GBX has been sold to Embracer Publishing

Borderlands 3 Borderlands 3 General Discussion
#41

Yes, it sounds bizarre, but the way they do it now is really efficient. We get a broad selection of so-called middleware titles, or double A games. They also recently remade Destroy all Humans and Biomutant is probably the most anticipated upcoming release. There is something for almost everyone and they are working towards getting rid of the “almost” part of that sentence.
That’s also why I think Gearbox fits well into the mix: They have a major Blockbuster franchise in the form of Borderlands and the niche appeal of BiA and Homefront, which makes budgeting them rather easy.

Also, from what I’ve heard they aren’t interfering too much with their studios’s culture and style of development. In the case of Gearbox that might be a mixed bag, but for many other studios it’s probably for the better.

One of the major weaknesses of all Embracer Group titles is the often non-existent marketing. Its part of their strategy to minimize the financial risk of every project. For Gearbox’s titles that shouldn’t be an issue as 2k will take on that role and market the ■■■■ out of everything.

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#42

Somewhere between 1.3 billion to 350 million is the low down.
What does that mean?
More money= better stuff?
Change of direction?

Please no large amounts of negativity … small doses are fine.

#43

The thing is that in the end this merger could mean almost anything from “make all Gearbox franchises release annually” over “milk Gearbox for what it’s worth and then disassemble it’s components for maximum profit and resources” to “Gearbox is meant to become the new triple A studio among Embracer Groups commodities”. Everything is possible once a studio has been merged into another studio or in this case a whole conglomerate of Studios.

But going from what the Embracer Group has been doing so far I think that for at least the next 6 years we’ll see no drastic changes except maybe for a higher amount of releases, if that. Spelling doom for Gearbox would absolutely be premature and just factually incorrect. At least short-to-mid-term this will only help Gearbox. And if they don’t royally ■■■■ up financially they won’t have anything to fear about.

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#44

They really need to step it up a notch if they want people to love BL3…

Appart from being a marketing success… It fals short in pretty much everything else.

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#45

And welcome though it is, one upcoming raid boss isn’t really enough…

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#46

Decent difficulty scaling ane weapon balance would be much appreciated at this point :sweat_smile:

As it is now, i won’t even buy an other DLC and not even a new entry in the franchise.

Hell, DLC5 isn’t even worth it for me… Even if i would buy it, i wouldn’t want to play the game.

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#47

I believe

Embracer is only investing / injecting cash into GB and nothings changing.

Borderlands is a 1 billion dollar franchise.

#48

or “Battleborn: Reborn” and then a sequel?

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#49

To me personally, the most frustrating thing about BL3 is that it feels like I can see a lot of clear-cut steps for GBX to take in order to get BL3 where it needs to be, or at least in a much better place than it is now. I have no expectation that either GBX or Embracer will spend the money necessary to effect those steps, and at this point I believe that having any expectations with respect to this matter is futile.

I think the better course for GBX, 2K, Embracer, or whoever would be to head down the BL3.5 path. Continue the story in a substantive way (preferably more compelling if possible, but if not, no big deal), make it be exclusive to next-gen consoles and PC only in order to limit the lower-end of the hardware spec, take the steps necessary to shore up the game’s code, mechanics, and damage formulas to be more clear and understandable to players, balance the gear and endgame a little better (doesn’t have to be perfect), shore up the game’s performance by removing all of the interactive menus and other “whiz-bang” features that detract from performance, and improve the matchmaking system so players who want to play with others will be able to find a game easily.

I know that sounds like a lot of items to address, but those are the primary issues I see with BL3 that are holding it back. None of these issues are unfixable - GBX just needs to dedicate the resources to do it. I do not see them dedicating those kinds of resources to BL3, because I think that ship has sailed, but for a new BL3.5 game that they can sell for full or nearly full price, they should still easily be able to recover their investment.

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#50

So, for me the quick takeaway is that Gearbox has a new ownership group, but its business relationships are intact, with 2k still publishing, and Gearbox still publishing the titles it’s released for other studios.

Publishers do not always own the titles and studios they work with. They primarily secure the rights to distribute and promote the games for a share of the profits.

Studios actually produce those games, and own the intellectual properties, unless they sell or license their rights to use them to other parties for a specific period of time. Marvel’s sale of the rights to Mutants and Fantastic Four to Fox, the Spiderverse to Sony, the Hulk Universal?, along with a hodgepodge of characters like Marvel Knights titles to was an example of this. The Marvel was eventually sold in its entirety after forming their Film Studio, and having it purchased by Disney, but as we all know, the other studios retained the rights to the characters (IPs) they purchased, and continued to make and distribute films with them.

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#51

Here is a bit more context to this deal. In short, it looks good for Gearbox as the deal and the plans of both the Embracer Group and Gearbox alike are meant to be very long-term. Gearbox will grow and expand and is open to collaborations and crossover work, going both ways.

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/amp/2021-02-03-pitchford-says-embracer-is-like-a-rocket-booster-for-gearboxs-ambitions

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#52

Only real bad news so far is that Pitchford is, sadly, still the CEO of Gearbox.

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#53

As much as a dislike him, without him none of us would be here, so even if he sticks around, he has earned at least some respect for his accomplishments.

O and just think about it this way: The more projects Gearbox takes on the less Randy can insert himself into them. This whole deal could very well profit even the developers themselves in that regard. For sure Borderlands stays his baby and he will make sure to be present for those games, but otherwise he should be busy enough to give people a break from him at least every so often.

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#54

@narfkeks @EzioILMentore Keep your heads up friends! I am sure we will still have Randy’s horribly cringeworthy convention presentations to sustain us.

I definitely respect Randy’s accomplishments at GBX, 100%. The Borderlands franchise has provided me with endless hours of fascination and entertainment. He (and many others helping along the way) built a billion-dollar business from nothing, and that’s amazing. Building a business, especially one that entertains millions of people, is a massive undertaking and achievement. I really mean it - it is truly remarkable.

However, I can also appreciate that a person can be good at one thing and not so good at another. Although Randy Pitchford was successful at building GBX and the BL franchise, it seems fairly clear to me that he has been way out of his depth since the franchise went massive after BL2 (so going on 9 years now). GBX needs (deserves?) better management.

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#55

I sunk so many hours in Frontlines. Great multiplayer game back in the day.

#56

Probably completely unrelated, but Steam is running a 2K dev sale right now. $50 for BL3 ultimate edition.

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#57

Can only agree to that. I would personally get Randy into a bigger PR role or something where he can use his talents, because, as cringeworthy as he might be, he is still entertaining if you give him a good, tightly structured timeline. Just don’t let him have the time to go on tangents.

When it comes to management it is indeed complicated to just have Randy be replaced. Ideally the new management should come from inside the studio to have a familiar face with actual experience in Gearbox’s matters become the boss. But thats neither here nor there and as long as Randy doesn’t sink the ship that is Gearbox, I’m fine with him being Gearbox’s manifestation of the nine inner circles of hell.

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#58

I totally get that. PEOPLE are complicated. You take the good with the bad when it comes to people. Not that I am saying anything profound here, but the way that principle works in application in a company, is much more complex. It’s hard to tell how much good and bad Pitchford brings to the table.

Sometimes the positives of a leader are so positive that you can overlook the negatives, and vice versa. Sometimes the leader literally IS the culture of the company (Elon Musk). Sometimes the positive qualities or story of the company’s founder are so compelling to the company’s employees or its story as a whole that it doesn’t matter what negatives also accompany the founder’s presence, the employees will follow the person and do whatever they are asked.

But sometimes you have Randy Pitchford, and I am not sure what quality or culture he brings to the table that is so positive that it outweighs some of the potential negatives I have seen publicly. At his best, he’s an excellent showman; at his worst, he’s an embarrassing showman. So the showman aspect is something, and in my experience watching GBX convention presentations for more than a decade now, I’d say his convention performance is a VERY mixed bag.

I feel like Randy’s bailiwick role appears to be the “idea guy” or the smooth-talking marketing dude. The problem is that, at least publicly, he comes off less frequently as smooth and intelligent, and more often just as a disconnected weirdo. I think you made a comment a few posts back about GBX needing a top-tier business manager of some sort, and I think that is a correct assessment based upon what I have seen (again, publicly only, I have no insider knowledge at all).

No idea if anything I have said is correct, just looking at it from the outside in and based upon at least 13 years watching and being interested in the affairs of Gearbox Software. I have been all-in on Borderlands since I first heard of it from the now-famous 2007 Game Informer cover article.

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#59

Randy said a while back (don’t remember when) that he was “on the spectrum”, which probably means he has some sort of difficulty in social situations or signs of autism.

That being said, as long as him being the head of the company means more funding and development for further Borderlands titles, I don’t mind him or anyone else being CEO. He brought up a company from nothing and made one of the highest selling video games IPs from scratch, so we can safely assume he is fairly competent, controversies aside

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#60

It would be my opinion that Randy probably doesn’t know about any of the gripes we have with the game. I doubt that anyone is informing him that FL4K’s 4th skill tree is broken, or that some people are having issues with trophies on PS5, or that the HUD is broken for splitscreen.

He’s the CEO, and aside from the occasional play of the game, when I don’t think these issues would be likely to present themselves, I would imagine that his time is taken up with CEO business.

Bugs and faults would be the responsibility of other managers. So I would say that it won’t really matter if he stays as head after the merger/acquisition. CEO isn’t the sort of role that would be involved ‘under the hood/bonnet’ of the game.

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