Gearbox CEO Lost $10 Million Of His Own Money On Aliens: Colonial Marines
Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford got into a public argument with some anti-fans on Twitter today. He truly made himself look like the kind of CEO that something like Aliens: Colonial Marines would result from.
The shooter was a terrible, glitchy flop that cost the already-hurting Sega millions of dollars, the end result being that Sega sued Gearbox for misleading them — all the videos and demos for A:CM ran smoothly; the final product did not.
These facts were pointed out directly to Pitchford by a disgruntled gamer on Twitter. Randy defended himself by saying games change during development and that “every demo was exactly the game at that time.” The gamer called BS and pointed out they were nearly sued for misleading the public and the company they worked for.
Pitchford replied, “Your hypothesis is insane. The truth is more embarrassing: we tried very hard, invested heavily, believed it good, yet lost.” If he thought Colonial Marines was good, that speaks more to his nearsightedness, but it gets worse.
“Invested heavily? All I hear is how you misused funds and outsourced large chunks of the game. That doesn’t square.”
That’s when Randy said it: he invested millions of dollars of his own cash into the game. That’s ten million he doesn’t have today, but you know what they say about a fool and his money.
Check out the entire conversation, but be warned your forehead may hurt from all the slapping. Pitchford starts out by defending the Aliens’ terrible AI by saying “We followed Aliens, not Alien. And I believe the AI imitated both film presentation AND intent. They are bugs.” (But — but they cut the power!)