14 DAY TRIAL // Randy Pitchford, the leader of developer Gearbox, says that the style and mechanics of the Borderlands series are designed specifically to make sure that the game offers a unique experience and has no clear rivals in the marketplace.
Speaking during the DICE Summit 2013, the game maker states, quoted by GamesIndustry.biz, that, “We don’t like going head-to-head with good things because we don’t want to be the loser.”
He adds, “We blended genres in Borderlands so we were the only choice – we couldn’t be the loser among consumers’ choice. It’s not a Coke or Pepsi decision – it’s a yes or no decision.”
Pitchford explains that gamers only have a limited amount of time and money to spend on their hobby and that means that they are hard pressed to choose between video games and hardware platforms.
Because they need to invest in an option or another, gamers tend to automatically qualify it as “good” while the other potential choices are labeled as “bad.”
Borderlands avoided the choice process because it offered a unique experience, one that no other franchise could replicate and which was hard for rivals to copy for future games.
The first game in the series was launched in late 2009 and it became a hit, praised for its mix of traditional shooter elements and role-playing game features.
The game also had a distinctive art style and a story structure that blended traditional quests with a lot of humor and some exotic characters.
Gearbox pushed the concept even further with Borderlands 2, launched in the fall of 2012.
The game has shipped more than 5 million copies since it was released, making it one of last year’s best sellers.
Gearbox continues to offer support for the game via single-player-focused downloadable content packs that expand the game world, offer more weapons to use and new enemies to face.