Randy Pitchford will likely be remembered as the last of the Old Guard of Video Game developers from the 90s. Cutting his teeth as a level designer for Duke Nukem 3D, he has continued to epitomize an era of the industry from which most have moved forward. Randy is no slouch in accolades, however. Between working with Valve on both porting the original Half-Life and working on its expansion content, to developing the break out hit Borderlands, Randy has been a beloved industry icon – like the gaming industries wacky uncle. It’s hard to find a photograph of him with a tie. He shaved fellow industry icon Greg Miller’s head after the latter announced his cancer diagnosis. And his candid and earnest demeanor has won him numerous friends and fans.
But in 2019 Anno Domini, our favorite wacky uncle may just be our creepy uncle. In court documents filed last year, and in the midst of a vicious lawsuit between himself and former Gearbox Software counsel Wade Callender, we have been exposed to allegations that are disturbingly criminal.
Imagine, if you will, a restaurant that specializes in dinner theater. Not just any dinner theater, but the themed variety. And what better theme than medieval combat! Medieval Times Dinner and Tournament, a restaurant of said specialization, was the location where Randy Pitchford lost a USB thumb drive. Contained in this thumb drive, in Mr. Callender’s own words, were “sensitive corporate documents of Gearbox and business partners like Take-Two Interactive, 2K Games, Sega, Microsoft, Sony, etc.”
Also, there was a purchased video of an adult performer engaging in a lewd act that most would consider existing for Randy Pitchford’s personal enjoyment. However, in his own words, it was not for the sake of personal enjoyment but, rather, professional inquiry.
Have I mentioned that Randy Pitchford is a professional level magician? Right. Well, in Mr. Pitchford’s own words…
“It’s a woman who is masturbating, and when she has some experience that appears as if she's having an orgasm, a huge amount of fluid comes out of her vagina.” Pitchford said, addingin reference to the performer’s skill in sleight of hand, “This is not a sex worker, this is a fucking magician!”
Outside of salacious accusations about the legality of the content, and how accurate the advertisement of the performer being labeled as “Barely 18,” numerous accusations of a much more criminal offense have been made. Between embezzling $12 Million dollars from loan from publisher 2K Interactive, to harassing Mr. Callender’s Christian beliefs and the subsequent retaliations upon being reported on to HR.
In response to these allegations, Gearbox Studios and Randy Pitchford have responded with their own lawsuit and Gearbox issued a statement via Kotaku…
“Gearbox will be filing a grievance with the State Bar of Texas against our former general counsel Wade for disciplinary proceedings for filing a lawsuit that includes accusations that he knows to be untrue. The lawyer’s rules of professional conduct expressly prohibit the filing of documents that are knowingly false. The tell is within Wade’s claim itself – his use of hedged lawyer language and clever application of quotation marks betray that he knows that the impression he is trying to create is based in lies. We imagine that he used the quotation marks and lawyer language in hopes that will give him some angles of defense when we inevitably take action against him for false statements. Wade is engaged in a shakedown and he’s clearly using deceit and lies to try to cause damage by promoting a narrative that he knows is false.”
There is serious bad blood between Wade Callender and Randy Pitchford. In a monumental argument of “he said/she said,” with a company at stake, we are only just settling into Mr. Pitchford’s Wild Ride. It’s only January, and while I’d like to get off this crazy contraption, it looks like the bars are down and we’re stuck with Uncle Randy until it’s over.
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We talked about this topic on this week’s episode of The HP Podcast! Listen and see what the hosts think as well!
