‘Borderlands 3’ Boss Responds To Controversy Over Epic Games Store Exclusivity

Earlier this week, developer Gearbox and publisher 2K announced Borderlands 3’s release date alongside the news that the PC version will be exclusive to the Epic Games Store at launch, and for six months after launch. In other words, the game won’t embrace the Steam storefront until April 2020. And of course this caused many PC gamers to riot and hit social media and gaming forums with their displeasure.

In addition to protesting on Reddit, Twitter, and more, many PC gamers took to Steam to review bomb Borderlands 2. For those that don’t know: review bombing is when, in mass, gamers leave negative reviews for a game that don’t have anything to do with the game’s quality in order to send some type of message to developers and publishers. It’s a questionable tactic, and one that’s not as effective as it used to be thanks to new measures taken by Steam to thwart such practices.

Steam has largely countered the “off-topic” review bombing, but not before Gearbox and 2K heard about it. At one point during the whole debacle, Gearbox developer Scott Velasquez retweeted a post showing the review bombing as it was happening, shaming the misuse of the system and Steam for allowing such an exploit. Replying to this, Gearbox boss Randy Pitchford expressed how he felt about the situation, and as you would guess, he wasn’t very happy about it.

“Ironically, that this misuse is possible and that Steam has no interest in correct this misuse makes me kind of happy about 2K’s decision [to release Borderlands 3 on the Epic Games Store] and makes me want to reconsider Gearbox Publishing’s current posture on the platform,” tweeted Pitchford.

It’s worth pointing out what Pitchford alleges here isn’t very accurate. Steam has begun to take measures to prevent review bombing. In fact, its new system in place — which you can read about here — is being tested out for the first time with Borderlands 2, and it’s actually working.

Borderlands 3 is poised to release on September 13 via the PS4, Xbox One, and PC. For more news, media, and information on the highly-anticipated post-apocalyptic looter-shooter, click here.

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