As of this week, Borderlands 4 is on sale on Steam in many regions, 20% off, down from $70 to $56.
Players have noted that this is just a month after launch, and that it seems to contradict something Gearbox head Randy Pitchford said about Borderlands 4 not going on sale for a long time. What’s going on?
This all would seem to reinforce, to some degree, the idea that Borderlands 4 is underperforming Borderlands 3. We had data before this that said:
- Borderlands 3 sold 5 million copies in five days. This was while being an Epic Games Store PC exclusive.
- Borderlands 4 had 2.5 million players across all platforms, including Steam, in about its first week.
- The budget for Borderlands 4 is more than double that of Borderlands 3, according to Pitchford himself. This was back when he was criticized for implying the game might cost $80 (it ended up costing $70). He said, “Borderlands 4 has more than twice the development budget than Borderlands 3, more than twice.” That may put it somewhere around $300 million, if so.
The point is that Borderlands 4 has a steep hill to climb and perhaps a significant one, if it’s underperforming Borderlands 3. While it’s not unheard of that games go on sale a month after release (hello Ubisoft), a 20% cut seems designed to encourage a lot more sales and to get more copies moved before its first paid Bounty Pack, out soon.
As for this other Randy quote about Borderlands 4 going on sale, that’s a little more nebulous in terms of being a pure contradiction. In June of this year, Pitchford commented on a Steam Summer Sale price of $3 for Borderlands 3, 95% off its original price. Here’s what he said:
“Sales like this and Borderlands 3 showing up on console subscription programs took over five years from the game’s launch,” Pitchford said. “And to set expectations, it will be even longer before this kind of thing happens in the next cycle with Borderlands 4.”
I’m actually going to give him the benefit of the doubt on this one. “Sales like this” references something insane like a 95% off spot, not “any sale ever.” And whatever is happening with BL4, it’s not going on a subscription service right now.
That said, this is all temporary. Longer term, I would imagine that yes, Borderlands 4 will end up discounted more quickly than BL3, and probably end up somewhere like PS Plus far sooner than five years from now. Randy was saying all this before these initial sales came in, and you don’t really get to be that declarative about your plans if your sales are down to that degree.
Borderlands 4 is really good! I would definitely pick it up on sale. But no, we are not seeing Borderlands 3 level success here, to be sure.
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