Amid Backlash to $80 Borderlands 4 ‘If You’re a Real Fan’ Comment, Randy Pitchford Points to Previous Statement: ‘If You Want the Truth, Here It Is’

The backlash to Randy Pitchford’s controversial Borderlands 4 $80 comment has leveled up, with video game publishers jumping on the bandwagon to promote their games. Meanwhile, Pitchford himself has pointed to previous comments he made about Borderlands 4’s price, declaring: “If you want the truth, here it is.”

One such publisher is Devolver Digital, which has a reputation for edgy marketing that often takes advantage of hot topics on social media. Devolver, which is behind the likes of Hotline Miami and Cult of the Lamb, has done just that with Pitchford here.

If you’re late to the party, Pitchford sparked a backlash by responding to a fan who expressed concern about the prospect of paying $80 for Borderlands 4 by saying: “if you’re a real fan, you’ll find a way to make it happen.”

Here’s the exchange:

“Randy, this game better not be 80 dollars. Don’t take that risk, a lot of gamers aren’t gonna pay 80 dollars and feed this notion of constant increase of the price tag. You are the CEO, you have some say with the price when it comes to your publisher.”

And here’s Randy Pitchford’s response:

“A) Not my call. B) If you’re a real fan, you’ll find a way to make it happen. My local game store had Starflight for Sega Genesis for $80 in 1991 when I was just out of high school working minimum wage at an ice cream parlor in Pismo Beach and I found a way to make it happen.”

Devolver QT’d IGN’s X / Twitter post on this story to promote Mycopunk, its upcoming Borderlands-style mission-based co-op first-person shooter, saying: “You’re gonna be able to buy Mycopunk for you and three of your friends for the price of one copy of Borderlands 4.”

Pitchford himself caught wind of the tweet, and QT’d it himself, saying: “Mycopunk is cheaper than a point of meth – probably has fewer side effects, too!”

Mycopunk is cheaper than a point of meth – probably has fewer side effects, too! https://t.co/ICgEYZ7FEq

— Randy Pitchford (@DuvalMagic) May 21, 2025

As you’d expect, the response to that tweet has been mostly negative. “I am going to pirate Borderlands 4,” said one X / Twitter user. “Please stop. Just apologize and move on. This isn’t fair on your developers. If you care about them, just do the right thing dude,” added another. “Randy we are begging you to stop. BL4 had so much hype and it’s being ruined in a day. Let people want to like and support the game and all the amazing people who made it,” said one commenter.

At the time of this article’s publication, Pitchford has yet to retract his comment or apologize for it. But he did point to a recent answer he gave on-stage at PAX East on Borderlands 4’s price, calling it: “If you want the truth, here it is.”

Last week, during a PAX East panel, Pitchford insisted that he didn’t know the Borderlands 4 price but refused to rule out $80.

“I’ll tell you the truth. I don’t know. That is the truth. I’ll hit it straight on. It’s an interesting time,” he said.

“On one level, we’ve got a competitive marketplace where the people that make those choices want to sell as many units as possible and they want to be careful about people that are price-sensitive. There are some folks who don’t want to see prices go up, even the ones deciding what the prices are.

“There’s other folks accepting the reality that game budgets are increasing, and there’s tariffs for the retail packaging. It’s getting gnarly out there, you guys. Borderlands 4 has more than twice the development budget than Borderlands 3. More than twice. So the truth is, I don’t know what the price is going to be.”

Pitchford continued: “Here’s the philosophy we have, whatever the price is: we’re entertainers. Yes, we want to get more resources so we can make bigger and better games. There’s a reason why Borderlands 4 is so awesome: it’s because you guys showed up and supported Borderlands 3 and we had the budget. So we could more than double the budget and feel confident in that. And that’s awesome. When the revenue comes in we can spend it to make bigger and better games.

“As artists we want everybody to have it. We want to make it as easy as possible for everybody to enjoy what we’re creating. So it’s a weird thing. The fundamental philosophy is, we want people to buy it so we have the resources to make more, but we want everyone who buys and plays a Gearbox game to feel certain that they got the better end of the bargain, whatever the price is that they got the best value. And that’s the philosophy we live by.

“And so we’re going to have the price set soon. It might be the new price that Nintendo and Microsoft have led with. It might be that we stay back. It’s going to be the people at the publishing house that decide that. And if it is cheaper, then maybe we’ll sell you that mini-map that you guys want that we’ll develop later. How bad do you want that? 10 bucks? I’m just kidding… or am I?”

He concluded: “Borderlands is f***ing amazing and it’s worth it.”

Some social media users have said Pitchford’s PAX East comment would have been worth pointing to in the first place, with the backlash now a significant brand problem for Borderlands 4 ahead of launch.

“This was a perfect response and should have been left at this,” said Borderlands streamer Moxsy. “Your second response is receiving backlash not because of the price of the game but because of the wording. Every game is gonna be 80 dollars by this time next year. However fans of Borderlands want the price to be justified because of the ambition, the passion, and the quality that BL4 will have. They want to feel good about the purchase they are making in a franchise they have loved for more than a decade and support the devs that have had a real impact on their lives. This toxic “not a real fan” mentality is not it and is only hurting the people that want to support the game.”

Publisher 2K Games is expected to announce the price of Borderlands 4 when pre-orders go live soon. Borderlands 4 is due out September 12, 2025.

In a recent interview, IGN asked Take-Two boss Strauss Zelnick if the company would go to $80 for its games. Zelnick wouldn’t say either way, but did say consumers would be “willing to pay for the very best.”

“I have said for a long time that we offer enormous value and that that’s our job,” Zelnick said. “Of course, we certainly believe that compared to other forms of entertainment, whether that’s movie tickets or live events or streaming services, the value for our entertainment that we offer is just astonishing, and it’s our job. It’s our job to deliver much more value than what we charge. That’s our goal. We think consumers are willing to pay for the very best. It’s our job to make the very best.”

Photo by Tommaso Boddi/Getty Images for Lionsgate. Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].