In case you’ve already forgotten about it, Gearbox Software released its hero shooter Battleborn around the same time as Blizzard’s hugely successful Overwatch. While the latter continues to smash records, the former has largely been considered a failure, with publisher 2K’s parent company Take-Two publicly acknowledging that it was a disappointment. Now, Gearbox boss Randy Pitchford has offered his thoughts on the title alongside weighing in on the success of the Borderlands‘ series.
In an interview with Glixel, Pitchford said that 3.5 million people have played Battleborn but it’s considered a failure given Overwatch‘s numbers (over 25 million at present), remarking that it’s “strange how we frame this stuff.” Everybody defines success based on what they risk versus what they’re hoping to achieve by it, but the world defines success based on comparing things to one another. It’s a relative thing.
Pitchford revealed that when Blizzard announced Overwatch‘s release date, Gearbox approached Take-Two to warn the company that Activision will “brute force” it and will “outspend” its rival “every day of the week.” However, the team settled on going ahead with its planned launch and decided not to take it as a fight. Whether they consider it a bad decision in hindsight or not is anybody’s guess, however.
Speaking of success and failures, Pitchford emphasized on b...