Five years ago, the Gearbox boss made some pretty rude comments about Borderlands 3, and now he’s back at it with some pretty heavy-handed comments…

Back in 2019, when Borderlands 3 was announced as an Epic Games Store exclusive for PC, Gearbox’s game was quite divisive at the time. At the time, Pitchford went on a long rant on Twitter about how looking at Steam in 5-10 years might give it the status of a dying store, pointing to Epic Games’ large investment and more favorable profit margin (88/12%, not 70/30). Well, five years have passed since then, and the public has dug up his statement from that time. He had to respond…

“If Epic Games had been successful in squeezing its advantage, [Steam’s death] might have been the case. But Epic did not. So, famously, Steam does very little to earn the massive cut they take and continues its effective monopoly in the West while would-be competitors with much more developer-friendly models continue to shoot themselves in the foot. I am a Steam customer and Steam developer who will continue to root for and support competition. Borderlands 3 and [Tiny Tina’s] Wonderlands clearly demonstrated that customers come for the games, not the storefront.

But the industry gives Steam its monopoly because publishers are afraid to take the risk of supporting more developer and publisher friendly stores. It’s all very interesting, and there’s a huge opportunity for retail disruption in PC gaming, but no one seems to be able to pull it off. I had high hopes for Epic – hopes that were validated at the launch of Borderlands 3 and Wonderlands. But my long term hopes (which appeared in a dozen long tweet storm I did five years ago) regarding Epic’s store were misplaced or overly optimistic.

It’s a cool lesson for me and anyone else who wants to learn from my experience. Going forward, we will continue to support Steam (as we have for literally every PC game we’ve released since Steam’s inception). In the meantime, I sincerely hope that Epic continues to fight and move forward. Epic will have to prioritize the store and try some new initiatives while doubling down on key exclusives if it wants to have a chance. I also hope that other viable competitors emerge. I am sure we will all be watching. As a developer, I will continue to balance being where the customers are with being where I want to be to earn their trust and loyalty. As a gamer, I will be on all platforms,” Pitchford said.

Source: VGC