In news that will probably not garner much sympathy from anyone who played the frankly awful Aliens: Colonial Marines, developer Gearbox has revealed that they didn’t make any money from the game.
How terrible! The revelation is part of a legal statement from Gearbox’s lawyers, who are looking to get the company removed from a false advertising lawsuit brought against them and publisher Sega last year.
“During the development process, Gearbox supplemented Sega’s development budget with its own money to help Sega finish its game; Gearbox’s contribution to A:CM totaled millions, none of which was ever repaid,” claims the developer. “Gearbox never received money from Sega’s A:CM purchasers, nor has Gearbox received a single royalty from any such sales by Sega.”
That was basically because the game failed to meet sales targets. Because it was shit.
“The game’s sales were insufficient to trigger any sales-based payments to Gearbox and, as a result, Gearbox has not received any additional monies from Sega for the sale of the game. Gearbox only received the milestone payments made by Sega during the game’s development,” explains Gearbox.
We all know the Colonial Marines story by now. Game is announced, game is hyped by glossy (and it turns out wholly unrepresentative) trailers, game is released in 2013, game is rubbish. One group of gamers, led by plaintiff Damion Perrine, weren’t too happy with that outcome, and launched a lawsuit against Gearbox and Sega for falsely advertising the game as something that wasn’t a big lump of cack.
This latest statement from Gearbox is an attempt to ease their way out of a potentially tricky situation by pointing out that they were under contract from Sega, who ultimately called all the shots in terms of marketing.
”For more than a year, Gearbox has quietly abided the plaintiffs’ claims so that Sega, the game’s publisher and the party responsible for the game’s marketing and sale, could assume the defense of this lawsuit,” the developer’s statement continues. ”Gearbox has honored its publisher’s request in spite of plaintiffs’ highly-publicized-and highly-misplaced-claims against Gearbox. At this point, however, Gearbox is obligated to pursue its rightful departure from this case.”
We’ll keep you updated with the latest on this story, which will presumably rumble on for some time.
