Yesterday news broke about shocking allegations against Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford from former counsel Wade Callender. The accusations included an alleged $12 million dollars meant for employees withheld for personal gain as well as allegations of child pornography and “adult parties” where Pitchford is enjoying grown men “exposing themselves” to minors. Whether these allegations are true has yet to be decided, but Gearbox – following an official statement released – has plans to fight back.
Videos by ComicBook.com
The initial statement from a Gearbox spokesperson denied the claims and now they are aiming to make that denial more official. “The allegations made by a disgruntled former employee are absurd, with no basis in reality or law,” said a Gearbox spokesperson in an exclusive statement to Kotaku. “We look forward to addressing this meritless lawsuit in court and have no further comment at this time.”
Today, they added:
“Gearbox will be filing a grievance with the State Bar of Texas against our former general counsel Wade for disciplinary proceedings for filing a lawsuit that includes accusations that he knows to be untrue. The lawyer’s rules of professional conduct expressly prohibit the filing of documents that are knowingly false. The tell is within Wade’s claim itself – his use of hedged lawyer language and clever application of quotation marks betray that he knows that the impression he is trying to create is based in lies. We imagine that he used the quotation marks and lawyer language in hopes that will give him some angles of defense when we inevitably take action against him for false statements. Wade is engaged in a shakedown and he’s clearly using deceit and lies to try to cause damage by promoting a narrative that he knows is false.”
You can read the full list of allegations against the CEO with our previous coverage here. One thing is for certain, the accusations turned the gaming world on its head yesterday and both gamers and industry folk alike exploded in speculation. Some came to Pitchford’s defense, while other employees that closely worked with him seem to back up the claims. At this point however, there is no released evidence to support any of the claims being made but we will be sure to update as soon as we learn more.
