David Eddings – the current head of games publishing at Rooster Teeth and former VP of strategic publishing at Gearbox Software, along with being the former voice actor for Claptrap from Borderlands – has been dropping some mean lyrical revelations on Twitter after confirming that he wouldn’t be reprising his role as Claptrap in Borderlands 3. In one Twitter thread he outlined an encounter he had with Pitchford at the Game Developer’s Conference back in 2017 at the Marriott Marquis, where he stated that Pitchford physically assaulted him.
The thread was published on May 6th, 2019, following revelations that Gearbox president Randy Pitchford claimed that David Eddings had been highly compensated while working at the studio. Eddings fired back with the following…
I had a lot of mixed feelings when asked to reprise the role of Claptrap late last year and eventually realized I was willing to put differences aside and do something cool for Borderlands fans with my friends at Gearbox.
— David Eddings (@davideddings) May 7, 2019
Personally, I think Randy’s been on tilt the last few years. He’s not the victim he portrays himself to be. I even blocked him a couple years ago for stalking me on social media. Enough is enough.
— David Eddings (@davideddings) May 7, 2019
As an aside, seems a bit conspicuous that he chimed in on my salary but didn’t mention anything about the $12M of revenue he siphoned away from the employee royalty pool. FYI – GBX employees are asked to take lower salaries with the promise of royalty shares.
— David Eddings (@davideddings) May 7, 2019
2K says they won’t give a statement regarding an ongoing lawsuit but if the allegation is false then it sure seems a lot easier to just deny it since that’s the only reason they’re mentioned. The whole thing stinks.
— David Eddings (@davideddings) May 7, 2019
That’s a lot to take in.
Eddings’ claim about the GDC incident could only be confirmed if the people who witnessed it acknowledged that it happened, which would mean that Pitchford would have to confirm or deny it.
I did reach out to Pitchford to ask if what Eddings mentioned in the thread was true, but at the time of writing this article Pitchford has not responded.
It would be a difficult thread to miss for someone like Pitchford given that Eddings’ tweets have garnered thousands of likes and retweets, but then again maybe the Gearbox president has been too busy to notice.
Either way, this was just a follow-up to David Eddings’ original tweets where he stated that he was willing to come back to do the voice of Claptrap for Borderlands 3, but Gearbox was unwilling to properly compensate him for the work, especially since he no longer works at Gearbox and hasn’t been working there since 2017.
The Gearbox president had initially responded saying that Eddings was compensated for his work but chose not to come back, prompting for Eddings to roll out the thread above.
Eddings has also consistently fired salvos into the knees of Pitchford by repeatedly bringing up the $12 million that Pitchford allegedly pocketed instead of feeding back into Gearbox, as outlined in the lawsuit against Pitchford from a former Gearbox lawyer.
We’ll see if Pitchford chooses to respond to Eddings’ latest claims or if he will keep silent and return to “promoting” Borderlands 3.
(Thanks for the news tip Zangril and Lyle)
