The dispute between David Eddings, the former voice actor of Claptrap in the Borderlands series, and Randy Pitchford, the CEO and president of Gearbox, is growing uglier by the day. Eddings recently claimed in a series of tweets that Pitchford physically assaulted him in a hotel lobby at GDC 2017.
In the tweets, Eddings talks about his mixed feelings about returning to the series when he was asked to do so and states that he wanted to be able to do it for the game’s many fans. When an issue over payment arose, he offered to do it for no fee but wanted past unpaid royalties, and also an apology for the assault that he says he suffered at the Marriott Marquis Hotel, at GDC 2017.
I ultimately offered to do it for “free” in exchange for past royalties owed plus an apology for something I’ve never spoken about publicly until now: Randy physically assaulted me in the lobby of the Marriott Marquis at GDC 2017.
— David Eddings (@davideddings) May 7, 2019
Eddings didn’t go into any details about the assault, instead opting to talk about what he sees as Pitchford’s flaw of being “on tilt the last few years. He’s not the victim he portrays himself to be. I even blocked him a couple of years ago for stalking me on social media. Enough is enough.”
Eddings was responding to claims from Pitchford that he was “bitter and disgruntled” after the company let him go. Pitchford is having a bad couple of weeks lately. First, the alienation of some potential customers due to Borderlands 3 spending six months as an Epic Store exclusive, and then some confusing comments he made about Borderlands 3 not having any microtransactions when the game does, in fact, have microtransactions.
There was no “force” – He wanted it (and reveled in it). The issue today is that Mr. Eddings is bitter and disgruntled about having been terminated. He was offered 2x scale, he refused. I don’t want him to do it unless he wants to do it, as motivation affects performance.
— Randy Pitchford (@DuvalMagic) May 4, 2019
This is almost certainly not over yet, so we will keep you updated as more tweets fly.
