It feels like history repeating itself, we’re talking about Randy Pitchford being the bad kind of PR, online, again.
The latest looter-shooter (Borderlands 4) from Gearbox should be a victory lap. But the CEO’s social media antics are turning a successful launch into a PR nightmare.
Borderlands 4 has exploded onto the scene, and by all metrics, it should be a home run for Gearbox.
The game is reportedly the most successful launch in the franchise’s history, and the general consensus is positive. But what should be a moment of triumph is being dragged through the mud by a familiar combination: significant performance issues and the baffling social media conduct of CEO Randy Pitchford.
I get it, you want to protect your staff, your business and your product. You take it personally, and the urge to respond in a direct manner is very tempting. I don’t blame Randy Pitchford for getting emotive over his stuff. But it’s doing more harm than good.
Borderlands 4
By most accounts, Randy Pitchford and Gearbox have delivered a winner.
Player and critic reception for the game itself has been overwhelmingly positive. Many fans who were let down by Borderlands 3 (me, included!) and its insufferable influencer villains are calling the writing a breath of fresh air.
It’s not Shakespeare, but it’s praised for being digestible, genuinely funny, and leaning back into the wacky, absurd goofiness that defined the series’ best moments.
Social media and forums are filled with players sharing stories of memorable side quests. Like helping a deeply depressed rocket achieve its dreams of launching. Or assisting a farmer in domesticating a giant, hostile alien creature. And even brewing a truly foul alcoholic beverage for a camp of thirsty raiders.
This is the Borderlands fans have been missing.
The biggest shake-up is the series’ leap to a fully open-world format.
For a franchise that some felt was growing stale, it appears to be the right call. The world of Chyros is being lauded as a joy to explore, with players stumbling upon secret bosses, hidden loot, and bizarre missions just by wandering off the beaten path.
Coupled with new movement abilities and quality-of-life updates, the move to open-world feels like a genuine evolution, not a tired trend.
Borderlands 4 isn’t reinventing the FPS genre, but it’s a damn solid entry that players are clearly enjoying. When it works.
Performance woes
Unfortunately, a great game can’t always escape a bad narrative, especially when the person in charge is writing it themselves.
The CEO of Gearbox, Randy Pitchford, seems physically incapable of letting the game speak for itself. He’s once again made himself the centre of a completely unnecessary controversy.
Players on both PC and console have been reporting a slew of performance issues since launch. While Gearbox is undoubtedly working on fixes, Pitchford has taken to social media with a shockingly defensive and dismissive attitude.
When one Twitter user pointed out that the game was running poorly even on a PC that met the recommended specs. Randy Pitchford’s advice was to use DLSS frame generation.
The user cleverly compared this to buying a new car but only being able to enjoy it while wearing drunk goggles. Randy Pitchford’s response was a masterclass in how not to handle customer feedback.
“You could do whatever you want. The game is the game. Please get a refund from Steam if you aren’t happy with it. You made an analogy to a vehicle. I would not put a Ferrari engine in a monster truck and expect it to drive like a Ferrari.”
Randy Pitchford then doubled down, effectively blaming the player for their own experience:
“I’m sorry you don’t like being told to use DLSS, but that is the way. If you’re not happy using the tools available to you to improve the frame rate… you should play a different game. The game is awesome and it is designed to be just fine of an experience at 30 frames per second and feel great at 60 frames per second.”
These complaints are not just from users with older hardware, either. Even players with top-of-the-line rigs, including 5090 GPUs and high-end CPUs, report needing to rely on upscaling tech to achieve stable performance.
This isn’t a “monster truck” issue; it’s an optimisation issue.
Meanwhile, console players are reportedly dealing with a memory leak that forces them to restart the game every few hours to fix plummeting frame rates.
But the comment that truly poured gasoline on the fire was this gem:
“Every PC gamer must accept the reality of the relationship between their hardware and what the software they are running is doing.”
This is an astonishingly arrogant statement.
In an era where it’s more surprising for a AAA game to launch without technical problems, placing the onus on the consumer is a losing strategy.
All Pitchford had to do was issue a simple, professional statement: “We hear your feedback, we are investigating these issues, and we’re working hard to get patches out as soon as possible.” Instead, he chose to antagonise his own player base.
Why shoot yourself in the foot?
The game is a massive success, with over 180,000 concurrent players on Steam alone.
This should have been an easy PR win for Gearbox. Instead, the narrative is shifting from “Borderlands is back” to “Randy Pitchford is at it again.”
This behaviour doesn’t just make him look bad; it reflects poorly on the entire studio and puts immense pressure on the developers who are actually fixing the problems.
It also impacts sales. How many potential buyers have seen the reports of poor performance, compounded by the CEO’s dismissive attitude, and decided to hold off?
The best thing Randy Pitchford could do right now is simple: put the phone down. Log off. Let his talented team communicate updates and fix the game.
He needs to let Borderlands 4 be the story, before his own antics tarnish its reputation beyond repair.
Hey, Randy. Chill bro.
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