Sega or Gearbox: Who is to blame for false advertising of ACM?

[geo]

Pick one. Go ahead. Sega had to pay out 1.2 million for the game already for false advertising. Pick who is to blame. The developer or publisher that owns the Aliens game franchise. You can even blame the 3rd party that Gearbox hired to finish the game. Go ahead. Pick a side.

I played through the main game, it wasn't as awful as people thought, but it definitely wasn't the E3 demo. Plus the whole cliffhanger / buy DLC to 'finish the fight,' pissed me off.

[Kontra Kommando]

Whoever is to blame, my reaction was, "Fine! I'll fucking do it myself!"

[AirRaid]

All three. All of them failed in some way to produce what they said they were producing.

[Gez]

If I have to blame somebody for false advertising, I'll blame the advertiser. So whichever company was in charge of the com. I kinda doubt that Gearbox or Sega handle their PR themselves, big companies outsource this kind of things to professionals. Heck, even small companies do.

[Coopersville]

Who cares about the false advertizing? It's already been proven that Gearbox spent their lunch money on Borederlands.

[geo]

Coopersville said:

Who cares about the false advertizing? It's already been proven that Gearbox spent their lunch money on Borederlands.

The class action lawsuit I guess. I was surprised the lawsuit only paid out 1.2 million. 20,000 copies at $60?

[DooM_RO]

Both are to blame for this putrid anal barf.

[Linkrulezall]

I dunno, but what I do know is that the Aliens: Colonial Marines WAD is way better than the standalone game. Hell, the Aliens TC from way back when was better than ACM.

[geekmarine]

Well, Gearbox put together the demo that showed a far more polished game than what we got, so I'd say it's probably their fault. I mean, yeah, Sega could've pushed them to do it, but that'd be harder to prove, and ultimately, since Gearbox did the actual work putting the demo together, I think they had the final say, since I don't think Sega could magically cause a polished demo to materialize on their own. Eh, then again, maybe Sega threatened them or something, but in that case, you'd really have to have some hard evidence to show that.

[SuperflyJohnson]

Gearbox is such a joke these days, even if you don't count the abortion that was Duke Nukem Forever (to be fair Gearbox was polishing someone else's turd). Borderlands is a derivative mishmash of ripped-off art styles and gameplay mechanics unprofessionally bolted together to appeal to the lowest common denominator. ACM, universally panned.

I'm really curious what the hell happened to Gearbox. I still hold Opposing Force and the Halo port in the highest regards but at some point after Brothers in Arms GB went into nosedive. Nowadays it seems like Randy Pitchford is always talking out his ass about something, and the games his company puts out can't cash the checks his mouth is writing.

[BlueFeena]

I'm fairly certain that both of Gearbox's recent "bad games" were largely developed by someone else, although I did not follow the Aliens game very much. Apart from those two, Gearbox seems to be doing just fine with the Borderlands franchise; hardly a joke of a company. Both Borderlands games were received and sold very well to my understanding, and I largely expect the third game to do so as well.

[Doominator2]

I never really got borderlands, just shoot stuff and level up, just got really repetitive.

[DoomUK]

Doominator2 said:

I never really got borderlands, just shoot stuff and level up, just got really repetitive.

Agreed, but they're at least competently made games which AFAIK aren't riddled with egregious bugs, and which are consistent with what they're advertised to be. There's bad games, and then there's badly made games.

On topic, everyone was to blame. I won't partake of the whodunit thing.

[doomgargoyle]

Randy Pitchford is a fucking asshole, a liar and a piece of dogshit. But hey, GBX makes Borderlands, everyone loves Borderlands. I dont, i think it's a bad ripoff of a looney tunes cartoon on a game. Played it, got bored, uninstalled it. I really hope this lawsuit takes a big chunk from their bottom line.

[geo]

BlueFeena said:

I'm fairly certain that both of Gearbox's recent "bad games" were largely developed by someone else, although I did not follow the Aliens game very much. Apart from those two, Gearbox seems to be doing just fine with the Borderlands franchise; hardly a joke of a company. Both Borderlands games were received and sold very well to my understanding, and I largely expect the third game to do so as well.

I'm under the impression Gearbox is just putting their name on other people's work (my company has gotten subcontracted for the past 15 years so other companies can take the credit and go out of business).

Borderlands sells so well because of the multiplayer. You don't just get a copy, your friends gotta buy it too. I've gone through Borderlands 2 by myself and it just means you're doing 4x the work. One of my Steam friends has 1,000 hours in it he says he knows it sucks, but 3 of his friends play it so he plays it and buys the DLC for them. Peer pressure.

My friend especially hated the 'you shoot enemies and it does nothing.'

[Doom_Dude]

I think the developers are to blame for the most part. I thought I read that Gearbox and Timegate both messed up each others content. heh.

[Jodwin]

BlueFeena said:

I'm fairly certain that both of Gearbox's recent "bad games" were largely developed by someone else, although I did not follow the Aliens game very much. Apart from those two, Gearbox seems to be doing just fine with the Borderlands franchise; hardly a joke of a company.

Gearbox's bad games were largely developed by someone else because Gearbox couldn't bother finish those themselves, instead deciding to shit on their contracts and work on Borderlands themselves. And once they were forced to finish their other projects they just dumped their unfinished work on other people and don't give a fuck what comes out.

[StevieWolfe]

Doominator2 said:

I never really got borderlands, just shoot stuff and level up, just got really repetitive.

I got bored very quickly, but for some reason, just kept playing anyway. Nowadays I can't play it at all because of a bug caused by an update patch which makes my CPU think its overheating when it isn't at all and just shuts it down immediately. That is not only a bug, but a major fuck up and totally lost my interest in the game entirely.

[Pencil of Doom]

Both are to blame, but i would blame Gearbox more because they started as good rep company with Oposing Force and Halo, but now they screwed everything.
As for Sega they were doing well in 90's because of thier games and consoles but nearing the mid-late 90's they started to screw things up and they became desperate because they were losing support and rep, so in end, the two companies have fault.

[Blastfrog]

Their Halo port was poorly optimized and their HL1 expansions were merely okay.

[Waffenak]

Ahh the Gearbox, modernday counterpart for LJN

[geekmarine]

Waffenak said:

Ahh the Gearbox, modernday counterpart for LJN

Whoa whoa whoa, there's no need for that kind of language. Gearbox has made some questionable decisions, some bad, questionable decisions, but are they at the LJN level of bad decision making yet? Well... come to think of it, apart from Borderlands (which I actually happen to like), er, maybe?

[Sandstormer]

SuperflyJohnson said:

Borderlands is a derivative mishmash of ripped-off art styles and gameplay mechanics unprofessionally bolted together to appeal to the lowest common denominator.

Wow, I read this and thought, "So, I'm not the only one who sees this!?" It's certainly good to know. I've played both games, and while the first was okay, the second just felt like a retard fest. I just don't get the hype surrounding it.

As for the original topic, I'd say that Gearbox is to blame. They were responsible for the product, and they used most of the money that Sega gave them to make the retard fest that I mentioned above. They should've focused on finishing A:CM and making it the best game they possibly could've made it instead of trying to work on two games at once. BL2 could've waited.

[geo]

Waffenak said:

Ahh the Gearbox, modernday counterpart for LJN

They're not that bad. THQ is the modern day LJN.

I'd say Gearbox took the same path as Valve, but they ended up covered in shit.

[scalliano]

If we'd got the PS2 version of ACM we were promised ten years ago, it might have been a lot better. But yeah, Gearbox all the way. Farming out the development work on the cheap while using the majority of the budget to feed Borderlands, all the while procrastinating to the general public.