Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford Suggests Borderlands 4 Refunds for Dissatisfied Players

Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford Suggests Borderlands 4 Refunds for Dissatisfied Players

The conversation around Borderlands 4's PC performance and Gearbox Software CEO Randy Pitchford's reactions continues to escalate. Following a series of tweets where Pitchford asserted that gamers had "overly high expectations," he is now directly advising players unhappy with low frame rates and performance to simply request a refund for the game.

Borderlands 4 launched with strong initial sales, marking it as the best-selling title in the series on Steam. Critical reviews were generally positive; however, user reviews have frequently highlighted significant performance issues. Pitchford has been personally responding to these complaints on social media platform X (formerly Twitter).

He has suggested solutions like enabling DLSS and frame generation. However, when players reported that these measures did not resolve their problems, Pitchford's responses became notably blunt, further angering the community. In one such exchange, he stated:

"You can do whatever you want. The game is the game. Please get a refund from Steam if you aren't happy with it. You made an analogy to a vehicle. I would not put a Ferrari engine in a monster truck and expect it to drive like a Ferrari. If you tell me about your specification, I can help optimize your performance. I'm sorry you don't like the advice to enable DLSS, but that is the way forward. If you are not satisfied with the available tools to increase frame rate and are not satisfied with the current frame rate, it's better to play another game.

The game is excellent – it’s designed to be comfortably playable at 30 fps and offer a great experience at 60 fps. We’ve also provided a ton of settings so you can choose your own balance between frame rate, resolution, and graphics, different from our recommendations. We encourage you to use these tools and customize the game to your liking. Do you want me to help optimize your experience?"

– Randy Pitchford

Many in the industry view this direct approach to player feedback as risky. A studio head publicly suggesting refunds for their own game can typically cause friction with publishers and platform holders. Nevertheless, Pitchford appears to be continuing with this communication style.

For players, this means that if they are experiencing performance issues with Borderlands 4 and are not satisfied with the suggested optimizations, Gearbox's stance, as communicated by its CEO, is that a refund is the appropriate course of action. Borderlands 4 is currently available on PC (Steam, Epic Games Store), Xbox Series, and PlayStation 5, with a Nintendo Switch 2 release planned for October 3rd.