Randy Pitchford, the enthusiastic mouthpiece of Borderlands 2 developer Gearbox, has expressed surprise that nobody has released a copycat version of their openworld first-person shooter role-playing game.
"I'm actually astonished that we're about to launch a sequel and no one's stole it from us," Pitchford told Gamasutra. "The formula's right there. No one's stolen it yet. That's weird. We're in an industry where people do nothing but steal from each other. That's kind of interesting, isn't it? Not that I want anyone to steal it, or I'm challenging people to steal it."
Borderlands came about because the studio realised there was little point trying to repeat the success of Activision's Call of Duty blockbuster. "To do that, you really have to put in a lot," explains Pitchford. "You have to really go for it and spend a lot. You have to basically not only out-brute force the market leader, but you have to out-clever them. The game has to be better. The marketing and production effort - everything has to be bigger and better, and then you might kind of match or come close."
Instead, Gearbox concentrated on creating something original - and the strategy paid off handsomely, for both the developer and players. The original Borderlands was released with little hype in 2009 and went on to win several Game of the Year awards, shifting over 4.5 million copies.
The long-awaited sequel, Borderlands 2, is set for release on September 21st for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC.