Professional Forum Ninja
"I liken it to getting pushed off the Titanic 20 feet from shore,” Eddings said. “You're sopping wet, disgruntled and angry, but two days later you're thankful. You're not on the sinking ship. But you're sad, because there are a bunch of people still on the ship."
Last Friday, Eddings announced he would not return as Claptrap for Borderlands 3, because he had “insisted on getting paid for his performance.” On May 3, Pitchford told his Twitter followers Eddings was paid “handsomely” for his work and that he was made a “generous offer to reprise the role.”
Pitchford also claimed in a tweet that Eddings was “bitter and disgruntled about having been terminated” and was offered “2x scale” to voice Claptrap, but refused the offer. (According to SAG, the standard scale rate for a New Media voice acting session is about $400 an hour.)
Eddings claims an offer like that was never made.
Eddings was hired in 2004, and he attributed his success at Gearbox to hard work and an odd coincidence: Pitchford and Eddings were born on the exact same day. “It felt like a sign to Randy. That played into our relationship and we even had our birthdays together.”
Eddings says the two had a complicated relationship, and that Gearbox employees constantly shifted priorities to meet the whims of Pitchford, a CEO who Eddings says delights in pulling unprofessional pranks. For example: Eddings had lost his voice after performing as Claptrap at a gaming convention in February 2017, but Pitchford wanted him to perform again for a studio tour for former 2K Games president Christoph Hartmann later that month. The day of the tour, Eddings waited in the sound booth for Pitchford to text them the signal to begin.
“Randy had gone into the booth, yanked my cans off and stuck a wet finger in my ear that he had licked,” Eddings claimed. “He jumped back and he cackled at me. Christoph and I are looking at each other like, what just happened?"
“I believe I caught him in a deception.”
Then an incident at GDC in 2017 changed their already complicated relationship forever.
During the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco in March 2017, Pitchford and Eddings were at the Marriott Marquis hotel, a networking hotspot during GDC. On the Thursday of the convention, Eddings claimed two different people had approached him saying someone named Greg Richardson was trying to get a price on Gearbox. “I don’t know anything about this and I’m the VP of Business,” he said. Eddings source asked him not to reveal that he had shared the information about Richardson.
Eddings and Pitchford met up to discuss what had been said about Richardson. Eddings said he stood on his toes to whisper in order to “be secretive.”
“Someone is trying to sell Gearbox,” Eddings said, mentioning Richardson. This prompted Pitchford to respond “bulls**t, who told you?” A lawsuit from the former general counsel of Gearbox, Wade Callendar, suggests Pitchford already knew who Richardson was, and seemingly just wanted Eddings to tattle on his source. The lawsuit mentions that Richardson had helped collect capital “by July of 2017,” though it’s unclear if he was working with Pitchford in March. When Eddings refused to share his source, Pitchford got angry.
Things escalated quickly from there. “ He shoved the f**k out of me while I'm on the balls of my feet trying to whisper. [He] knocked me back four steps... I believe I caught him in a deception,” Eddings said. He shared images with Newsweek that he claims were taken shortly after the altercation that appear to show minor bruising on his ribs.
Eddings claimed that at least two people had witnessed this incident: Mario Kroll and Gearbox co-founder Landon Montgomery. Kroll can’t verify it, telling Newsweek, “I was with him before and after the incident was supposed to have happened, but had to step away to tend to one of my clients.” Kroll did notice Pitchford get “visibly angry” before leaving and returned to see Eddings “noticeably upset about what he described as an altercation with his boss.”
Montgomery supports Eddings’ story. “David leaned up to whisper something to Randy and out of the blue, Randy shoves him, hard,” he told Newsweek.
On March 6, the Monday after GDC, Eddings headed into the Gearbox Studios office in Frisco, Texas to meet with Pitchford. The following day, Eddings claims that he was “rage fired because (he) wouldn’t tell him about Richardson.”
“I'm happy to be free from the half-truths and full-on deceptions,” Eddings tweeted in his original Twitter statement.
Meanwhile, after all the angst and hardship, Eddings says he’s still willing to come back as Claptrap.
“I’ll do it for free as soon as Randy makes a public apology to me and pays me the royalties I’m owed,” Eddings said. When he was first approached to reprise his role, he tweeted that he “was willing to put differences aside and do something cool for Borderlands fans with my friends at Gearbox.” The only prerequisite was that he needed to receive the past royalties he felt he deserved and an apology for the incident at GDC.
Pitchford has remained quiet on Twitter since Eddings broke the news he wouldn’t return. Eddings has decided that now is the time to share his story; he recently left Rooster Teeth to work on an unannounced project and has “nothing holding (him) back.”
“I can stand up to Randy because I’m not afraid of him,” Eddings said.
Gearbox gave Newsweek the following statement regarding Eddings allegations:
Gearbox takes any and all claims of this nature very seriously and we will abstain from commenting on the allegations Dave is making because it is a personnel matter. We think it’s a shame that the 400+ employees here who have poured the love and passion into Borderlands 3 are having their work be diluted by personal allegations.
Oh, look at that sympathy card attempt at the end. "We realize that there's serious allegations, but think of all the little people being bullied because of bad publicity!".
Like, sure, I'm not about to boycott BL 3 because that hurts other people rather than Pitchfork over there, but oh boy does that smell of a weak PR attempt.
That is an absolutely terrible PR statement.
Its basically the same statement Bioware tried after an article came out ezxposing the management as terrible people on Anthem.
Try to hide behind the rank and file employees and hope the gamers defend them.
Oh, bother.
In this case a boycott probably wouldn't be the best idea since the issue isn't Gearbox's actual treatment of its developers. It's not a horror story of crunch and abuse like Bioware or Take Two or CD Projekt Red or...
But if someone did feel offended enough by Pitchford's everything that they decide not to buy the game...I wouldn't blame them.
Edited by M84 on May 11th 2019 at 10:36:29 PM
Disgusted, but not surprised
I don't think this is a problem gamers can fix with a boycott. I mean, maybe if a serious one was organized, but since he's one boss out of hundreds of employees, most gamers aren't going to care enough. This is something the employees themselves need to fix, either with a strike, with litigation, or both.
It's less that and more, I already won't be buying the game until the Steam release anyway, so I'm hoping the Epic exclusive combined with all this nonsense bloodies Gearbox's nose a bit and makes them reconsider.
It's been fun.
It wouldn't be so bad if the Epic Games store had early access, and left it at that. But the fact that it's more of Steam getting a late pass given that the console release will coincide with the Epic Games release is probably something that should be unconstitutional, or against industry regulations.
I imagine the best thing for customers to do is to get contact info on Gearbox employees and ask them to hold their superiors' feet to the fire.
The Fastest Man Alive
Makes them reconsider what, making the game?
I'm with ![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
. Workplace drama is something that has nothing to do with the consumer. The boss is an asshole, but you know what? I don't really care. PC gamers are tearing themselves apart because games are exclusive to one free launcher over a different one, for a limited amount of time, and that's just incredibly sad.
The drama surrounding this game is ridiculous. I'm not getting it at launch either, but that's because I haven't finished the rest of the series yet and I don't want to burn myself out by spending the rest of 2019 binging it, games are ridiculously expensive in Canada and I already have my eye on two other fall games, and since the series' post-launch content is usually so extensive it makes more sense for me to wait for a GOTY edition.
Timed exclusivity is unconstitutional now?
This is why people make fun of gamers.
Edited by BadWolf21 on May 11th 2019 at 9:59:08 AM
Oh, bother.
People make fun of gamers who complain about bad industry practices to discourage them from complaining about bad industry practices. Which helps to normalize said practices.
Disgusted, but not surprised
The Fastest Man Alive
No, I’m pretty sure it’s because they keep saying things like timed exclusivity is unconstitutional.
I mean, if they're going to do nothing but neurotypically screech and then continue to throw their goddamned money at these EVIL EVIL PUBLISHERS, then yeah, they kinda deserve all the hate they get and then some. Because, and I realize that I'm preaching to the choir here, but the bad industry practices aren't going to stop as long as they're more profitable than the alternative.
Edited by Reflextion on May 11th 2019 at 12:06:28 PM
Oh, bother.
The arguments usually made aren't about that though.
The arguments are usually along the lines of industry apologia such as "they need to have microtransactions to be profitable" or something.
Disgusted, but not surprised
When I say constitutional, I don't mean as in US political constitutional amendments. I just mean that it should be a violation of industry standards.
Basically what Epic Games is doing is punishing Steam users, not promoting Epic Games Store users.
The Fastest Man Alive
I’m not engaging with this debate. If people don’t understand by now that Steam could very easily make the choice of Epic exclusivity a harder one for developers and are choosing not to, and that as a consumer you still have the choice of waiting for the game if you won’t buy from Epic, then I don’t know what else to say.
Since I don’t plan on buying the game at launch anyway, I may as well drop this thread, since the discussion seems to ways fall back to “Epic sucks” and “Randy Pitchford is an asshole” over anything about the actual game.
Thats the thing though. Bad shit Randy does to employees and then tries to shift the blame onto journalists for daring to report his toxic nonesense hurts the gaming industry as a whole if its allowed to just happen.
I'd rather the gaming press actually call out bad business practice than just be a PR mouthpiece
So we can rerail the thread and start acting like goddamn adults again, please; what do you all think of the lore we got on our newest Vault Hunters, as seen in the cosplay guides?
I'd have to play the game first to get a truer understanding. From what I've seen so far, in terms of Expys:
- Moze: Axton
- Amara: Maya
- Zane: Zero
- Flak: Salvador/Gaige
That's on more or less a superficial level. I wonder who will be the most newbie-friendly, and who will be chosen by the most players starting out?
Edited by RainingMetal on May 11th 2019 at 12:55:37 PM
Optimistic Cynic
So apparently info came out that Tyreen isn't a siren but something else. All my what?
One Winged Egret
Trying to force people into Expy is literally the opposite of the point of that trope. Expy is one of the most aggressively misused tropes on this site and I'd wish you didn't contribute to that, thanks.
An Expy is only when they are literally the same person who looks almost exactly the same, except given a different role (and maybe name) to fit the new work.
Edited by Clarste on May 11th 2019 at 9:52:46 AM
Trevor Eastman will be able to play BL3 early - his Stage 4 cancer diagnosis ain't stopping him
. You go, champ!
Edited by TheWildWestPyro on May 19th 2019 at 2:02:49 AM
There's gonna be a guy called Trevor Eastman in Sanctuary III that gives you items.
Anything relevant to Borderlands 3 can be discussed here. If people want to discuss the issues with management of the company making the game that is perfectly their right, and it is quite rude of you to try and tell people what they can and cannot discuss in this thread.
![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Thumbs_up_emoticon_3268.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
like i said earlier, I suspect that the three animals Flak brings will be tied to the game play style each tree provides.
Jabber for the offensive skill tree with kill skills galore, Spiderant for the defensive tree meant to tank damage better, and the Skag for the balanced style + supportive roles
if i can speculate and veer into WMG territory for a sec here, getting to the bottom of each tree upgrades your pet to their respective apex predator form, like a Spiderant Queen or a Badass Skag who can be switched to harness different elements by shooting them with said element, like Deathtrap but with a smarter and more aggressive AI to put the idea to better use. Also I hope there's a skill that let's the Skag puke up/defecate ammo for you, Zane's drone can already provide him grenades after all.
Try imagining how far the universe extends! Keep thinking about it until you go insane.