Borderlands News: Claptrap Voice Actor claims Randy Pitchford assaulted him

The strange case of Borderlands 3 continues. Since it was first revealed that the latest title in the series would be released as an exclusive on the Epic Games Store on PC. Fans of the games who had played on Steam up until now felt cheated by both Gearbox and Epic.

Though the game itself was recently praised at the Borderlands 3 reveal event in Los Angeles, with many critics claiming that it was everything they wanted in a sequel and more, more trouble seemed to follow. Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford stated that there would be no pay to win mechanics and that Borderlands 3 would never bring in loot boxes, giving fans even more of a reason to be excited about the upcoming release.

However, a minor slip up saw Pitchford say there would be "no microtransactions" which caused an immediate backlash. Though he stated before that there would be in-game cosmetic purchases like in Borderlands 2, the "no microtransactions" statement was what was highlighted in the speech, causing fans and critics alike to attempt to call him out for lying to the public.

Yesterday, things only got worse for Borderlands and Gearbox. While it was already known that several voice actors from previous games wouldn't be returning for the next installment, the man who portrayed Claptrap in all three games seemingly had more of a history with the developer and Pitchford.

A recent Twitter rant from the CEO saw him call David Eddings, Claptrap's VA, bitter and disgruntled about having being let go.

There was no “force” - He wanted it (and reveled in it). The issue today is that Mr. Eddings is bitter and disgruntled about having been terminated. He was offered 2x scale, he refused. I don’t want him to do it unless he wants to do it, as motivation affects performance.

— Randy Pitchford (@DuvalMagic) May 4, 2019

Eddings himself decided to respond to Pitchford's remarks, making a serious claim. He said that he was okay moving on from Gearbox, but couldn't allow someone to mouth off about him, especially if those remarks were untrue.

Eddings stated that he had offered to voice Claptrap for free, only wanting to receive any royalties owed from previous titles. He also wanted an apology for an incident in which he said Pitchford, "physically assaulted" him at the Marriott Marquis at GDC 2017.

I ultimately offered to do it for “free” in exchange for past royalties owed plus an apology for something I’ve never spoken about publicly until now: Randy physically assaulted me in the lobby of the Marriott Marquis at GDC 2017.

— David Eddings (@davideddings) May 7, 2019

Eddings continued on, saying that Pitchford has been "on edge" recently and that he had to block him from his social media pages for stalking him. He finished up his seven-tweet long response by claiming Gearbox had syphoned away around $12 million from the employee royalty pool. According to Edding, employees are encouraged to take lower salaries with the promise of royalty shares later on.

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