‘The absolute sincere truth is that I don’t want anyone to pay any more than they should or are comfortable with’: Randy Pitchford’s latest post on the Borderlands pricing controversy is a whole dang essay

The videogame discourse cycle does another lap, racing past “videogames are too easy” and “singleplayer is back” and hitting the straight of “videogames are too expensive” one more time. This time Borderlands 4 is the game, $US80 is the potential price, and Randy Pitchford found himself at the head of the pack after saying that “if you’re a real fan, you’ll make it happen” and pointing out that “Game budgets are increasing … it’s getting gnarly out there”.

Reaction to the idea that a “real fan” would pony up a higher price wasn’t great, with people who own thousands of dollars worth of Funko Pops expressing outrage at the suggestion they were the kind of people who will pay anything for New Content. It didn’t help that Take-Two updated the EULAs for the Borderlands series to say it was totally OK for the publisher to vacuum up players’ personal information in exchange for getting to shoot at shouty men in masks for a bit, and a review-bombing followed.

Now Randy Pitchford has delivered a 557-word missive on the hatesite formerly known as Twitter putting his earlier statements into context, and it’s actually pretty effective at explaining his position—which is not actually that you have to pay more money to prove you’re allowed to call yourself a “real” Borderlands fan.

Pitchford begins by apologizing for the misunderstanding, then says, “The absolute sincere truth is that I don’t want anyone to pay any more than they should or are comfortable with and I always work with the intent and hope that a customer always feels they got the better end of the deal no matter what they pay.”

He goes on to explain, “The actual context was that a guy replied to a post about Borderlands 4 on the Nintendo Switch 2 was warning me that if the price ends up being $80, the game will fail. What I was trying to do was explain that it wasn’t my call but that if a $10 price increase does happen (since that’s obviously where the industry is going), it will be okay and that Borderlands 4 will be okay because it’s a great game and there are a lot of fans who will see the value and want it. I think my trying to short hand that using the phrase “real fans” triggered some people and I saw that it got inflated as if I was making some big statement (I wasn’t – I was just trying to help someone who I thought was sincerely worried about us and looking out for us) and I could see that it was being pressed into the idea that I was taking the audience for granted (which is a super shitty look, but it was not at all my intent and does not reflect at all how I feel).”

I don’t expect this is going to be the end of it, if only because the discourse cycle will be doing another lap in no time at all. But when Pitchford says, “The sincere truth is that I’m grateful that anyone likes our games and humbled that so many fans show up to enjoy and support what we do” I believe him because that’s how everyone feels about the people who appreciate their work.

Borderlands 4 will be out on September 12 and will apparently let you replay missions and boss fights, summon a hoverbike out of midair, and use point-grapples and glides to get around faster. Which is nice.