Aliens: Colonial Marines was by far one of the worst games of 2013, if not all time. Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford has unveiled the personal cost of the disaster.
Aliens: Colonial Marines was a joint venture between Sega and Gearbox that turned out to be just, just awful. As the current CEO of Gearbox, Randy Pitchford invited people to ask him questions with the hashtag #AskRandy and rather predictably, the focus soon turned to the game. Pitchford admitted during the twitter Q&A that he invested $10 million of his own money on top of Sega’s investment in the doomed game, only to lose it all.
He went on to blame an unfair market place and biased critics for comparing Colonial Marines to games with double the budget. He followed up with a twitter argument trying to explain why the bad press was unfair.
No one hurts more than me when our entertainment fails to entertain. But the claims of mal intent are hurtful and unhelpful… Every demo was exactly the game at that time. Games change during development. All games do (all media, infact)… The game actually changed for the better in tons of ways. IMO, the never demo’d areas are among best and I liked the meta game… I fuck up all the time! Like, constantly! But my purpose is to entertain I fail at that too. but claims of fraud are unfair.
Pitchford’s company, Gearbox, entered into a lawsuit alongside Sega which has recently been dropped. The game was slammed upon release for misrepresenting the final product in its trailers, and for failing to deliver on the hype it created. Somewhat fair criticism considering the game was absolutely broken.
You okay there Sarge?
Apparently the game only sold 1.31 million units, some 1.7 million units short of the 3 million it needed to break even. Thankfully the franchise has since been saved with the release of the awesome Alien: Isolation. Take note Randy, that’s how you don’t dick over your fanbase.
Mark is the Gaming Editor for UNILAD. Having grown up a gaming addict, he’s been deeply entrenched in culture and spends time away from work playing as much as possible. Mark studied music at University and found a love for journalism through going to local gigs and writing about them for local and national publications.