All Articles: Aliens: Colonial Marines

Twitter is a wonderful place. But sometimes, it can be a truly horrifying place where your worst nightmares come to life. That’s the position Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford found himself in Monday when he agreed to participate in an #AskRandy Q&A for Develop Brighton.

The intended goal was to get people to ask Pitchford questions about game development, which seems fair enough. The only problem was the timing. On Friday, Pitchford made a statement in regards to Sega’s agreement to a settlement concerning the lawsuit centered around Aliens: Colonial Marines. Sega and Gearbox were being sued by gamers who argued that Sega used false and unrepresentative demos, trailers, and screenshots to sell the game. Gearbox was included in the lawsuit as the developer of the game, though most of the work was reportedly outsourced to TimeGate Studios, and Gearbox was dropped from the suit similar this year.

Pitchford went on the attack in an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, saying, “the legal system failed as it was being manipulated by what appeared to me to be, essentially, mafia-style extortion tactics.” He continued by stating the free market was the only judge for the game: “The market proved it was doing its job perfectly. The market is dispassionate — rewarding what it likes and punishing what it doesn’t. There is an objectivity and fairness in the open market’s harsh, firm justice.”

Of course, the whole lawsuit was about the game being sold on a bed of lying screenshots and trailers, and the infamous E3 2013 demo, but that’s neither here nor there.

Monday also marked the release of the latest episode of Jim Sterling’s Jimquisition show, “Aliens: Colonial Marines – Game Over, Randy,” in which he disagreed with Pitchford’s comments from Friday. This coincided with Develop Brighton’s launch for the hashtag campaign, and with the powder keg primed, angry fans were handed the match.

A sampling of the tweets Pitchford received can be found after the break. (more…)

So it’s come to this (not that we’re surprised). Sega and Gearbox Studios have been named as defendants in a lawsuit filed by Damion Perrine in the Northern District of California court against. Perrine is seeking to create a class action suit against the publisher and developer of Aliens: Colonial Marines, citing the deceptive and false advertising claims made by both companies during pre-release trade show demonstrations of the game.

Perrine has also used his suit to take aim at the review embargo critics had to operate under for Colonial Marines. According to the suit, because the embargo ended on the game’s release date, pre-order purchasers and early adopters were deprived information necessary to make an informed buying decision. I’m no lawyer, but I believe any judgment in favor of this part of the lawsuit would essentially make pre-selling any item illegal. In hoping for class action status, Perrine is seeking damages for anyone who purchased the game on or before its release date.

A statement from Sega said that Perrine’s lawsuit was “without merit” and the publisher plans to defend it “vigorously.” Gearbox also responded, saying, “We continue to support the game, and will defend the rights of entertainers to share their works-in-progress without fear of frivolous litigation.”

As terrible as this whole situation is, Gearbox does have a point.

[Source: Polygon (1) (2)]