An unnamed Sega staffer has revealed that Gearbox Software stole funds from Sega to make Borderlands 2 and Duke Nukem Forever. Those funds were actually for Aliens: Colonial Marines but Gearbox betrayed Sega according to the source.
He wrote the entire thing on a blog here. The guy goes by the name Bryan Danielson and he revealed some shocking information. Gearbox are looking into why the demo was different than the final game. The Wii U version was supposed to be the worst version as well. The game sold well though and topped UK Charts.
“Gearbox stole from SEGA, they robbed us, lied to us about the game, and tried to get another company to make the game instead,” he wrote.
“Pitchford and Gearbox wanted to focus heavily on Duke Nukem Forever, but how would they get the money to hire some of the 3D Realms team and even buy the intellectual property? Sure, they made a lot from Borderlands, but guess where they got the money to fund Borderlands in the first place? Yup, SEGA.
“So Gearbox essentially lied to SEGA, mishandled funds, broke agreements and contractual obligations to work on other projects, didn’t want to work on a game they were contractually obligated to work on and gave it to another team, poor organization and direction on ACM, took on too many projects from different companies at once, and other things that we may not even know about. Hell, part of me believes that Gearbox wanted this thing delayed as much as possible so they can get more funding money to embezzle from SEGA.”
Sega was looking to sue Gearbox but since Gearbox shipped the product they couldn’t.
“I strongly believe that SEGA should not have released the game and made the fans pay for it, they should have taken Gearbox straight to court, because they stole money from us to fund Borderlands and Duke Nukem Forever,” he said.
“This should be a lesson in management for you all. In my view, the board and the people supplying the money should not have any creative control over a product. In this case, what happened clearly was SEGA had a decent eye on the project, rightfully cancelled it, when they saw the problems, then someone decided to restart the project, leading to this massive mess.
“This game should have been cancelled permanently, and the final product is undeniable proof of it. Despite that, I believe SEGA wanted to try to get some of the money back, at the fans’ expense. SEGA should have also watched the project and development a lot better, because there was a lot of warning signs that said this was a disaster in the making.”
The game came out earlier this month and has gotten blasted by critics, not all of them though.
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