Swayed by a new artstyle, an interview, and clever marketing. Someone at Gearbox deserves a raise.

I didn’t care about Borderlands as I left last year’s E3. At the “exclusive” behind closed-doors sneak peek of  the upcoming multiplatform title, Gearbox CEO and president Randy Pitchford sold his product to journalists like a budding Billy Mays trainee. But Pitchford was no Mays. Billy always capably communicated product taglines and marketing jargon without shame or the slightest hint of fatigue. We all laughed at the man shilling product after product in precisely-cut 60 second commercials, but we found the image of his beard unshakeable when we finally saw the product within arm’s reach on a shelf at Target. Buying the item meant we’d be helping out ol’ Billy, or at least it sometimes felt that way.

If I had any desire to buy Borderlands following E3 2008, it was out of pity for Randy Pitchford.

Dude seemed like a nice guy. Passionate too. But his cheesey and overenthusiastic presentation briefly led me to believe the man was once employed as a Wiggle. Why did Mr. Pitchford leave the multimillion-dollar empire? To pursue a career in the videogame industry? Or was it some pithy disagreement over the group’s affinity for solid colored shirts and Randy’s own passion for Hawaiian prints? Only the guys in the purple, blue, red, and yellow shirts, and Randy, know.

“OH, THAT’S A GREAT SHOTGUN! WOW! LOOK AT THAT!” I remember Randy nearly shouting as another Gearbox employee played the game. “YEAH! GO THERE! OH! HEAD SHOT!” I almost broke out laughing. The situation was too much. “Is this what the industry’s like?” I remember thinking. I was still fairly new to the business, with only a year as a “professional” member under my belt. This stuff could’ve been the norm! “Oh, what a delightful time this would be…”

Taking a break, my eyes wandered around the room. People were gorging on the cheese. Grins, ear to ear, filled the room. The goons apparently loved this stuff.

I didn’t. With or without Randy, the game still looked like a videogamey first-person shooter awkwardly trying to fit in big boy Mad Max pants. Pitchford’s repeated comments regarding the “revolutionary” system designed to procedurally generate millions of guns overshadowed the developer’s more laudable intentions behind blending the role-playing and shooter genres in a “new and exciting way.” At this stage, Borderlands was a series of great ideas, but lacked focus and, more importantly, any discernable identity. Faceless doesn’t sell.

A year and three months later, and after finally interviewing Pitchford regarding Borderlands, I’m bugging the PR team for a copy of the game. I can’t wait to play this title in October.

So what happened? A series of well-executed, and well-timed, changes and events.

Gearbox tossed Borderlands into hibernation shortly after E3. No information was released or leaked for months. Then in early April, a bald brutish man covered in scars and black leather padding graced the cover of PC Gamer magazine. He looked cartoony, but more sketched than cel-shaded, and represented the new visual style for Borderlands. As a preemptive jab at skeptics, Gearbox noted “The image is an in-game screenshot with no post-processing.”

Reactions were almost overwhelmingly positive. User “Alice O’Connor” of Shacknews commented “I have to say I like this new style for Borderlands. The gameplay sounds super but the graphics were previously, well, standard issue 2008 grey/brown. This new style is interesting and distinctive, and details stand out rather than fading into the musty smear. Super.” And “Nobledevil” of Joystiq said “Honestly, I’m slightly more interested now. I didn’t care very much at all about since they hadn’t really talked about it that much, but I love me some cool art direction.” But “FD,” also of Joystiq, wasn’t as happy, saying “Hrm well, to me that instantly changes the way I feel about the game. I was very interested in getting my hands on this at first, but that might completely change now.”

Over the next few months Gearbox revealed a bit more of the visuals, a few images here, a short video there (on gametrailers), but never more than whetting people’s appetites. It was strange seeing a developer flood us with information, only to switch gears and let the info trickle out.

In late July the defining moment in the game’s prerelease bonanza arrived in trailer form.

Within ten seconds the viewer witnesses a high-speed chase between Mad Max type characters and cars on a sand-blasted desert. Seconds later, the four distinct characters are revealed, each presumably with his or her own unique playstyle. After a brief flash transition, DJ Champion’s “No Heaven” begins to play and a blood splatter covers the screen. “2K Games Presents” reads the text overlaying the blood. At this moment, the audio and visuals combine, better than any hokey press release, to tell us “I don’t care what you know or think you know, it doesn’t matter. This is a new game.”

All at once, the trailer’s whimsical, tough, cool, and fun. Randy Pitchford and company even fit in a nod to the jabs they previously received and list the title features “87 Bazillion Guns!” The game finally has an identity, and it screams “if you don’t like me you don’t like to have a good time.”

After watching the video, I was sold right then and there. But I didn’t reach new levels of geek hype until I interviewed Pitchford himself.

He told me “at the end of the day, the PC version of the game really has some nice advantages that make it the favorite platform for most of our hardcore developers at Gearbox,” and eased my paranoia of the title becoming dumbed down for a console audience.  And despite the interview being of the email type, Pitchford seemed charmingly enthusiastic in his responses. I believed him when he said “I have never been this excited about something I’ve been involved with,” especially since the most recent video interviews indicate the same. I’d never make a Billy Mays comparison with him now. Instead of selling a product, Pitchford seems like a gamer passing on the news about a really cool title. He’s changed in the last year, or at least in his dealings with the press, and so has his game. I’m guessing the two are probably related. Denis Dyack, please take note.

Tags: Borderlands

This entry was posted by Kyle Stallock on Friday, September 11th, 2009 at 2:21 pm and is filed under Gaming, Multimedia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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