When it comes to Aliens: Colonial Marines, Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford is either weirdly tone deaf, or simply unable to admit mistakes. In an interview with IGN, Pitchford yet again defended the universally panned 2013 game, saying he had no regrets despite the fact the development personally cost him somewhere in the neighborhood of $15 million.
Though he lost millions of his own investment money in the game, he said that,”I wouldn’t trade that experience for anything.” When talking about the reception of Colonial Marines, Pitchford said that he never expected to please everyone. The rebuttal to that, of course is that the game apparently pleased very few.
There’s little doubt that Pitchford thought at the time that once the game hit the market, he would be vindicated. His company actually went without royalties, in addition to his own investment in the game, because he wanted to finish it so badly.
It’s certainly understandable that the exec might want to believe it was all worth it, but the fact remains that all evidence points to the contrary. “I understand that there are some people that didn’t enjoy it and I’m very sorry about that,” he explained. “That’s the nature of entertainment – some of my favorite bands who’ve made some of the songs I think are the best in the world have other songs on B-sides that I completely don’t care for. It’s going to happen.”
Pitchford said. While that might be true, few album producers are sued for false advertising the way Sega and Gearbox were after the release of Aliens: Colonial Marines.