@just0saiyan That’s true, but it’s also true that the main writing leads have changed between each game IIRC. So while there have been some folks consistent across the series, at this point a lot of them no longer are with GBX.
So the more things change, the more they stay the same, I guess?
GBX has certainly lost a bunch of very creative and capable people. But there are many others out there, so maybe this will lead to (good) new ideas. On the other hand I consider BL3 to be a major Fustercluck in spite of all the great people who had been involved in its making. To me it´s a problem of (lack of/misdirected) leadership and organizational problems that will persist. If GBX is not going to fundamentally change the way they create their games nothing much is going to change for the better - and before anybody is asking: No I don´t have a “recipe” for positive change. It´s just my take from 25 years of experience at various companies that corporate culture and leadership are at least as important as funding, procedures and talent. GBX has the talent and money for sure, so any problems must originate from one or more of the other aspects.
Gearbox has been in the spotlight for some less then stellar reasons in the past. It seems they like several other companies are struggling with quality control. On top of all that more of a light is being shined on just how often game development spirals out of control due to lack of solid leadership and managment.
I want to be clear I am not blasing anyone on particular at GBX, BUT it is clear between Battleborn and BL3 there are people at the studio who are both in charge and don’t care about achieving and maintaining polished and smooth functioning games. The post launch support for both these titles was an absolute mess. Both were subject to bugs which disables or broke major features/functionality which was formerly present in the game. Thar kind of “support” is frankly unacceptable for a sixty plus dollar title in a day and age were we are graced by games which constantly push the boundaries of what we can do in games.
BL2 was a great game for 2012 and BL3 was a great game for well 2015. By the time the game released it already felt dated by the industry standards. At this point I wouldn’t be surprised of there future games regressed while trying to recapture BL2 similar to what we have seen from companies like Blizzard who lack any kind of forward direction or vision.
Gearbox and its leadership have put up a fair number of red flags over the years between the Pichford/ Eddings, the BL3 bonuses controversy and everyone’s favorite Randy gose to Medieval Times story. While non of these stories prove anything it dose raise reasonable apprehension towards the company.
Personally I have found myself disagreeing with how BL3s post launch was handled. I didn’t like the layered RNG with anointments, I didn’t like how overblown and out of control the balance got with each additional to Mayhem Mode. On top of all that GBX torpedoed Battlebone servers a game I use to play with friends to unwind. These choices haven’t instilled me with a ton of faith in the people steering the studio.
According to Randy Pitchford, this isn’t likely to affect Wonderlands in any way, so odds are they either were not directly involved in the project or have stopped working on Wonderlands a while ago and handed it over to different people.
Let’s be real, I think Bl3 is considered pretty much finished at this point. They haven’t officially pulled support and I reckon there’s a good chance there’s gonna be a few more updates in infrequent intervalls, but I doubt there’s gonna be any more content releases per se. There might be some kind of cross-over thing when Wonderlands comes out and it’s possible they are gonna do another Fight for Sanctuary style DLC in a few years when they’re trying to prepare some hype for Bl4 (assuming there is going to be a Bl4) but not much more.
I think the kind of update we could expect to release this year wouldn’t really have involved the people who have left (and who mostly seem to work in creative/conceptual areas) to begin with, so I don’t think it’s gonna make a big difference.
Honestly, I don’t think it matters too much in the grand scheme of things.
Starting with Paul Sage, taking this job description for Creative Director: " A video game creative director is someone who makes sure a video game project looks fantastic in all aspects , and is often the creator of the game concept. He or she is responsible for the overall vision of the product, which includes game play, visual style, story, audio assets, cinematics, and marketing materials", I’d say Sage did a pretty damn good job with BL3. The music and sound design is top notch, the graphic style is more polished, the cutscenes look better, and the gunplay is much more responsive and feels more like a modern shooter. I don’t think the seasonal events or post launch support would be under his control. And he was brought on just for BL3, whoever the previous Director was left. So if they could find someone like Mr. Sage for this one game, I’m confident the next hire will be suitable for the job as well.
For the writer, while I don’t like playing through BL3’s story, we need to remember that there were plenty of people who were happy when Burch left as lead writer because they didn’t like his zany style. I think people credit Burch with writing an amazing story in BL2, when he just had a really funny character with great lines and an amazing voice actor that carried what is other standard fare. If the writers who did the main story also did the DLCs, then most of the best story driven content in the franchise was written by those people.
Losing the Lead Character artist will suck, because they look damn good. But there are plenty of talented artist around so I’m confident there will be someone who can fill those shoes.
Lead Mission designer I don’t have any opinion on. It’s been ages since I’ve played the story but mission objectives seemed standard fare for Borderlands so I doubt that will change regardless of who is at the helm.
The most interesting one imo is the Senior Producer. This is the person who interfaces between Gearbox and 2K and manages the production schedule. This same person has done the job for all 4 Borderlands titles, two of which had major last minute shifts in production (BL3 with unreal 4 and BL1 with the graphics overhaul). This person is also responsible for overseeing QA and I think post launch live service applications. I’m not too positive from reading the job description, but this person has a ton of years of experience at GBX and losing him will probably hurt, although if I am right about him being the guy who handled the post launch content of BL3 (not the hotfixes and stuff mind, just the events and gameplay stuff), I have mixed feelings about how he handled it.
Game feel is another kinda tough role to unpack, but from LinkedIn this is what it entailed
• Led design of controls, camera, and core player mechanics (traversal, aiming, melee, world interaction).
• Assisted UI team with UX design (menus, front end, HUD)
• Oversaw design of 3D model and camera work related to presentations (vending machines, skill screen, player customization, etc.)
I can say a common complaint with BL3 is the UI elements, but the 3D models (the character skins for example) were pretty nice.
So overall, I don’t think this is incredibly dramatic. Nearly everyone on this list, from what I understand their job descriptions to be, has done things I like and dislike. People leave jobs, it happens all the time, and since BL3 is now wrapping up it would be a good time to leave if you were in a senior management role. For all my dislikes, I still find BL3 to be near the top tier Borderlands experience for me (below TPS but usurping BL1), and basically everyone worked on all 3 games which means they all had a hand in experiences I loved and hated, so I don’t think their departure will be a good or bad thing for the franchise. Things will just change a bit. Nothing new under the sun here.
There’s no polishing this turd. A company that loses it’s top talent is in decline.
I’m not sure I’d agree. People leave companies for all sorts of reasons all the time, and some of those are always going to be in senior positions. If you look at just the Borderlands franchise, some have left due to serious health issues that took priority, some moved on to pursue development of their own ideas; and there are plenty more who’ve left for reasons unknown but they haven’t been as high profile so most people don’t know about them.
The real test for any company is how they manage transitions. Regardless of how good someone is, in the grand scheme of things no-one is completely irreplaceable. Sure, their replacement may not have exactly the same skill set, but sometimes that’s a good thing. If a company really lived or died depending on specific individuals, then it wasn’t well-structured and well-run.
Ultimately, the only real test is how things work out going forward. And if you knew that sort of thing with absolute confidence, you ought to be wealthy enough to buy out Jeff Bezos!
Sure, no one is indispensable. That doesn’t mean a company can’t suffer harm when many top people leave at once. Despite Mr. Pitchford’s reassurances to the contrary, I doubt things are business as usual.
Maybe the years have made me cynical. I have never seen an instance of mass migration out of a company as normal or good. Usually the simplest explanation is the correct one. The explanation I tend toward is, GBX isn’t a good/fun place to work so the top talent that can get work easily, are doing just that.
On this particular one, I’m mostly looking at the fact that six of those who left did so to pursue their own project. Given how some employment contracts can be when it comes to IP developed by employees, the fact that this is acknowledge suggest to me at least that their departure was indeed on good terms. As I always say, time will tell.
Turnover in games development is remarkably common. The industry in general right now is experiencing a lot of shift with lessons learned from the pandemic changing both companies and people’s priorities.
It’s nothing about being in “decline”. Or at least, that’s not a claim that can be proven now. If you can see the future with that kind of absolute precision . . . well, I’m just repeating VH here 
I did a quick look on LinkedIn before making my post. Several of the people leaving were promoted to their senior leadership positions internally. If the training structure at GBX hasn’t decline from when they were promoted, then there should be people within their midst who are ready to assume leadership.
I think you have to take into consideration that game development isn’t a normal job. Every game is it’s own self contained project that moves from a beginning to an end point, and once that end point is reached you go on to something else. It’s not like they are accountants working at the same company doing the same thing for years on end. Once the game they work on ends, they either get transferred to a new game’s team or leave to work on something else.
What if they had an idea for a game amongst themselves and just wanted to make that instead of doing more borderlands stuff?
I’m not saying I know anything about anyone but it sounds like they all chose to leave together… For that to happen there has to be something compelling going on.
It’s possible they just didn’t want to work at gearbox, the industry has painted a rather rude picture of the way things are there behind the scenes. Not sure how real that is or if it deserves to be treated with credence or not.
IDK I would like to work there helping gearbox to make borderlands the best it can be.
So I prefer to believe they just wanted to do something else
I’m with the folks saying that the devs who left, departed of their own accord. No company fires 7 of its top managers at once. Those folks DO leave to pursue something else, once they are either bored or have no further possibilities for advancement. I think it’s most likely either one (or both) of those occurred here.
Managers who get fired, are fired quietly.
GBX has hundreds of people working for it. The BL franchise has its own critical mass, feel, and stories at this point. BL4 (or whatever it will be called) is going to be just fine.
I am more than a little skeptical about that, but otherwise agree with you.
@ralph.hawk I guess what I should have said was “just as fine as it ever would have been.” These devs leaving will not affect the next game very much, if at all, IMO.
Alright I mean compared to 2 but they’re still… Pretty bad… Like there’s SFM artists doing stuff way better than what made it into the game, AND the Krieg trailer was still animated better than most, if not all cutscenes in 3!
The game needs alot more fixing. It is not finished at all on that point. Guns needs buffs, bugs and other things. If you think there done then you are not seeing the picture others are seeing.
Correct me if I am misunderstanding what you are saying here. I feel like you are saying that the post you were responding to (and I am not responding for the poster at all here) was suggesting that they felt the game itself was “done.”
I don’t believe the poster you responded to or anyone here is really saying that they think that BL3 is what many players would consider to be in a “finished” state. There are still tons of bugs and frustrations that could and likely should be addressed. But at this point, I’d be really surprised to see a lot more consistent/ongoing support.
I think that’s just the reality of the situation.
Yeah thats what i ment to say. I should have posted a proper response then the one i did but it got misunderstood. My bad on that.
As for you other comment i to would be surprised for more support but they need to do it. If they don’t then its going to look bad on them and it will remind me about EA and there crappy support they did many moons ago on the C&C franchise. I hope they don’t go down that road but you never know. We deserve better from GB. I know some will say no but we did pay for this game and for it to be dropped on its head with no other support will be a bad image on them if they decide to do so.