Gearbox boss Randy Pitchford wades back into the Borderlands 4 pricing controversy: ‘Game budgets are increasing … it’s getting gnarly out there’

Gearbox boss Randy Pitchford took some heat yesterday when he dismissed concerns about Borderlands 4 potentially launching with an $80 price tag, saying on X that “if you’re a real fan, you’ll find a way to make it happen.” Today, in an effort to calm the roiling waters left in the wake of that ill-advised statement, he shared a brief video clip he described as “the truth” about Borderlands 4 pricing, and the “reality” of the rising costs of videogame development.

The clip was actually recorded a couple weeks ago at PAX East, but Pitchford reshared it earlier today because it’s definitely relevant to the controversy of the moment, and provides a slightly more nuanced take on the matter of game pricing. Pitchford begins by saying he doesn’t know what the price of Borderlands 4 will be, but then dips into why higher prices across the board are almost certainly on the horizon.

“On one level we’ve got a competitive marketplace where people that make those [pricing] choices want to sell as many units as possible, and they want to be careful about people that are price sensitive,” Pitchford says in the clip. “So there’s some folks that don’t want to see the prices go up—even the ones deciding what the prices are.

“There’s other folks accepting the reality that game budgets are increasing and there’s tariffs for the retail packaging, and like—it’s getting gnarly out there, you guys. Borderlands 4 has more than twice the development budget of Borderlands 3. More than twice.”

And that, he continued, is “why Borderlands 4 is so awesome: Because you guys showed up and supported Borderlands 3 and we had the budget so we could more than double the budget [of Borderlands 4] and feel confident in that. And that’s awesome, when the revenue comes in we could spend it to make better bigger games and better games.”

There’s no doubt that videogame development costs have exploded, but I can’t shake the feeling that Borderlands 4 costing twice as much to make as Borderlands 3 isn’t so much “awesome” as it is a reflection of the inherent unsustainability of big-budget game development. Simply put, is Borderlands 4 going to be twice as good as Borderlands 3? I’m going to guess not: It’s nice to have lots of money to throw around but no guarantee of quality or, more importantly, success—and as we’ve seen with recent releases like Dragon Age: The Veilguard, “success” is a highly malleable term, subject to the whims of the C-suite.

Pitchford’s biggest problem, though, isn’t the reality of our capitalist society, but the nature of his original messaging that left everyone so cold, and today’s post doesn’t seem to have changed many minds. While there’s some sympathy for his kinder, gentler approach to Borderlands 4 pricing in this PAX video, plenty of anger remains, as do assumptions that the new Borderlands will launch at $80 for the standard edition.

“The thing that you guys need to realize is that most people don’t care what your game’s budget is,” PanicRolling wrote in reply to Pitchford’s post. “It is your own fault that you decided to spend ‘more than twice’ what BL3 cost to make this one, and I almost promise your game is going to fail financially because of that decision.”

“Videogames aren’t food, they’re entertainment and each game is fighting for a customer’s money and time,” GetFitWithJared wrote in a separate reply. “If gamers feel that $80 is too much for one game, they’re going to move on to something more affordable and not look back.”

Maybe inevitably, Pitchford didn’t help himself on that front with his closing remarks. “If it is cheaper [than $80] then maybe we’ll sell you that minimap that you guys want, but we’ll develop later,” he said. “How bad do you want that? 10 bucks?” He then repeated, “I’m just kidding! Or am I?” no fewer than three times, to awkward silence.