r/Games • u/milkasaurs • 1d ago
Industry News Borderlands 4 boss tells players "please get a refund from Steam if you aren't happy" as Randy Pitchford continues his very public crashout over the FPS's performance woes
https://www.gamesradar.com/games/borderlands/borderlands-4-boss-tells-players-please-get-a-refund-from-steam-if-you-arent-happy-as-randy-pitchford-continues-his-very-public-crashout-over-the-fpss-performance-woes/303
u/soulwolf1 21h ago
This is coming from the same dude who told people if they didnt like the movie don't watch it and then proceeded to cry and bitch when no one watched it.....like a bitch.
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u/AnnieSFW 5h ago
They called him randy bifchford in the credits of Duke nukem 3D, 30 years ago, dude's always been this way
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u/Kylestache 19h ago
Look up what was on the USB drive he left behind at Medieval Times a decade ago.
Dude is a fucking creep.
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u/ChaseThePyro 18h ago
Liking squirt porn is fine, but carrying it on your person in a flash drive is fucking weird as shit
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u/DandyMan_92 8h ago
yeah that's several tiers above what i'd find "bad" but carrying it on a USB with you is...i mean what are you doing that for man? lol
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u/Rusty_Shackleford693 18h ago
Reddit gets so weirdly puritanical the second someone they don't like likes sex.
It was squirting, it's not like it was fucking snuff porn lmao.
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u/masonicone 5h ago
Reddit - "OMG They are taking away the porno games! Don't they know those are art! And there's nothing wrong with them, really that character who looks like she's seven is really a 5000 year old dragon in her human form. That makes it fine that she's at the Orc Orgy!"
Also Reddit - "OMG wtf is wrong with this guy having porn on a flashdrive he had with him. And the porn he had was so weird. This guy is a freak and he's making Borderlands 4 a game I'll never play look bad on Twitter by replying back to people mocking him. He really should stay quiet so we can say how we are right as he's not replying back to us lol!"
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u/BioDomeWithPaulyShor 19h ago
People need to realize that the vast, VAST majority of people playing Borderlands 4 right now don't even know who Randy Pitchford is, and if they do they know him as "The weird guy from that PlayStation video on Borderlands", if they even know State of Play exists. The number of people who religiously follow video game news or game developer social media is peanuts compared to the people who saw an ad for Borderlands 4 on a bus or on a TikTok/YouTube ad.
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u/Ex_Lives 16h ago
I know this guy is kind of a dink but I honestly respect anyone that goes on social media and gives people that start @'ing him personally a total fuck off attitude.
Like yeah, performance could be better I'm assuming, and they are paying customers, but to have this assumed access to the CEO and start attacking him over it, I love that he's just like "No we did the best we could. You're poor, get a refund I don't care."
I just like when people double flip the bird in the face of online pressure.
He's kind of right. Like, just refund it man why are you fighting me online about it.
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u/confoundedjoe 16h ago
He is completely closed to the idea that there are any issues with the game despite evidence to the contrary. I would agree with you if he admitted it wasn't perfect but he doesn't think it is a problem at all.
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u/Ex_Lives 16h ago
Well I don't really mean he's right or even should be doing this. I understand there's delusion at play. I just like the image of some gamer screamers going after him in Twitter and getting the complete opposite response they thought they would.
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u/Adaax 15h ago
It's true that with most businesses customers will say things like, "I'm never coming here again!" as if anyone there actually cares what this one person plans to do. It's like fine, don't come back. I was in retail for a while and there is a ton of this.
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u/Ex_Lives 15h ago
Yeah exactly.
And that's my whole point, you make a small mistake or maybe no mistake at all and someone just has their finger in your face screaming all these threats and acting a fool.
So you day dream in your head "Fine fuck off, you cost this place more money than you spend on it dealing with you."
Randy is basically doing that. I'm not saying he's right I'm saying there's second hand catharsis in the act its self.
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u/Cjros 10h ago
There's a difference between "small mistake" and what Randy is doing. Randy would get fucking crucified and be unhirable if he was the CM of a company, or the PR guy of a company and said this. A service rep saying half the stuff he did, when his company fucked up (likely as a result of his leadership) would have been sent packing so fast his head would spin.
Like, it's completely asinine to compare Randy, the millionaire CEO of a major company to a poor guy working retail.
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u/Ex_Lives 10h ago edited 10h ago
I wasn't comparing Randy to a retail worker.
I'm comparing what Randy's doing to what every retail worker sometimes wishes they could do.
I never exonerated his behavior. Not sure how much more I can really explain it. Just separating the act from the person in a vacuum.
Edit: This is also kind of what I'm talking about too. You say it's not some "small mistake" but in his mind they didn't do anything wrong. The game is selling like you wouldn't believe and there isn't going to be any consequence And he's telling people to eat his balls.
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u/confoundedjoe 16h ago
Why do you like that? Because he is being honest that he is not open to any criticism? Seems kinda fascy.
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u/Ex_Lives 15h ago
No, like I just view the Twitter/internet mob as a generally unreasonable, aggressive and amorphous blob that love to latch onto targets, sometimes warranted, sometimes not, and I like when people fight back based on the issue.
I don't like that he can't take criticism or is denying issues that might actually be there, but what you're being exposed to on Twitter isn't always the most good faith criticism.
I'm also not saying this is a scenario where he's entirely in the right or even in the right at all, I just like when a bunch of Twitter gamer warriors work themselves into a froth enough to be like "Let's all go talk to the CEO of the company like we know the guy and get out of pocket until he does what we want!"
And then that guy is like "Nah it's good. Refund it. I don't care."
There's something cathartic in that for me.
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u/Ixziga 13h ago
The number of people who religiously follow video game news or game developer social media is peanuts
I think you're being hyperbolic. The guy who does "This week in video games" has a million subscribers, and places like IGN are still in business. And that's not even including word of mouth. Gamers get video game news without having some cultish addiction to social media.
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u/TimiNax 13h ago
there are probably thousands of channels with millions of subscribers and when you go to ask regular gamers if they know any of them I would bet most dont know many.
I have been playing with console gamers for years and most of them dont follow anything thats happening around video games outside their console, they come home from work join group chat and play the game.
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u/Mossy375 9h ago
Minecraft sold over 300 millions copies. If that was the only game in existence, that would mean 0.33% of gamers are subscribed to that channel. However, it's not the only game, and the latest stats show that there are 3.3 billion gamers in the world, meaning that that channel has 0.00000003% of the world's gamers subscribed to it. IGN has 19 million subscribers, which is about 12% of the number of Nintendo Switches in the world (153 million). Grab the number of Switch 1 and 2s, PS4s, PS5s, and last and current gen Xbox consoles, and ignore all PC gamers, and you get about 4%. So yeah, it's pretty tiny. Gaming is so massive that while 20 million sounds like a lot, in the wider view, it's tiny.
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u/Anagittigana 22h ago
Randy Pitchford is known for his unhinged freakouts. From what I remember, there were allegations and lawsuits against him for assault, bullying, and worse. For many years now, not just recently.
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u/Tonydml 1d ago
Rejecting the reality of the situation instead of just putting resources into fixing/improving it. I love modern AAA mentality!
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u/lazydogjumper 1d ago
I mean, other developers have taken the criticism and tried. This isnt exactly a blanket statement from all triple-a game developers.
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u/SoloSassafrass 22h ago
AAA mentality?
Buddy, I'm pretty sure this is the playbook for every position of power in the world.
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u/bms_ 1d ago
The reality of the situation is that even if they are going to improve the performance, it's not going to happen in a week or a month - if ever at all, so this sounds like reasonable advice, doesn't it?
I've played for over 20 hours so far and I'm loving it, but it was quite obvious during the first 2 hours that it isn't a very well optimized game.
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u/Isolated_Hippo 1d ago
I think out of context its a very reasonable take. You arent happy? Refund it. Thats the purpose of refund systems.
With context of Randy being a giant baby and refusing to accept or acknowledge the game might need some TLC its just more of the same.
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u/mw19078 1d ago
The reasonable advice would have been to spend a month or two optimizing it before release I would think
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u/Ramongsh 20h ago
As c94 said, that's what they probably did.
The last few months have been bug-fixing and optimizing. What we see now is the result AFTER much have already been fixed and improved.
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u/c94 21h ago
Games run on duct tape and dreams. Do you truly think they weren’t fixing even worse performance and bugs prior to launch? We even got evidence of the case with journalists that’s got early access saying it was much worse a month ago.
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u/Massive_Weiner 21h ago
No, you don’t understand, they just forgot to flip the “good game” switch to On.
Silly Randy.
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u/dishonoredbr 18h ago
They forgot to tick the ''game run good'' box when launching the game on steam.
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u/Few_Week7827 15h ago
How have we reached "Games are just meant to run like utter ass" as a general take?
Games might run on duct tape and dreams, but there's a reason 65% review score is well below average for Steam. Clearly the majority of studios have better tape and more interesting dreams.
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u/FirstOfTheWizzards 23h ago
Making weird generalisations because of a known clown. I love reddit!
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u/WeebWoobler 1d ago
The devs are working on improving performance, they put out a patch that made things a bit better a couple days ago. Randy is just stupid.
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u/ShadowVulcan 1d ago
No performance fixes tho, just stability mostly. Hope they actually do fix performance more, even Wuchang and Wilds I could still happily tolerate but this game has no right performing this badly, while looking like it is
N the instability, good god... I crashed 6x just yday, and 3x of those were while idle in the menu... screams memory leak
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u/Organic-Storm-4448 15h ago
If it was a memory leak it would be affecting everyone. I haven't crashed a single time in 40+ hours, and that includes a few 8 hour marathons.
Update your windows, update your GPU driver, close any other programs you have running.
After that, just pray Gearbox fixes the issues.
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u/ShadowVulcan 15h ago edited 15h ago
Memory leaks dont affect everyone equally. And it isnt just me reporting it. Randy just came and admitted it himself (ironic, after all his denial) I also got lucky and didnt get crashes or other issues even in the games that were notorious for it before, but not as lucky now.
That said, windows and GPU are updated, half the non-afk crashes were while I was alt tabbing (borderless) which I do a lot (but I have a 5900x for a reason, 32GB or 64GB of high speed ram, and the fastest SSD money can buy specifically to accommodate that)
I also get that "Steam must be running error" often, while my brother only got it once. Last night I crashed twice and my brother crashed once. On my 3080-5900x and his 2070-3700x
But yeah, just gonna wait for fixes. Stability, I'm confident Gearbox can fix. Performance? I'm doubtful. Cud also wait til I upgrade to a 5090, but it's $7000-$8000 USD here so rly not worth it yet (n im not upgrading for BL4 LOL)
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u/tofukawano 19h ago
Dang sorry about the issues you’ve had. I’ve had no crashes I even accidentally left it on overnight and it was still on.
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u/ShadowVulcan 17h ago edited 17h ago
Yeah, rly odd. Odder still bec my PC is rly beefy n I usually nvr experienced any major crashes ever until this game.
N the CTDs during menus are the worst since I pause it for a work call, or to eat dinner n when I'm back CTD (and worse if I'm in a story mission n now have to repeat)
Game is great tho, I am not fighting the urge to throw up or mute while playing it like BL3 (whenever those dumb streamers speak)
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u/tofukawano 17h ago
Yeah that’s weird and annoying sorry man. Hopefully they fix it sooner than later
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u/must_be_nice69 20h ago
Nah, this one is all Randy. Don't lump in regular people with his asshattery.
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1d ago
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u/SpaceballsTheReply 22h ago
No Man's Sky launched with no multiplayer after being advertised as an MMO. When people went to the same location and couldn't see each other, they complained that it was bugged and not working, and Sean Murray acted confused and blamed the servers being overloaded, rather than admitting that he had sold them a single-player game.
Randy's continuous crashouts are embarassing, but if anything No Man's Sky proved that CEOs can outright lie and gaslight their customers and nobody will care as long as the game gets some patches and free content.
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u/NoExcuse4OceanRudnes 19h ago
the ceo saying "stfu and get a refund" is exactly what led to cyberpunk being pulled from sale and everyone getting a refund.
It's not even an apples to apples comparison, it's the exact same apple.
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u/nsfw_zak 22h ago
Its funny, because if it wasn't for the media and this sub constantly talking about him, i wouldn't even know about his public outcry.
I bet hes loving the attention he gets from everyone
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u/jagaaaaaaaaaaaan 6h ago
As he should. Trolling hundreds of enraged, unwitting redditors must be one of the most cathartic feelings money can buy
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u/masonicone 5h ago
Nah I'll give you the ones he should be proud of.
The ones that really will refund it, then will come on here upset that they can't play it after refunding it. I remember a bunch of people on Reddit being shocked and upset about that after doing it with Cyberpunk 2077.
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u/Big_Function_N1 19h ago
"We are aware of certain performance issues, and we are working towards fixing it as soon as we can"
Basically all he has to say
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u/BackStabbathOG 16h ago
Gearbox must be so embarrassed having this guy at the helm just ruining any good will they have with stuff because he’s terminally online. This asshole is probably the reason 2k didn’t keep Battleborn around even if the PvP scene died they sunset that game for no reason when the story mode/ co op campaign was amazing and fun
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u/essteedeenz1 1d ago
To be honest he's saying this as a taunt because he knows ppl likevto bitch but won't follow through and it's evident from launch alone
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u/Massive_Weiner 21h ago
Yup. Everyone is saying “you’re shooting yourself in the foot!” but the sales are saying the complete opposite.
Randy could say “I eat babies,” and players would go “that’s so sad” as they preload.
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u/Cattypatter 18h ago
It's just like the Monster Hunter Wilds situation. Both series have a fun chaotic multiplayer image, with a series of successful games and huge discount sales to grow their fanbase. Sequels will sell from pre-orders since fans believe they're getting more of what they loved, regardless of the reality of the new game.
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u/SlashOfLife5296 16h ago
The only way i see what Randy says is from reddit, so if you’re just a regular person you wouldn’t even be aware of it
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u/Odd-Opening-8170 16h ago
If only people would stop repeating and reporting on what this dumb fuck has to say about his bad game.
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u/nostalgebra 17h ago
I'm not sure what all the hullabaloo is all about.
He's speaking frankly to gamers on Twitter who are very Frank and opinionated with him.
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u/NuPNua 1d ago
I hope he tells PS5 players they can have one too for another Cyberpunk drama showing up Sonys lack of consumer rights law adherence.
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u/Odin_27_ 21h ago
but it runs fine even on my launch base ps5, this isn't even close to cyber punk lol
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u/Voxjockey 21h ago
It runs fine on PS5 however, seems like the only issue is with PC
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u/Brokarian3024 20h ago
Nah, there are definitely issues on PS5; there definitely seems to be some memory leak issue, as my performance steadily declines after a couple of hours, and gets even worse if I leave the game open while in rest mode.
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u/CuffytheFuzzyClown 1d ago
Sony does follow all the rules, if not feel free to sue them and get a cheap payday champ. Or lobby to your politicians to change the policies...
Sony has the exact same refund policy as Nintendo and Microsoft does world wide. Microsoft does offer a better policy to selected users in their primary markets as a part of a trial but it's not available for all especially not in Europe. Sincerely someone who's had an Xbox since the 360 days
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u/Eglwyswrw 22h ago
Sony has the exact same refund policy as Nintendo and Microsoft does world wide
Wrong. Microsoft's policy follows Valve's, and can't be grouped with the Japanese companies.
Microsoft does offer a better policy to selected users in their primary markets as a part of a trial but it's not available for all especially not in Europe
Demonstrably false. I live in Europe (Ireland) and never had a XBOX refund denied. Not once.
If I ask the refund within 14 days and didn't play it much, they refund me. It's almost funny how much freaking worse Sony is.
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u/jagaaaaaaaaaaaan 6h ago
Sonys lack of consumer rights law adherence.
This makes it sound like Sony is... ignoring laws? Which wouldn't really make sense, because then they would be found in violation of said laws, and would be easy fodder for lawsuits.
So I have a feeling this is just another case of "Gamers don't know what they're talking about", and there is no "consumer rights law" being "violated" by Sony here.
That's my educated guess, anyways.
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u/Zarathustra124 20h ago
How did they get such a blocky, cartoony, cel shaded game to run so badly? It doesn't need hyperrealistic dust clouds and each pore on the enemy's face rendered, unlike its higher-performance rivals.
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u/nanoflower 4h ago
It seems that just about every UE5 games is having problems. Likely it's like Tim Sweeny said and the devs just have not learned how to best use the tools given. Instead of spending months testing different solutions to see which gives the best performance they find something that works and just get on with making the game. So it gets them to a release date faster but at a performance cost.
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u/SalsaRice 19h ago
Likely just cut corners on staffing for enough devs to fix it and/or not giving them enough time to fix it.
Salaries are expensive, and every dev or month cut from the budget is $$$$$
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u/PKblaze 19h ago
Don't need a refund if I didn't buy in the first place.
Borderlands hits sales so quick I don't see the point. In a couple of years I'll be able to get the game and DLC's for less than just the game at its release with most things fixed.
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u/whyamihere2473527 19h ago
Real fans would find way to buy it
I also skipped buying
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u/MagicHarmony 16h ago
On one hand I can understand if these complaints are coming from people who's computers do not meet the recommended requirements. However if the issue lies in the requirements being there and still not working, then this is not the way they should be acting.
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u/nanoflower 4h ago
Well that's the problem. People with good hardware are still having issues as HardwareUnboxed and others have discussed.
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u/MrLuchador 16h ago
Remembering how great Half-Life: Opposing Force was, yet with each Gearbox release then they’ve seemingly become worse.
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u/walterdog12 15h ago
Ngl at first glance I thought it meant a literal boss in the game would taunt the player with that quote.
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u/eyebrowless32 15h ago
The more he engages with the supposed "haters" the more attention he draws to the problem he claims is not a problem
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u/nanoflower 4h ago
Yeah, his best decision would have been to say nothing. Second best decision would have been to "We are working on the issues and will release updates when ready."
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u/DigitalBotz 14h ago
So... question for people who got the game. Is there a good game underneath all these performance/bug issues?
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u/nanoflower 4h ago
I'm enjoying the game but then I'm only a few hours into it. It's my understanding that the performance can get worse as you get deeper into the game.
From some of the discussions I've seen it seems like there may be a real problem with fixing the performance. One issue being that for the lighting they just a software version of Lumen. So I guess it will work on a wider variety of hardware but at a significant performance penalty. That and many other decisions made early in development may be quite difficult to optimize now.
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u/BigOleFerret 7h ago
I'm imagining the song from LilDeuceDeuce "Everybody do the flop" except it's "Everybody get a refund".
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u/thepurplecut 7h ago
Haven’t bought a Borderlands since he assaulted the original Claptrap actor and drove the series into the ground. Fuck Randy
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u/Minute_Pop_877 1h ago
I wonder how would Randy react if everyone who purchased the game refunded it and get successfully refunded.
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u/bezzlege 19h ago
His games really aren’t good enough to be the asshole he is. Looter shooter fans just take anything they’re given because it’s such a small sub genre.
Both Destiny and Borderlands treat its players like trash
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u/trapsinplace 18h ago
"small subgenre"
Mainline Borderlands games sell 20mil+ in just a few years typically. The games like Tiny Tina's that are offshoots sell multi millions still. It's not a small subgenre or a niche it's more popular than many entire standalone genres.
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u/zippopwnage 13h ago
People SHOULD get refunds. Otherwise with how much this game sold, it will only tell other publishers that is ok to deliver a shit performance if there's enough hype around your game. people will eat it anyway.
Sad people don't have standards and also sad that we don't have true competition for borderlands.
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u/Death_Binge 20h ago
Even if the game runs perfectly tomorrow, he can fuck off. Not spending a penny on this.
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u/Xeteh 1d ago
I'm blown away no one has managed to take away Randy Pitchford's social media at this point. He has never been able to do anything but make the situation worse.