Randy Pitchford and Other Gaming Execs Continue to Prove How Out of Touch They Are With Players

2025 has already been filled with gaming executives showing that they are out of touch with their players, and Randy Pitchford’s comments about Borderlands 4 are simply the latest in a concerning trend. These comments come after BL4 a lot of hype has been built for the game with the return of fan-favorite features and the removal of elements that weren’t as well-received. If you missed it, Pitchford essentially commented that real fans of Borderlands would find a way to purchase the new game if it’s priced at $80, ignoring the reality that inflation continues to go up.

A) Not my call. B) If you’re a real fan, you’ll find a way to make it happen. My local game store had Starflight for Sega Genesis for $80 in 1991 when I was just out of high school working minimum wage at an ice cream parlor in Pismo Beach and I found a way to make it happen.

— Randy Pitchford (@DuvalMagic) May 14, 2025

This comes not long after Nintendo revealed that some Switch 2 titles will be priced at $80, and Xbox also confirmed that there will be titles coming in the future with the same $80 price tag. Video games can already be an expensive hobby when you need to keep purchasing new generations for consoles or upgrading your PC with better parts that are required to run more demanding games. Now, you’ll have a higher base price on AAA games added to those costs, even if you can get a decent amount of value from those games.

Gaming Executives Continuously Ignore Their Own Base

Gaming executives tend to be completely out of touch with the players they sell to. This takes a lot of forms, such as needlessly using AI in development, to Randy Pitchford saying that he could buy games as a kid from working a minimum wage job. You know, the time when he didn’t have the bills and fiscal responsibilities of an adult in an economy that’s becoming increasingly brutal for the average person to survive in. It’s clear that he and other executives have no idea what kind of daily struggles the average person might be facing in 2025.

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The worst part is that these executives aren’t the people who have to deal with the greatest effects of their own decisions. Instead, it’s the developer who have to face this burden. Despite being the ones who worked so hard to create a game, many end up facing layoffs repeatedly from underperforming games.

Defining a “real fan” as somebody who will pay any price for the next game in a series they enjoy is honestly absurd. Being a real fan isn’t about the amount of money you spend, it’s about the passion and excitement that you bring to the community of a creation you enjoy. This idea isn’t surprising when it comes from gaming executives, who continue to shift towards live service and microtransaction gaming models for the sake of squeezing as much money from their players as possible. For many people at the top of these companies, it hasn’t been about the player in a long time.