Borderlands (1, 2, 3, The Pre-Sequel, TftB)

Take Two decided not only to double down on the claims circulating around, but also reconfirmed said methods and their "effectiveness" in the past (a.k.a. when they smashed a modder's computer for recreating Vice City in offline mode, and when they sent goons to somebody's house to beat him up after he found an exploit...instead of just fixing the exploit).

Wait, did that happen? the smash PC and beating up some guy, that some Mafia type shit that I thought it wasn't even possible.
 
Wait, did that happen? the smash PC and beating up some guy, that some Mafia type shit that I thought it wasn't even possible.

It absolutely did. Oh it's hard to find because Take Two buried that lead something fierce but those incidents were definitely a thing.

NOTE: Spot reserved for beat-up claim here. Sorry: it's taking awhile to try and find these articles.
Article mentions Jeremy Taylor whom they "exchanged deeds" with in 2014, then was later sued 4 years later (link to the follow up at the bottom of the this link batch).
I also missed a story from 2018 in which a modern had to pay them $150,000 in damages.
Also tax evasion.
And so, SO much more!

EDIT: Adding archive links, in order of the articles above (thankfully a lot of this was already archived in advance, which is good, because Archive's being super fucky today):
 
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If the guy didn't call the cops it's fake.

Unfortunately, Take-Two did order C&Ds and obtained warrants to gain access to their homes. So even if those people did contact the police, T2 was/is in their legal right to bring PIs and goons in to investigate and search the property under the guise of "suspicious illegal activity" being done on the premises (wherein this also culminated in the OpenIV bullshit from 2 years ago, btw), and the owners/modders were basically fucked over.

They were doubly fucked if they were based in Australia where American law doesn't apply.

Mind you, as an example: one of the people in the article did do this, and he ended up getting embroiled in a lawsuit around 4 years later instigated by Take-Two.
 
Unfortunately, Take-Two did order C&Ds and obtained warrants to gain access to their homes. So even if those people did contact the police, T2 was/is in their legal right to bring PIs and goons in to investigate and search the property under the guise of "suspicious illegal activity" being done on the premises (wherein this also culminated in the OpenIV bullshit from 2 years ago, btw), and the owners/modders were basically fucked over.

They were doubly fucked if they were based in Australia where American law doesn't apply.

Mind you, as an example: one of the people in the article did do this, and he ended up getting embroiled in a lawsuit around 4 years later instigated by Take-Two.

Appropriate too:

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2K first send 2 suits too threaten SupMatto where he lives and now they DMCA his channel. shills are expandable but that was harsh.
 
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Jesus Christ are they trying to bury this franchise?
They literally just needed to show some trailers, some gameplay footage and release the game and Borderlands 3 would have sold like hotcakes. The fanbase was there, the hype was there, the game looks good(...ish, some of the gameplay footage leaves me kinda cold but it's not offensively bad), then Randy Pitchford decided to become the videogame development CEO equivalent of a Bond villain and completely ruined his company's reputation. I'm sure that his original plan for SupMatto was to kidnap him and drop him into his acid pit before cooler heads prevailed.
I wonder if he also monologues like a movie villain "When I told them I would copyright claim their leaks they laughed at me. They called me a cuck. Well, who is the cuck now?" "You expect me to take down my video?" "No, mister Supmatto, I expect you to die".

Who knows? Maybe Borderlands 3 will still be successful despite Gearbox having surpassed even the likes of EA in the "biggest shitheel videogame company" rankings but it must have cost them quite a number of sales.
 
They literally just needed to show some trailers, some gameplay footage and release the game and Borderlands 3 would have sold like hotcakes. The fanbase was there, the hype was there, the game looks good(...ish, some of the gameplay footage leaves me kinda cold but it's not offensively bad), then Randy Pitchford decided to become the videogame development CEO equivalent of a Bond villain and completely ruined his company's reputation. I'm sure that his original plan for SupMatto was to kidnap him and drop him into his acid pit before cooler heads prevailed.
I wonder if he also monologues like a movie villain "When I told them I would copyright claim their leaks they laughed at me. They called me a cuck. Well, who is the cuck now?" "You expect me to take down my video?" "No, mister Supmatto, I expect you to die".

Who knows? Maybe Borderlands 3 will still be successful despite Gearbox having surpassed even the likes of EA in the "biggest shitheel videogame company" rankings but it must have cost them quite a number of sales.
It'll still sell well for sure, but I reckon it would have sold more than twice as well if they had just shut up and released it quietly. There's so much controversy it's impossible for even the most casual gamers to ignore.
 
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It'll still sell well for sure, but I reckon it would have sold more than twice as well if they had just shut up and released it quietly. There's so much controversy it's impossible for even the most casual gamers to ignore.
Would sell twice as well if they just put it out on fucking Steam. I'd have bought it full-price on day 1, but if I have to wait, then I'm just gonna wait til its price get slashed during a steam sale.
 
Ciaran: -gets mad about gender-
Ciaran: -is trans-
Also Ciaran: -voices a girl though he's supposed to be a trans male-

Fuckin' pick one. Apparently your values aren't *so* strong that you're unwilling to voice a dreaded female. If I were trans and I was only hired to voice a character based on the gender I hated to be (assuming, of course, I'm ACTUALLY gender dysphoric and not a trender like ms. "coffee commander" here), I wouldn't do it.

But hey, money speaks louder than values. So go on about bitching about the genderless robot's preferred pronouns to make you not seem like a hypocrite.
 
I was really hyped up to play Borderlands 3, even after playing through BL2 twice, but all that anticipation kind of died off after The Pre-Sequel was a steaming turd.

Even the release of that game sort of screwed over console gamers. It weirdly was released only on PS3 and 360 in October 2014, which was about a year after the PS4 and Xbox One came out. There was no announcement whatsoever of anything Borderlands coming to next-gen systems at the time, and of course, the game was sold with a season pass offer and all that shit at full price.

Then, just three months later, The Handsome Collection is announced on January 20th, 2015. Did you pre-order The Pre-Sequel and buy the Season Pass on launch like a good boy? Well tough shit nigger, The Handsome Collection's out in March for the new systems and it's gonna have every last bit of DLC from The Pre Sequel and BL2, and it's gonna run at a buttery smooth 60fps. I can personally attest to how the PS4 version had no frame dips I ever noticed, it really was a beautiful port. The Pre-Sequel's season pass DLC wasn't even all out by the time The Handsome Collection arrived, but Handsome Collection buyers got it for free while PS3, 360, and PC owners could suck it. PC owners eventually got the Handsome Collection bundle several years later, but for a long time had everything strictly sold separately. Even to this day, you could accidentally buy The Pre-Sequel and its season pass in a bundle that's $10 more than the Handsome Collection. How the fuck is that game still $40 base?
 
Would you mind sharing why you find it so bad? I thought it was just giant extended DLC for 2 but its still fun

The last thing I remember doing in Pre-Sequel was some lengthy fetch quest for a nerdy character that had an unsatisfying outcome. I really can't remember the details about it, or why I was doing that, or where that even was. Every new character in the game was either forgettable or obnoxious, and I can't think of Pre-Sequel without thinking about Janey Springs and how she would not shut up about how much of a lesbian she was.

I haven't gone back to the game in years, so I can't say I hated it, but I know I just wasn't having fun with it, and eventually just felt like putting it down, unsure if I'd ever return to it. IIRC, weren't a lot of the enemies just very bullet spongey? And I know I tried a few of the characters and eventually just settled on Wilheim, though I can't for the life of me remember what his special skill was. My overall impression of TPS was that it was just bland through and through. I don't remember the stakes ever being raised, nor anything to bait me into wanting to see where things would eventually go.

I'm not entirely against the idea of playing the game with a friend if someone I knew wanted to play, since maybe that'd make the game more palatable, but I had a great time playing through BL1 and 2 alone. Who knows, maybe BL3 will turn out to be no good and reinvigorate everyone to play through the older games, and I'll have someone to play TPS with.
 
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