Gearbox Threatens To 'Expand Outside' Texas Over Anti-Trans Bill -

[Dysnomia]

Lol, I don't get the sperging Gearbox is doing right now.

How does it even help your business?

They didn't get the "get woke go broke" memo.

 

[Marissa Moira]

edit: California politics are already seeping into Texas. Who could've thunk it!

You have to wonder what will happen once these people run out of places to move to.

 

[Tanner Glass]

https://kotaku.com/gearbox-threatens-to-leave-texas-over-anti-trans-bill-1846741426

During a committee hearing held yesterday in the Texas House of Representatives, Gearbox exec David Najjab testified against Texas House Bill 4042, which would force transgender athletes in public schools to compete in sports according to the gender they were assigned at birth.

“I’m a Texan,” said Najjab, who has worked as Borderlands developer Gearbox’s director of institutional partnerships since 2015. “I was born here. I know it’s a welcoming, friendly place. I want us to push that, not be making up laws we don’t need.”

Many of the day’s testimonies came from individuals who would be personally affected by TX HB4042, but Najjab focused on the ramifications the bill’s passing would have on business, both for Gearbox and the state at large. The discriminatory legislature, Najjab said, would make it harder for Gearbox to keep and recruit “the best and the brightest” to work in Texas.

“Our game company’s in competition worldwide,” Najjab added. “We sell more to Asia than we do in the United States. We bring a lot of money into this state. We’re headquartered here. Don’t drive us to where we have to start expanding outside of Texas and outside of the country. We want to keep doing business here.”

Gearbox, which is based in Frisco but also opened a studio in Quebec, Canada in 2015, is one of several businesses to sign a letter calling for Texas to update its non-discrimination laws to include the LGBTQ+ community. Other signatories include Apple, IBM Corporation, and Microsoft.

G/O Media may get a commission
This isn’t Gearbox’s first rodeo when it comes to Texas politics. Back in 2017, CEO and magician-in-residency Randy Pitchford publicly opposedlegislation that would limit people to using bathrooms in public schools and government buildings based on the gender on their birth certificates. That bill eventually failed.

“The kinds of people that are the best in the world at creating technology, at creating entertainment, these are people that do not want to live in places that are seen as discriminatory,” Pitchford said at the time, a sentiment Najjab echoed in yesterday’s testimony.

While Gearbox’s opposition to this latest anti-trans bill is certainly well-meaning (if maybe a little too fixated on the impact to its own bottom line), arguments have been made in similar situations that these kinds of boycotts only further hurtmarginalized folks who are unable to just up and leave discriminatory states. It’s clear trans people in Texas have it hard enough as it is, and the disappearance of job opportunities at companies like Gearbox could only exacerbate those issues.

Trans folks are experiencing an unprecedented onslaught from right-wing politicians seeking ways to legally discriminate against their existence. Sadly, the work doesn’t stop with this one bill or even in Texas. For more information, visit the National Center for Transgender Equality.

We won't be able to recruit "the best and the brightest" he says - because of a Texas bill about high school sports.

Wow - it has to be that. It sure couldn't be your reputation of pushing all of your devs into crunch with the promises of huge bonuses (based on sales upon release) only for your company to make a short-sighted deal with Epic Games for a huge pile of cash that the company gets to keep but drastically hurt sales. Sorry guys - for unforseen circumstances we had to cut bonuses (https://www.gamesindustry.biz/artic...nds-3-devs-accuse-gearbox-of-shorting-bonuses).

It couldn't also be Gearbox's reputation for higher ups constantly stealing money from the company, being weirdos (bringing porn to work, harassing employees, trashing ex-employees, cornering employees and walking them magic tricks) or Gearbox's bad reputation in the industry (stealing money from Sega, Duke Nukem lawsuits, Borderlands 3's $120 dollar edition, the CEO suggesting people make porn of Battleborn characters).

It probably has nothing to do with the fact that most people feel like Gearbox hasn't launched a "good" game since 2013 (Borderlands 2) has been floundering in the wind for nearly a decade. No solid sequels, no new IPs, no hype, and no direction. Wasted a huge boatload of money on Battleborn only get completely BTFO by Overwatch in a move that every man, woman, and child on earth saw coming (except for the C-suite at Gearbox, apparently).

If you genuinely have an employee that is "the best and brightest" that doesn't want to be in Teaxs, just let them work remote. It's not like everyone constantly needs to be in the same room anymore - and they can save on moving costs which will really help them out when one of the following occurs.
- You fire them uncerimoniously after the game they were working on completely flops.
- They don't have as much money when you sabotage sales (but not profits) and cheat them out of bonus money.
- They quit after the CEO gives them a flash drive but instead of a design documentation - it contains porn of girls in school uniforms.

Yeah, it's probably the Texas sports bill that's stopping people from working at Gearbox.

 

[Vyse Inglebard]

- They quit after the CEO gives them a flash drive but instead of a design documentation - it contains porn of girls in school uniforms.

Did that really happen?! What a bunch of degenerate faggots, holy shit! No wonder nobody fucking likes them (aside from their shitty games of course).


Gearbox: "If you don't change this law, we're leaving!"
Texas:

 

[Marissa Moira]

We won't be able to recruit "the best and the brightest" he says - because of a Texas bill about high school sports.

Wow - it has to be that. It sure couldn't be your reputation of pushing all of your devs into crunch with the promises of huge bonuses (based on sales upon release) only for your company to make a short-sighted deal with Epic Games for a huge pile of cash that the company gets to keep but drastically hurt sales. Sorry guys - for unforseen circumstances we had to cut bonuses (https://www.gamesindustry.biz/artic...nds-3-devs-accuse-gearbox-of-shorting-bonuses).

It couldn't also be Gearbox's reputation for higher ups constantly stealing money from the company, being weirdos (bringing porn to work, harassing employees, trashing ex-employees, cornering employees and walking them magic tricks) or Gearbox's bad reputation in the industry (stealing money from Sega, Duke Nukem lawsuits, Borderlands 3's $120 dollar edition, the CEO suggesting people make porn of Battleborn characters).

It probably has nothing to do with the fact that most people feel like Gearbox hasn't launched a "good" game since 2013 (Borderlands 2) has been floundering in the wind for nearly a decade. No solid sequels, no new IPs, no hype, and no direction. Wasted a huge boatload of money on Battleborn only get completely BTFO by Overwatch in a move that every man, woman, and child on earth saw coming (except for the C-suite at Gearbox, apparently).

If you genuinely have an employee that is "the best and brightest" that doesn't want to be in Teaxs, just let them work remote. It's not like everyone constantly needs to be in the same room anymore - and they can save on moving costs which will really help them out when one of the following occurs.
- You fire them uncerimoniously after the game they were working on completely flops.
- They don't have as much money when you sabotage sales (but not profits) and cheat them out of bonus money.
- They quit after the CEO gives them a flash drive but instead of a design documentation - it contains porn of girls in school uniforms.

Yeah, it's probably the Texas sports bill that's stopping people from working at Gearbox.

They also lost the rights to publish Sub-Nautica and the devs from that went to Bandai Namco for Subnautica: Below Zero because apparently gearbox also pulled fuckery behind the scenes.

 

[Poop A Loop]

I worked for a company headquartered in Austin and those fuckers were the most smug hipster assholes I'd ever had the displeasure of dealing with. You'd come and visit and their airport would be full of shit like "Keep Austin Weird" as if having food trucks that just stored Sodexho recipes was somehow quirky or unique or that having overpaid UX designers who just copied Material Design components was groundbreaking thought leadership. Austin truly is the asshole of Texas. If preventing mentally ill deviants with neovaginas from forcing their fetishes on girls in sports means Texas gets a little less pozzed then go for it.

 

[Raiken]

From everything going on there with the head of the company fucking the devs over on a day by day basis and they are bothred by this?

 

[Dark Edea]

Shit or get off the pot.

 

[Marissa Moira]

I worked for a company headquartered in Austin and those fuckers were the most smug hipster assholes I'd ever had the displeasure of dealing with. You'd come and visit and their airport would be full of shit like "Keep Austin Weird" as if having food trucks that just stored Sodexho recipes was somehow quirky or unique or that having overpaid UX designers who just copied Material Design components was groundbreaking thought leadership. Austin truly is the asshole of Texas. If preventing mentally ill deviants with neovaginas from forcing their fetishes on girls in sports means Texas gets a little less pozzed then go for it.

Gearbox should put their money where their mouth is and make a Troon Sports simulator.

If people want Transgender sports, they'll gladly buy a game featuring it, right?

I mean I would simply because I like games with physics where you can just fuck up NPCs horribly.

 

[FierceBrosnan]

Gearbox should put their money where their mouth is and make a Troon Sports simulator.

If people want Transgender sports, they'll gladly buy a game featuring it, right?

I mean I would simply because I like games with physics where you can just fuck up NPCs horribly.

If Gearbox makes The Totally Feminine Adventures of Macho Ma'am Tranny Savage and let's me wreck NPC shit in a GTA style sandbox I will buy 10 copies. Or someone could just make a mod for San Andreas, same thing really.

 

[Niggernerd]

As a Texan
Who?

 

[Jack Awful]

Gearbox is a known woman-hating company, and opposition to this bill is more proof.

We all know about the company usb porn drive.

 

[Dark Edea]

If Gearbox makes The Totally Feminine Adventures of Macho Ma'am Tranny Savage and let's me wreck NPC shit in a GTA style sandbox I will buy 10 copies. Or someone could just make a mod for San Andreas, same thing really.

Or you could play Saints Row 3 or 4.

 

[The Last Stand]

They didn't get the "get woke go broke" memo.

Ironically, they own the Duke Nukem rights.

 

[moocow]

Welp, bye Felicia!

Did the legislature bust out the world's tiniest violin to play as this shithead whined about his first-world problem?

 

[TVStactic]

Lol, I don't get the sperging Gearbox is doing right now.

How does it even help your business?

it will force them to hire competent people instead of mentally ill reprobates. they could go the pajeet route but you know... never hire pajeets.

 

[Agent Abe Caprine]

Ironically, they own the Duke Nukem rights.

The most macho Oprah fan deserves better.

 

[StraightShooter2]

Not to mention, didn't Duke Nukem Forever have a lot of offensive and politically incorrect content? I never played it because it looked like shit.

 

[The Last Stand]

Not to mention, didn't Duke Nukem Forever have a lot of offensive and politically incorrect content? I never played it because it looked like shit.

Offensive? Sure. The issue was it was dated and juvenile. The Hive level comes to mind. It doesn't help that everything about Duke Nukem Forever was rushed and dated, despite 12 years in development hell.

 

[Dom Cruise]

which would force transgender athletes in public schools to compete in sports according to the gender they were assigned at birth.

Oh man, what a radical and totally unreasonable concept, definitely something worth uprooting your entire business and moving out of state over.