The CEO of Saber Interactive has confirmed that a trailer for the company’s latest game contains a dig at Gearbox president Randy Pitchford.
Last week the company posted a trailer for Rideshare ‘Stimulator’, a game which puts players in the role of a rideshare business owner who has to drive a collection of colourful characters around town.
As noted by Game File, however, the trailer appears to make a number of veiled references to Gearbox boss Pitchford, specifically an incident that took place in 2018.
According to Pitchford’s recounting of the incident, as he explained on magic podcast The Piff Pod in 2018 (and reported by Ars Technica at the time), he visited a Medieval Times Dinner and Tournament restaurant and accidentally left behind a USB drive containing “barely legal porn”, which he says he had copied to the drive to figure out how an 18-year-old camgirl performed a specific sex act, which he believed to be a magic trick.
The incident became the central focus of competing lawsuits, in which Pitchford was eventually exonerated.
At one point in the new Rideshare ‘Stimulator’ trailer posted by Saber, the voiceover says: “When I think I’ve met the randiest of passengers, someone even stranger gets in.”
Later in the trailer, a car is shown with the registration plate USB DRV and a Texas state marking (the Medieval Times restaurant incident took place in Dallas, Texas).
Other clips in the trailer feature a “weirdo” who gets in the ride share and demands to be taken “to the medieval feast before the moons align”.
“Without Embracer, Randy is performing magic tricks at birthday parties”, Saber CEO says
Game File contacted Saber CEO Matt Karch to ask if the trailer was indeed poking fun at Pitchford, and he confirmed this was the case. According to Karch, the joke is in response to digs made at Embracer Group – which previously owned both Saber and Gearbox – that were made in the latter’s Borderlands 4.
“The dig is because Randy took shots at Embracer in Borderlands 4,” Karch told the publication. “Without Embracer, Randy is performing magic tricks at birthday parties for a living.”
Embracer acquired Gearbox in April 2021 for $363 million, and eventually sold it to Take-Two Interactive three years later for $460 million.
One scene in Borderlands 4 includes a location called Embracer’s Bluff, which contains a large trash dump and an AI-powered toilet, which some believed to be an attack by Gearbox aimed at what it was like being owned by Embracer.
It would appear that Karch is one of those who believe the game was criticising Embracer, and his comments to Game File imply Pitchford and Gearbox should be more thankful that Embracer acquired the company, adding: “It’s amazing to me how fast people forget those who went above and beyond for them.”
