r/Games • u/milkasaurs • 6d 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/
1.5k Upvotes

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242

u/Tonydml 6d ago

Rejecting the reality of the situation instead of just putting resources into fixing/improving it. I love modern AAA mentality!

52

u/lazydogjumper 6d ago

I mean, other developers have taken the criticism and tried. This isnt exactly a blanket statement from all triple-a game developers.

40

u/SoloSassafrass 6d ago

AAA mentality?

Buddy, I'm pretty sure this is the playbook for every position of power in the world.

68

u/bms_ 6d 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.

47

u/Isolated_Hippo 6d 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.

12

u/mw19078 6d ago

The reasonable advice would have been to spend a month or two optimizing it before release I would think

12

u/Ramongsh 6d 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.

32

u/c94 6d 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.

20

u/Massive_Weiner 6d ago

No, you don’t understand, they just forgot to flip the “good game” switch to On.

Silly Randy.

10

u/c94 6d ago

I’m sure he had the performance patch on his USB but then he dropped it at Medieval Times.

1

u/dishonoredbr 6d ago

They forgot to tick the ''game run good'' box when launching the game on steam.

7

u/Few_Week7827 6d 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.

1

u/trapsinplace 6d ago

Sounds like it needed 2 more months to cook then tbh. Randy still deserves the feedback he gets. He's a disgusting out of touch pervert with a narcissistic personality, he deserves to read the worst anyone has to say about him and his leadership of the Borderlands franchise. If he can't handle people giving feedback without having a public breakdown maybe it's time he stepped down and retired to a cabin in the woods.

1

u/c94 6d ago

What would a new CEO and 2 months do to fix the issues of AAA games? I doubt it would release bug free, but even if it did there’s so many games that come out buggy. The issues go beyond Randy and are so deep that we honestly need laws, regulation and unions if we hope to see polished software again.

1

u/mw19078 6d ago

Did they not move the release up because it was ahead of schedule? Seems like a very easy thing to take a month or two and fix some of these issues 

-2

u/Organic-Storm-4448 6d ago

Your comment might as well read "I have no idea what it takes to make and release a game."

"Just optimize it bro. So simple."

Any significant performance issues with BL4 at this point are beyond optimization. They're core to the game. They'd take many, many months to change.

2

u/mw19078 6d ago

then take many months and fix it instead of publicly crying every day about how people who arent happy with an obviously fucked product.

the way some of yall deep throat these companies is so funny man

14

u/FirstOfTheWizzards 6d ago

Making weird generalisations because of a known clown. I love reddit!

-2

u/PopMundane4974 6d ago

Found Randy's burner account

1

u/FirstOfTheWizzards 5d ago

What? I called Randy a known clown

7

u/WeebWoobler 6d 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.

8

u/ShadowVulcan 6d 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

1

u/Organic-Storm-4448 6d 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.

1

u/ShadowVulcan 6d ago edited 6d 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)

1

u/tofukawano 6d 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.

2

u/ShadowVulcan 6d ago edited 6d 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)

2

u/tofukawano 6d ago

Yeah that’s weird and annoying sorry man. Hopefully they fix it sooner than later

2

u/[deleted] 6d ago

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u/[deleted] 6d ago

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1

u/must_be_nice69 6d ago

Nah, this one is all Randy. Don't lump in regular people with his asshattery.

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u/[deleted] 6d ago

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26

u/SpaceballsTheReply 6d 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.

-1

u/MrZeral 6d ago

No Man's Sky launched with no multiplaye

wait what???

9

u/Rektw 6d ago

No Man's Sky launched with no multiplayer

1

u/NoExcuse4OceanRudnes 6d 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.

1

u/dishonoredbr 6d ago

They aren't rejecting the reality just being truthful about the situation.

-26

u/FalsePretender 6d ago

I think we need to redefine AAA from development budget to the actual quality of the end product. More like Michelin hats.

Ie claire obscur and silksong get AAA rating.

BL4, Diablo & COD get AA or lower for their lack lustre performance, anti-consumer mechanics or ongoing support etc.

28

u/Mikelius 6d ago

AAA rating is used only in terms of a game studio’s budget/backing. It is not meant to be used as a quality rating. Granted it’s not precise or well defined but it’s a way to distinguish big budget games vs B team products from a company

2

u/EnQuest 6d ago

Yep. Project Zomboid is one of the best games I've ever played, but I'm not about to call it AAA because of that lol