Gearbox CEO Refutes Claims That Borderlands Devs Were Denied Bonuses
CEO of Gearbox Software Randy Pitchford has responded to claims that he is actively denying bonuses to his employees. Upon its release last year, Borderlands 3 was met with strong reviews and impressive sales. Gearbox has a policy where profit is split between the company and its employees, with 40% of profits being distributed to the workforce as bonuses. Thus, the more successful the company is, the more money its employees receive.
Although Borderlands 3 sold well, it didn't quite match Gearbox's optimistic internal projections, and the high costs of the game (including a mid-development switch from Unreal Engine 3 to Unreal Engine 4) meant that greater costs had to be recouped before the game would begin to reap profits. Because of this, bonuses for Gearbox employees were lower than expected, especially compared to the bonuses delivered after the release of Borderlands 2, one of the biggest sleeper hits of last generation.
As reported by PlayStation Lifestyle, Pitchford has recently been defending himself on Twitter, calling out websites that have covered the story for being dishonest and profiting from attention and "rewarded for inspiring outrage." He insists that everyone has received bonuses, that he has not 'stiffed' Gearbox employees. He also cites a LinkedIn blog post by Gearbox's Maxime Babin, who explains the royalty bonuses from their perspective, that the short bonuses were not the product of Pitchford's malice, but of objective mathematics. The post also includes the news that Pitchford recently gave away 30% of his stake in Gearbox to the employees, possibly to compensate them for their lower-than-expected bonuses.
It's easy to view Randy Pitchford as a villain, with highly-publicized incidents like the firing of Claptrap actor David Eddings, which is a whole saga unto itself, as well as other misadventures the CEO has had in the public eye. Still, in this case, the controversial Gearbox boss doesn't seem to be guilty of anything other than being overly optimistic regarding Borderlands 3's potential sales figures. Bonuses are never guaranteed; that's why they're called "bonus," an addition to base salary. Borderlands 3 incurred more costs than typical Gearbox projects, so its threshold for profitability was thus higher than the likes of the last-gen Borderlands titles.
It's also easy to understand the internal pressure at Gearbox, the employees of which have been waiting for a high-profile financial hit in the wake of sales duds like Battleborn and Aliens: Colonial Marines. When the Borderlands 3 bonuses didn't match those from the heyday of Borderlands 2, some were rightfully upset by the discrepancy and chose to blame Pitchford, drawing a line between their lower-than-expected bonuses and Pitchford's $12 million bonus, even if the two incidents are entirely separate. Perhaps there are battles against Gearbox Software's Pitchford that are worth fighting, but this really doesn't seem to be among them.
Source: Twitter (via PlayStation Lifestyle)