It’s been made clear by now that Borderlands 3 will indeed have microtransactions – the cosmetic kind at the very least – following confusing messaging by developers Gearbox Software about the same during the recent gameplay event. But Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford is adamant that the messaging wasn’t really confusing at all, and that he’d been clear right from the get go that though the game will have cosmetic in-game purchases, there won’t be any pay-to-win microtransactions.
For context, here is what Pitchford said on stage during the event: “I’m sure we’re going to do all kinds of fun customizations like heads and skins, but we’re not doing any of that free-to-play junk. There’s not going to be any microtransactions, there’s not going to be any of that nonsense.”
In a lengthy statement on Twitter, however, Pitchford says that in context of the situation, as well as the context of what Gearbox’s practices with Borderlands have been in the past, the meaning of his statements during the reveal event should have been abundantly clear.
Pitchford brought up the game’s support of offline play and splitscreen co-op, and how it wouldn’t be catering to the games-as-a-service model, as he argued that the crux of his statements was that the game wouldn’t be supporting free-to-play monetization, just as the series never has in the past as well.
At this point though, one has to wonder what the point of all this is- there was unclear messaging to begin with, and the messaging was subsequently made clear. Since we now know that Borderlands 3 will have microtransactions, what’s the point of arguing that no one ever suggested that it wouldn’t- even though inferring that from “there’s not going to be any microtransactions” isn’t exactly a leap?
Borderlands 3 is out on September 13 for the PS4, Xbox One, and PC- on that front there is no confusion.