Tag Archives: mike neumann

Want to work at Gearbox? Sure you do. Creative director Mike Neumann’s got something interesting for you, should you make the cut.

“Gearbox is hiring for all kinds of stuff, including a super secret project that I’m working on!” he tweeted laast night.

“Hit up the site!”

Borderlands 2? It probably is. Apply and find out.

Recent remarks from Randy Pitchford on Valve “exploiting a lot of people in a way that’s not totally fair” with Steam have been taken “really out-of-context” and “twisted and contorted”.

That’s according to Gearbox creative director Mike Neumann, speaking to VG247 in an interview published today.

Neumann did add, however, that he believes that the “honor system” involved with publishing on Steam is “a little sketchy”.

“Thing is, it was really out-of-context,” said Neumann. “There is absolutely no bad blood there. We love Valve. We love Steam. We’re doing good on it right now. It’s a really great platform.

“[Randy] was simply making a sidenote. Like, ‘Hey, they’re a developer, and they also self-publish. There might be a conflict of interest there.’ It’s not like I disagree. There might be conflict of interest there. We haven’t seen any evidence. It’s all on the honor system. But it is a bit like, ‘Hey, let’s at least acknowledge that we’re all on the honor system here.’ It’s a little sketchy.”

He added:

“I think the comments about exploiting developers really just got twisted and contorted. I think [Randy] was trying to stick up for the little guys a bit, and it was cool to see all the indie developers that have been using Steam as their platform come out and say Steam’s awesome.

“And it’s like, OK, the honor system’s working and everybody’s doing well. So really, all we proved is that Valve’s good people, and this is working out. So we’ll stick with this.”

Pitchford initial said that, “As a guy in this industry though, I don’t trust Valve. I, personally, trust Valve. But I’m just saying, honestly, I think a lot of the industry doesn’t.

“It would be much better if Steam was its own business. There’s so much conflict of interest there that it’s horrid. It’s actually really, really dangerous for the rest of the industry to allow Valve to win.

“I love Valve games, and I do business with the company. But, I’m just saying, Steam isn’t the answer. Steam helps us as customers, but it’s also a money grab, and Valve is exploiting a lot of people in a way that’s not totally fair.”

Gearbox’s latest release, RPG-shooter Borderlands, was released on October 29 and is currently the fifth bestselling game on Steam.

Mike Neumann, Gearbox creative director, has given a clear indication that we haven’t seen the back of Borderlands yet.

“Borderlands is really exciting,” Neumann told VG247, speaking in an interview published today.

“Everyone here loves the franchise, and it seems like the public is really coming back with praise and love. So yeah, if everything makes sense, Borderlands 2 seems like a no-brainer to me.”

You’ll be waiting a while, however. Nothing’s been officially planned or confirmed, and internal discussion hasn’t passed the water cooler as yet.

“With anything, especially a new IP, if people want more and you can make more, and everybody can make money and do good business there, it obviously makes really good sense to do that,” Neumann added.

“Obviously nothing so far is planned. We’re working on DLC. We haven’t really had any talks about a sequel, other than water cooler talk like, ‘Wouldn’t this be cool’ kind of stuff.”

Hit the link for the full interview.

Gearbox is very much in its moment. While Modern Warfare 2′s relentless brass-ejection had many of 2009′s biggest potentials running into next year’s first quarter, the Texan developer and publisher 2K stood ground and went ahead with a new, Q4, core IP release in Borderlands: the gambit resulted in stock shortages and open water to enjoy sales on what’s been universally tagged as an excellent game.

Borderlands’ release was well judged, and merely capped off a year in which Gearbox has managed to maintain near constant media presence, most recently throwing itself jazz-handedly into the limelight with contentious remarks about Valve and Steam from boss Randy Pitchford – Mike Neumann, creative director, tells us below that Pitchford’s words were “twisted and contorted”.

And don’t forget Aliens. Or Brothers in Arms. VG247′s Nathan Grayson didn’t: see how Neumann answered his questions after the break.

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Mikey Neumann, creative director at Gearbox, has said that even though the level cap for Borderlands is 50, you can probably beat the game at level 31 or 35.

On top of that, the game allows for a “single-player plus” mode once beaten, where you can replay the game, ascend to level 50, and get the best weapons out there.

“The level cap is 50, but you beat the game around 31 or 35, somewhere around there,” Neumann told MTV. “Then you can restart the game and do New Game Plus where everything’s 35 to 50 on the second play-through.

“[There's] more rare enemies, too. The Badasses and the Brutes and stuff like that, which you don’t see as much of in the first. You see them a lot more in the second playthrough. It’s definitely harder.”

As far as length goes, Neumann says that going by his own playthroughs, it takes about 100 hours to finish the game the first time through. More should you go for a second round.

“I just have my own gauge. I’ve maxed out twice, gotten to level 50 twice,” he said. “It took me about 100 hours. More the second time, actually, and that was to find every single little mission. I wanted to do everything.”