Randy 
Pitchford is not your traditional video game executive. The president and CEO of Gearbox Software is a shrewd businessman, a skilled poker player, and a former magician.
But the man behind games like Borderlands and Aliens: Colonial Marines is also a bit of weirdo, as evidenced by the fact that he just dropped $25,000 for the ponytail of magician/comedian/dancer/apprentice Penn Jillette.
The 
epic saga of Duke Nukem has taken another unexpected twist.
3D Realms, the creator of the iconic gaming character, is suing Gearbox Software, saying it is due $2 million in royalties over sales of Duke Nukem Forever.
Aliens: 
Colonial Marines might have rankled critics, but that’s nothing compared to how it upset fans. And one fan in particular.
Plaintiff Damion Perrine filed a false advertising lawsuit against publisher Sega and developer Gearbox Software Tuesday in the Northern District of California, saying demos of the game shown at industry trade shows and public events were not accurate representations of the game that hit shelves.
In 
space, no one can hear you scream…unless you’re screaming obscenities about the new Aliens video game. We’re hearing that loud and clear.
Critics are eviscerating Aliens: Colonial Marines, Gearbox’s long-anticipated game/sequel to 20thCentury Fox’s film franchise, making the horrors the game’s xenomorphs inflict seem paltry by comparison.
The 
relationship between Hollywood studios and videogame publishers is evolving, but gamemakers at Thursday’s 16th annual Dice Awards in Las Vegas say there’s still a distance between the two.
“I don’t think they’re completely separate, but I think there are a lot of challenges between the two,” Capcom’s Christian Svensson said at the event, which serves as the Oscars of the vidgame biz, produced by the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences. “The sheer difference between times of development … is a very hard thing to reconcile. And I don’t know if anyone has really figured out how to make it collaborative. We’ve still got a ways to go.”
Regardless 
of whether or not you’re a fan of Borderlands 2’s over-the-top combat and loot gathering (we definitely are), you have to give the game credit for one thing: It refuses to take itself too seriously.
Not only do the game’s characters spout hilarious lines as they mercilessly mock the player, enemies, and even gaming in general, but the game is loaded with winks and nods to an untold number of other pop-culture icons.
Borderlands 
2 is not a game for pacifists. But for those who like combining the loot discovery of Diablo with the guns blazing, shoot-first-never-ask-questions style of classics like Quake or Unreal, it’s a match made in video game heaven.
The Gearbox Software game for the PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 hits stores today and has already charmed critics, who unanimously agree that it’s a better game than its predecessor thanks to great writing and strong visual design. With a Metacritic score of 90 — after 33 publications have chimed in — it currently stands as one of the most critically-acclaimed games of the year.
If 
Randy Pitchford’s gut is right, you have Gearbox Software co-founder Brian Martel to thank for this summer’s movie Prometheus.
Several years ago, Martel sat down with Ridley Scott to talk about Blade Runner and Alien. As the two discussed the landmark science fiction films, Scott brought out the original, by-then-dust covered storyboards to Alien and began to animatedly discuss the franchise and his love for it.
It took more than 12 years for
Duke Nukem Forever to see the light of day, but the wait for expansion packs may wind up being less than 12 weeks.
Take-Two and Gearbox Software have announced that the first downloadable content for the long-anticipated but critically-derided shooter will be out this fall. And in true Duke style, he’s taking aim at the kings of the FPS hill.
[In this opinion piece, Gamasutra editor-at-large 
Chris Morris discusses why the latest delay to Gearbox’s Duke Nukem Forever is actually a good thing, with other upcoming gaming releases taken into account.]
Given the game’s long, dubious history, the latest delay of Duke Nukem Forever shouldn’t have come as a shock to anyone.
It’s certainly not a long one, by Duke standards. And while some doubters in gaming forums across the internet have seized on this as a chance to say “I told you so!,” most fans and developers have barely blinked at the news, except perhaps to tip their hats at the clever way Gearbox announced the news.
Chris Morris: Journalist 