Gearbox Software, LLC is an independent American video game development company
based in Plano, Texas. The developer is best known for the Borderlands
franchise. The company also owns the intellectual property of Duke Nukem and
Homeworld. History
Gearbox Software was founded on February 16, 1999 by five members of the content
team from the defunct developer Rebel Boat Rocker: Randy Pitchford, Brian
Martel, Stephen Bahl, Landon Montgomery, and Rob Heironimus. Before Rebel Boat
Rocker, Pitchford and Martel previously worked together at 3D Realms, and
Montgomery previously worked at Bethesda Softworks.
They started with developing expansions to Valve Software's Half-Life. Porting
Half-Life to console platforms followed, building the company's experience in
console game-making, in addition to enhancing and building upon the
successful Counter-Strike branch of the Half-Life franchise. Prior to Half-Life
2, they had developed or helped develop every Half-Life expansion game or port,
including Opposing Force, Blue Shift, Counter-Strike: Condition Zero,
Half-Life for the Sony PlayStation 2, and Half-Life for the Sega Dreamcast.
Branching out to other publishers, they pursued additional port work, each game
being released with additional content, but this time from console to PC. These
projects included their first non-first-person shooter, Tony Hawk's
Pro Skater 3, and Halo: Combat Evolved, forging new publisher relationships with
Activision and Microsoft Game Studios respectively. Additional new
development, in the form of a PC game in the James Bond franchise for Electronic
Arts, also occurred during the company's initial 5-year period.
In 2005, they launched an original property of their creation, Brothers in
Arms, with the release of Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30 on the Xbox, PC
and PlayStation 2. Later that year a sequel, Brothers in Arms: Earned in
Blood, was launched. In 2008 Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway was released.
2007 brought announcements of new projects based on licensed film
intellectual properties, including the crime drama Heat and the science-fiction
classic Aliens. In the September 2007 issue of Game Informer, a new game
franchise was revealed, the sci-fi shooter Borderlands, after which Gearbox
CEO Randy Pitchford mentioned in an online interview that development on the
Heat game had not yet begun, as the planned development partner for the
project had gone under. This was followed by an announcement by Sega that
they would be helming a new version of rhythm game Samba de Amigo for the Wii,
a departure from their signature first-person shooter titles.
= Acquiring Duke Nukem= In 2008, Sega announced its license of
the Aliens franchise and a development deal with Gearbox Software to create
Aliens: Colonial Marines. Also in 2008, Gearbox Software's CEO Randy Pitchford
announced that the company was working on yet another major unannounced title,
hinting that it was "huge". On September 3, 2010, it was announced through their
Twitter feed that they are behind Duke Nukem Forever.
Since 2009, Allen Blum, the co-designer of Duke Nukem 3D and his development
team are housed at Gearbox Software under the name of Triptych Games. The
team worked on the game in their own homes before Gearbox Software decided to
collaborate. In June 2011, Duke Nukem Forever was
released and received negative critical reception on release, with most of the
criticism directed towards the unfinished, rushed state of the game.
Despite the criticism the game topped the charts on release and made a profit
for its distributor, Take-Two Interactive.
= Aliens: Colonial Marines controversy= In February 2013, an anonymous source
reported to Destructoid that Gearbox had been taking people and resources off
Aliens: Colonial Marines to put them to work on Borderlands and Duke Nukem
Forever, and yet was still collecting full payments from Sega as if they were
working on Aliens: Colonial Marines. When Sega discovered this misconduct
they canceled Colonial Marines, which led to the game's protracted
development; "At some point in 2008, Sega temporarily pulled the plug on the
game [...] They caught wind of Gearbox shifting resources despite still
collecting milestone checks as if the team were full size and lying to Sega
and 2k about the number of people working on each project. This led to the
round of layoffs at Gearbox in late 2008."
The game drew additional controversy due to the accusations that much of the
game's development was not by Gearbox Software, but was outsourced to other
developers in order to compensate for mismanagement on behalf of Gearbox.
While Sega initially denied that any such outsourcing occurred, sources
claimed that developers Demiurge Studios and Nerve Software were responsible for
the game's downloadable content, while TimeGate Studios was responsible for the
majority of the game's campaign, and were unable to create the planned Beta
version on schedule despite several delays. This caused the game to be
rushed through redesigns, certification and shipping, despite being in a largely
unfinished state. A class action lawsuit filed in April
2013 by Roger Damion Perrine and John Locke alleged that Gearbox and Sega
falsely advertised Aliens: Colonial Marines by showing demos at trade shows,
such as PAX and E3, that did not accurately represent the final product.
Sega and the plaintiffs reached a settlement in late 2014, wherein Sega
agreed to pay $1.25 million to the class. A motion for preliminary approval
of the class settlement was pending as of January 2015. Gearbox has not agreed
to settle, and the plaintiffs continue to litigate claims against the company.
On April 5, 2013, Sega confirmed that the Wii U port of the game was cancelled
due to poor reception of the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of the game.
Also in April, Gearbox acquired the Homeworld franchise from THQ during its
bankruptcy auction. In May 2013, it was reported that
TimeGate Studios filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy.
= Other stories= In June 2013, 3D Realms sued Gearbox for
unpaid royalties. In September 2013, 3DRealms dropped the suit with founder
Scott Miller explaining it as a misunderstanding on their part.
In July 2013, Gearbox announced plans to rerelease Homeworld and Homeworld 2 in
high definition for modern PC platforms, in addition to making it available
through digital distributors. In February 2014, Gearbox filed a
lawsuit against 3D Realms for attempting to make another Duke Nukem game without
the consent of the company. In July, 2014, Randy Pitchford formally
contested the Aliens: Colonial Marines class action lawsuit stating the game
had cost them millions of their own money and the advertising was solely the
fault of the publisher. Games
= Half-Life= Gearbox has developed a total of six
games in the Half-Life series: the expansion packs Opposing Force and Blue
Shift; ports of Half-Life for Dreamcast and Half-Life for PlayStation 2; they
also did a large amount of work on both the retail release of Counter-Strike and
the main portion of Counter-Strike: Condition Zero.
= Brothers in Arms= During their fourth year, Gearbox began
secretly working on their first internally driven and independently
owned game: Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30. Developed for both PC and
Microsoft's Xbox console, and built with the Unreal Engine 2, this game was
released in March 2005. The sequel, Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood,
followed seven months later. The series was published by Ubisoft, who supported
both games with PlayStation 2 versions, and later worked with them to develop
Brothers in Arms games for portable systems and the Wii home console.
In 2005, Gearbox licensed the Unreal Engine 3 from Epic Games, to replace the
Unreal Engine 2 technology used in previous games, and grew its internal
development teams to handle the demands of next-generation technology and
content. Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway was the first new title to be
announced, continuing the company's flagship franchise.
Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway was launched in September 2008. By 2008, the
franchise also spun off a comic book series, a two-part television
documentary, a line of action figures, and a novelization and non-fiction
history book. = Borderlands series=
After the completion of Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood, Gearbox began
working on their second original game, Borderlands. First revealed in the
September 2007 issue of Game Informer, Borderlands was described as "Mad Max
meets Diablo", and its FPS-meets-RPG gameplay was revealed, along with
screenshots of the early art style and the first three playable characters. The
gaming press saw the game next at the European GamesCon in 2007, and again at
GamesCon and E3 in 2008. In early 2009, it was revealed in PC Gamer magazine
that they had changed the graphical style and added the fourth player
character. Released in 2009, Borderlands is billed as a "role playing shooter",
and demonstrates Gearbox's continued support for the Unreal Engine 3.
Following the unexpected success of the first Borderlands, which sold between
three to four-and-a-half million copies since release, creative director Mike
Neumann stated that there was a chance of a Borderlands 2 being created, adding
that the decision "seems like a no-brainer." On August 2, 2011, the game
was officially confirmed and titled as Borderlands 2. The first look at the
game was shown at Gamescom 2011, and an extensive preview was included in the
September edition of Game Informer magazine, with Borderlands 2 being the
cover story. Like the first game, Borderlands 2 was developed by Gearbox
Software and published by 2K Games, running on a heavily modified version of
Epic Games' Unreal Engine 3. The game was released on September 18, 2012 in
North America and was released on September 21, 2012 internationally.
= Duke Nukem series= At the Penny Arcade Expo on September 3,
2010, it was announced that development of the long awaited Duke Nukem Forever
will be continued by Gearbox after the project was abandoned by 3D Realms after
12 years, with Gearbox purchasing the intellectual property of the franchise.
It was released by Take Two Interactive on June 10, 2011 internationally with a
North American release on June 14. In a Wired.com interview with Randy
Pitchford, it was revealed that Allen Blum's development team Triptych Games
have been brought into the office of Gearbox, making them a separate internal
developer. In the fall of 2010, Frederik Schreiber
had started throwing around the idea of doing a Duke Nukem 3D remake. Schreiber
then created a test map to give an idea of what it may look like, which he then
took screenshots of and posted on the Gearbox forums. Shortly after posting
the screenshots the images and the project made their way to various gaming
sites causing a small buzz within the gaming community. He first contacted
Gearbox Software, who told him to contact George Broussard and Scott
Miller at 3D Realms. Schreiber proceeded to contact 3D Realms. The screenshots
for the project were enough to convince Scott Miller to a certain degree about
the project, but the game would need Take Two's permission for it to happen.
Schreiber again contacted Gearbox, hoping they would have a better
relationship with Take Two than 3D Realms. After following the proper
channels within Gearbox, he was able to get in contact with PJ Putnam, Vice
President and General Counsel of Gearbox Software. Gearbox was interested in
helping the project and Schreiber was eventually granted a "personal
non-commercial license" to Duke Nukem. Having received official permission to
proceed, Schreiber officially announced the game on October 13, 2010, under the
name Duke Nukem Next-Gen, revealing he had set up a small team to work with. It
was also stated the game would be based on the Unreal Engine 3 and would not
require any other game for it to run. On November 4, 2010, the game was
officially renamed to Duke Nukem 3D: Reloaded.
The game has been put on an indefinite hold as of September 24, 2011, pending
the resolution of differences between the Interceptor Entertainment team and
Gearbox Software due to ambiguity on whether or not the finished product
would actually be allowed to see release.
July 15, 2015 Gearbox confirmed that a new Duke Nukem was in Development and
that concept images have been made = Battleborn=
Announced in July 2014, Battleborn is a cooperative first-person shooter video
game with MOBA elements being developed by Gearbox. It takes place in a space
fantasy setting where multiple races contest possession of the universe's
last star. Technology
Gearbox have developed using a number of existing game engines for various
projects, including GoldSrc, RenderWare, Bungie's Halo, and Unreal Engine. They
have completed games on a variety of game platforms, including the PC,
Dreamcast, PlayStation 2, Xbox, PlayStation Portable, Nintendo DS, Xbox
360, PlayStation 3, Wii and Microsoft Windows.
In 2006, they partnered with Dell and Intel to provide development computer
systems and technology for their studio. In June 2007, they purchased a Moven
motion capture system that uses non-optical intertia technology, to
augment their existing Vicon optical motion capture system becoming one of
the few independent developers with two in-house motion capture capabilities.
In February 2008, it was announced that they had licensed NaturalMotion's
Morpheme software. Internal focus testing
In late 2008, they started doing internal focus testing on their current
projects. Gamers in the Dallas area have the opportunity to visit their office in
Plano, Texas and play unreleased games and give feedback.
List of video games = 1999–2010=
= 2011–present= References
External links Official Gearbox Software website
Official Gearbox Software forums MobyGames profile