Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford ‘Kind of Happy’ Borderlands 3 Is Epic Games Store Exclusive

Randy Pitchford, the outspoken CEO of Gearbox Software, has tweeted that he's “kind of happy” about 2K's decision to make Borderlands 3 a timed exclusive to Epic Games Store. Borderlands 3 is the upcoming instalment from Gearbox's popular loot shooter franchise, which has a massive fan base on PC, like past games in the series, it's being published by 2K. The tweet came after people “review bombed” Borderlands 2 on Steam, which is the world's largest digital store for PC games. Review bombing occurs when a large number of people post negative reviews for a game on Steam, which has been used as a tactic to lodge a protest against game developers or publishers.

Pitchford's tweet reads: “Ironically, that this misuse is possible and that Steam has no interest in correcting this misuse makes me kind of happy about 2k's decision and makes me want to reconsider Gearbox Publishing's current posture on the platform.” Most of the people who posted negative reviews on Steam were upset with 2K for making Borderlands 3 an Epic Games Store exclusive for six months. Some of these players appeared to have spent hundreds of hours playing Borderlands 2.

It's important to note that Steam has flagged all the negative reviews that appeared en masse between April 3 and 6, and these don't count towards the game's overall review score on the site anymore. Steam's histogram to show recent reviews can be viewed to see when Borderlands 2 started getting review bombed.

Epic Games Store is a digital retail storefront for PC games owned by Epic Games, makers of games such as Infinity Blade and Fortnite. Epic Games Store lacks quite a few of the features you'd take for granted on other PC game stores, but it offers developers a better share of the revenue and it's been able to get multiple games as exclusives on its store. This practice has been controversial, particularly with games such as Metro: Exodus and The Division 2.

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