Gearbox used the money SEGA gave them for A:CM to make borderlands 2

[Ps360]

SEGAbits » Another Gearbox worker takes to Reddit, says SEGA’s money funded the Borderlands franchise

We had a post a few days ago about a Gearbox Worker spilling his guts on the development of Aliens: Colonial Marines. Now we have another one and this time, he is verified. Meaning he sent proper verification that he works at Gearbox Software to the moderators. So what did he say that was interesting?

“Gearbox didnt care about the game, they spent the money from acm on the borderlands games. Look at the release of borderlands and when aliens was anounced, they had the other companies like timegate do the work. When they got the game back timegate had done a terrible job. When it came into sega it was shit basicaly. Gearbox only cared about fixing ‘progression blockers’ (things that stop a player from getting through a level) or crashes” – soetester

The first and easiest is that all that money SEGA pumped through them was actually used to develop Borderlands. Do I see a lawsuit coming? Well, I think something happen since if you go to the Reddit page, his account was deleted. No worries, sceenshot of his answers after the break.

I hope gearbox gets sued to bankruptcy.

[Chambers35]

Well shit... So that's why the game (even the PC version) looked so much different from the trailers.

I wonder what's going to happen

[Oxymoron28]

SEGAbits » Another Gearbox worker takes to Reddit, says SEGA’s money funded the Borderlands franchise






I hope gearbox gets sued to bankruptcy.

As much as I loved the Borderlands series, this is bullshit. Fuck gearbox.

[Luckay]

Major respect lost for Gearbox after reading this.

[crazygrimmjow]

Wow damn this is bullshit! Damn Gearbox I still enjoy borderlands tho.

[Letifer]

I really like Gearbox as a developer but this is pretty damn low.

[stefanovich777]

That's unspeakable, I didn't expect something like that... Fuck Gearbox! I'd hope that justice will be served for this...

[brotherfranciz]

What, so we're just going to trust this person who was allegedly verified by Reddit moderators?

Who is this person? How does he/she know where the money went? I think we should all take this with a grain of salt.

For me, this is hard to believe because money was clearly given to Timegate to develop the game, or the game wouldn't even have existed.

[Ps360]

What, so we're just going to trust this person who was allegedly verified by Reddit moderators?

its actually impossible to get verified on reddit unless your really who you say.



reddit is impossible to lie to. even people who seem to successfully do so at first get the shit knocked out of them a day later.

[brotherfranciz]

OK, then how does this verified user know where the money went? Are we just supposed to take their word for it without any evidence?

Let me just clarify that I am not taking sides here, I just want clear evidence. To be honest, this entire thing is a pile of turd and all the companies involved are equally responsible for the end product (including SEGA for allowing it to be released in such a state, Gearbox for subcontracting it out to some second-rate game developer, and Timegate for making such a crappy game).

[Schism]

Wow.... didn't think Gearbox would do something like this. That's fucked.

[brotherfranciz]

LOL.

Read the edit:

"EDIT: Aki-at has corrected us, the employee on reddit worked at SEGA, not Gearbox."

Enough said.

[Rubicant81]

Just out of curiosity, in case this turns out true (which I have my doubts) - what did Gearbox do that was illegal? I am unsure as to what exactly is the crime that was committed if SEGA decided to give Gearbox a lump sum of money (which sounds like a pretty dumbass business practice, and not a smart thing to not exactly follow up on, or have a contract in place to determine that said sums must be allocated to said project) and not know how it was used to begin with.

SEGA has been known to take licenses and make some rather spectacularly shitty games (in fact, the last license I remember SEGA actually doing something really good with was X-Men 2: Clone Wars which was done in 1993), Gearbox has been shown in recently history to not exactly play well with other developers, and releasing mediocre titles themselves when they don't involve cell-shading post apocalyptic first person shooters, and the last time an Aliens game was good was Alien vs Predator on the Atari Jaguar in 1994 (one about 3 reasons to own that monstrosity of a system).

All those ingredients mixed with a 4 year development hell of lay offs, hot potato with the elements to other developers, and a mixture of hype (never believe the hype on a licensed game, for every Arkham title, there's 100 games that "damage the canon.") unattainable expectations (which we're all guilty of, to various degrees), and a smorgasbord of bad reviews, crummy sales, and angry fanboys - this was the most likely scenario anyway.

I don't believe the validity of most of these accounts (and why they come after the game is released if it was happening during the development). The multiple spelling errors, and grammar issues make me think this is an angry person who hacked an account and used it to add more shit to the fecal hurricane.

Even if this is true, and there are some shady moral issues with using somebody else's money on another project - it's not exactly as if Gearbox didn't make back what they put into Borderlands tenfold, and that they weren't able to sit there and focus those funds to multiple projects. It's just quite possible that the game was shit to begin with (I always wondered what the hype was personally, everything I saw made this game look 4 years old, and feel like another generic licensed game) and that having multiple input didn't do anything but just cause the overall product to become even further disjointed and mediocre.

I don't think SEGA has a legal leg to stand on here, when push comes to shove - and they should be glad that the idiotic fanboys and their smear campaigns are happening, because it's causing a lot of people to go, "It can't be that bad can it?" and getting a few extra bites, and people who are expecting the worst game ever, and finding something that is actually not as bad as the naysayers proclaim. I doubt when the cards have all fallen that this game is going to be not making SEGA some money, like their other shitty licensed games they continue to crap out and will continue to as long as they keep making them money.

[Ps360]

LOL.

Read the edit:

"EDIT: Aki-at has corrected us, the employee on reddit worked at SEGA, not Gearbox."

Enough said.

Sega still has to advise over their profits and works on QA testing for the games they make/publish. They are involved in all their projects.

Just out of curiosity, in case this turns out true (which I have my doubts) - what did Gearbox do that was illegal?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misappropriation

and the last time an Aliens game was good was Alien vs Predator on the Atari Jaguar in 1994 (one about 3 reasons to own that monstrosity of a system).

AVP2 on the PC.

[Rubicant81]

Sega still has to advise over their profits and works on QA testing for the games they make.




Misappropriation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Misappropriation does not occur in instances where the capital was obtained for a service rendered.

Gonna be hard to sit there and get past this one in the court of law, especially when SEGA went ahead and published and released the game as is at their own risk. If SEGA had a case - they should have not released the game, or did better follow-up on what their freelanced development company was doing with said funds. So Gearbox could have blown 90% of the fund on hookers and cocaine, as long as SEGA got their game and release it - they did so at their own risk and no longer can hold Gearbox accountable.

[Self_Saboteur-]

So let me get this strait. Sega gave Gearbox a lump sum to make A:CM. Then Gearbox decides to keep part of said money and give a lower sum to Timegate to make said game. Although this is a bit shady, if Timegate subcontracted the game for a lower sum from Gearbox then where is the issue? It sounds legal to me. Or am I missing something?

[Faust]

Unless Gearbox execs are astronomically incompetent, they probably didn't do anything illlegal. Doesn't make it any less of dick move, though.
This has definitely lowered my opinion of Gearbox.

[Qurb]

That was some fucked up shit

[Tmac718]

Gearbox pulled a dick move but they are a buisness they are all assholes. They did something thats frowned apon but not illegal since the game did get released. Im pissed because I wanted this game but im not shocked. When was Gearbox all that great. Blands 1 and 2 they are fun and I like them but nothing to put a gearbox shrine up for LOL and they are basically the same game but 2 has more talking.

[brotherfranciz]

Sega still has to advise over their profits and works on QA testing for the games they make/publish. They are involved in all their projects.

Interesting... so what you're saying is that SEGA test the game as well? Hmm... and you say that they are involved in all their projects?

Then according to your statements, Gearbox shouldn't take all the blame?

This stuff just doesn't add up... unless we have some kind of evidence about the money, I really can't trust what is being said - for all we know, the verified user could be some pissed off high-ranking SEGA employee who just wants to play the blame game and is making shit up... I honestly don't understand why you are all willing to believe these accusations without any proof.

You do know how payslips work right? It won't say anywhere on a payslip what you do for the company. So it doesn't prove jackshit except that the verified user is on SEGA's payroll.

Again, I'll ask the question: how does this verified SEGA employee know where all the money given to Gearbox went? If this question can't be answered, then it's just pure speculation.