Video game prices have been a point of contention for fans worldwide since the medium’s inception. Since 2020, however, gamers around the globe have increasingly bemoaned ever-rising prices associated with the hobby. Add in the Trump administration’s recent fluctuating tariffs, brow-raising prices associated with Nintendo’s Switch 2, and some heavy-hitting releases slated for the year ahead, and you have a recipe for disaster.

One of those anticipated releases, first-person looter-shooter Borderlands 4, is scheduled to hit shelves and digital retailers on September 12. Despite pretty consistent — and frankly, unmissable — fan outcry on social media, one X (formerly Twitter) user’s pricing question prompted a controversial response from Gearbox Software CEO Randy Pitchford.

After Pitchford shared a post from Nintendo celebrating Borderlands 4‘s Switch 2 playability, one user asked, “Randy, this game better not be 80 dollars. Don’t take that risk, alot [sic] of gamers aren’t gonna pay 80 dollars and feed this notion of constant increase of the price tag.” Their post continued: “You are the CEO, you have some say with the price when it comes to your publisher.”

Pitchford replied, “A) Not my call. B) If you’re a real fan, you’ll find a way to make it happen. My local game store had Starflight for Sega Genesis for $80 in 1991 when I was just out of high school working minimum wage at an ice cream parlor in Pismo Beach and I found a way to make it happen.”

At PAX East in Boston last week, the CEO said the sequel is “by far the biggest universe that we’ve built.” Still, the studio, which Take-Two Interactive acquired for nearly $500 million last year, has yet to confirm its retail value.

To no one’s surprise, Pitchford’s response generated intense and heated fan rebuttals. As working-class Americans are continually paywalled out of small, once-affordable luxuries like streaming services and meals from their favorite fast food restaurants, further limiting consumers’ entertainment accessibility may mean fans trim the title from their wishlists.

With the $80-$90 Mario Kart World just weeks away and Grand Theft Auto VI‘s rumored $100 price tag on the horizon, gamers might have more reason than ever to step away from new AAA releases in favor of smaller studios’ properties. With recent blockbusters from individuals, small- and medium-sized teams, like poker-themed deckbuilder Balatro and French RPG Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, AAA companies may have to re-evaluate their strategies, and, at the very least, their public relations approaches.

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