World Tour after acquiring the rights for the franchise, they forced all other editions (with exception of Xbox 360 port) and games from the series, which weren't developed or published by them, to be pulled from sale everywhere (including two original platformers and Manhattan Project)!
     • They also forced Interceptor Entertainment to cancel their fan remake of Duke Nukem 3D titled Duke Nukem 3D: Reloaded.
2. The aforementioned 20th Anniversary World Tour edition of Duke Nukem 3D mentioned above also met with a lot of negativity from many people, since it is more expensive than General Arcade's and Devolver Digital's Megaton Edition, yet offers less content (World Tour edition includes one new episode, but Megaton Edition included three official expansions which are not present in World Tour edition), has noticeable problems (including technical ones) and lacks any significant changes and updates. One of the worst things about this edition is Duke's new voice lines, which for the most part are references to various memes (such as "Bazinga!" from The Big Bang Theory). In fact, even Jon St. John himself didn't like them.
3. Responsible for the Aliens: Colonial Marines fiasco along with Sega (in short, it repeated Duke Nukem Forever's fate and screwed Sega over). It was so bad that Gearbox and Sega even got sued for false advertising.
   • While never confirmed, it was rumored that Gearbox deliberately took resources from Sega that were meant for Colonial Marines and used them for Borderlands.
   • Also, when Gearbox decided to upgrade the game on the Steam store to the Collection Edition, they made a very ignorant and dirty move by attaching all the DLCs and base game to it, without the ability to buy any DLCs separately (also removing season pass). That means, if you own the game, but didn't buy any or some of the DLCs, you will have to pay the price of the whole Collection or look up the keys for DLCs from various online retailers if you want to obtain them.
4. Borderlands 3's story was also blotched up by them, even though it's supposed to be the most story-centric Borderlands game by far, Gearbox somehow hired a Greenhorn director and 4 inexperienced writers, of which only one had any writing experience. (Danny Homan who wrote for Elliot Quest) And the result is about as good as one could expect.
5. Gearbox has also shown their disdain to modders with Borderlands 2, although Randy Pitchford encouraged people to create mods for the game and share their creations, Gearbox eventually started banning modders from their forums as well as locking down various threads discussing modifications or glitch exploits like a bunch of hypocrites, giving out various excuses such as "violating their EULA/ToS" or "affecting multiplayer". They also implemented the Sanity Check anti-cheat/mod system, which means that modders will now require cheat engines just to make their creations work.
6. Their mediocre online shooter Battleborn had microtransactions in it even when it cost money prior to going F2P.
7. Absurd marketing campaign: Randy Pitchford, in attempt to gain attention to save Battleborn, advertised a porn-themed subreddit of the game on his Twitter. It is also believed that this subreddit was created by Pitchford himself, though it's not proven.
8. Pitchford threw plagiarism accusations towards Call Of Duty: WWII there since the game's cover looks similar to one of the official artwork images used for Brothers In Arms: Hell's Highway. This is hypocritical, considering that Gearbox themselves were involved in a case of plagiarism by stealing the idea for Borderlands from Ben Hibon's short film Codehunters.
   • When Borderlands 2 players complained about how The Bee (an absurdly powerful amplification shield that allows your guns to inflict massive additional damage when fully charged) is going to be nerfed on Twitter, Randy Pitchford referred to the fans as "e-terrorists" and said that they "needed to be trained in good behavior". Notice a theme here?
   • He told the Gearbox developers that they would be getting bonuses if Borderlands 3 became a success, only to later go back on his promise and take the bonus for himself.
   • In September 2022, he auctioned off his used shirts for $400 each, to raise funds for a developed scholarship.
9. It is possible, that when they got the opportunity to publish We Happy Few, they were the ones who immediately treated it as a typical AAA game, increased the price tag, gave it a season pass, and a pre-order bonus. While whether it's true or not remains unclear, it's very possible, considering the practices of this company as seen above.
10. After revealing more about Borderlands 3 and teasing a new project (which is Godfall), Pitchford was asked on Twitter if these games will be Epic Store exclusive, to which he replied that he doesn't see why not, since according to him, players do not care where to buy games from, completely ignoring all the negativity people are showings towards Epic Store and Epic's shady practices. This shows even more that Pitchford and his company couldn't care less about their customers and player base.
    • And when the decision generated backlash, causing fans to review bomb Borderlands 2 and 1 on Steam, Randy went on to falsely accuse Steam of not doing anything to counter review bombing and claimed that he's glad that the decision to make BL3 an Epic Store exclusive, basically he's trying to threaten Valve, the very company that made Gearbox what it is today, to silence his critics. And when people called him out for it and reminded him that it was partly his fault that people were angry, Randy shamelessly attempted to play the victim.

Good Qualities

1. They made Half-Life expansions Opposing Force, Blue Shift and Decay, with the former being the best of the three, as well as a PS2 port of the original game.
2. Their Brothers in Arms series are some of the best World War II games ever made.
3. At least they did finish Duke Nukem Forever despite its poor quality. The DLC called The Doctor Who Cloned Me actually isn't that bad, either.
4. Ignoring left-wing aspects, their Borderlands series is still great, with enjoyable games.
5. They briefly brought back the Homeworld franchise, first by releasing HD versions of the original two games, and then by allowing some of the original devs to create a new entry; Deserts of Kharak. They are also currently working on a new entry, Homeworld 3.
6. They give away Golden Keys for the Borderlands games on social media.
7. Thanks to the Embracer Group, which acquired Gearbox Entertainment, their parent company opened several new studios for more support for Gearbox Software with the development of newer games and a better chance of developing more games in a faster time.
8. Gearbox does not completely abandon the franchises they were famous for before, mainly having the Brothers in Arms series in mind, as the AIAS Game Maker's Notebook podcast proves. Pitchford claimed they are currently working on the new Brothers in Arms game, although he has not yet given any details about the game for the reason later mentioned. What's better, a TV adaptation of BiA is currently in development.
9. Since the failure of Aliens: Colonial Marines, Gearbox does not announce games too early, but only when the game is almost finished.
10. They were tolerable in its prime years till 2011.

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