Gearbox Studios, creators of the insanely popular video game series Borderlands, have been under fire after the recent reveal of the newest addition to the franchise, Borderlands 3.

The backlash of the community was not brought on by the game reveal but was instead sparked by the announcement that Borderlands 3 would not be coming to the monopolized digital distribution platform Steam on initial release.

Gearbox Studios decided to publish the fourth installment of the series on a new digital distribution platform, the Epic Games Store. This online game publishing platform was constructed by Epic Games, creators of the hit game Fortnite.

After this apocalyptic revelation, fans who played the past installments of the series on Steam went into an outrage, pouring out posts and opinions on website forums. One prominent fan, Thainarv, posted a response to the news on reddit that reads as follows:

“Looks like 2k’s [owners of Gearbox Studios] got the best of them, considering they’re now giving out golden gun skins for preorders, and it’s an EGS [Epic Games Store] Exclusive. Damn, not even a console release, Epic must’ve cashed over like at least half a billion dollars to have this happen, and it just shows you how much greed these companies have nowadays.”

Thainarv, disregarding that fact that he is completely wrong about there not being a console version, makes a strong point in his post as Epic Games Store is giving 88% of the profits to the game creators instead of the 70% of profits given by Steam. It is outlandish that these creators are trying to make even more money off a game that they have been developing for over seven years and pouring countless amounts of resources into.

Fans have also started taking action. Masses of enraged game consumers have been visiting the older games on Steam and review bombing (publishing overwhelmingly negative reviews) them. This courageous act of destroying the popularity of Gearbox Studios’ older, well-loved games has evoked a response from a studio head, Randy Pitchford, who stated,

“Ironically, that this misuse is possible and that Steam has no interest in correcting this misuse makes me kind of happy about 2K’s decision and it makes me want to reconsider Gearbox Publishing’s current posture on the platform.”

This statement provides another example of how disconnected Gearbox Studios is from their fanbase. Does this game company not understand that fans are slandering their old games on Steam to convince them to change the initial release from Epic Games Store?

Randy Pitchford’s statement paints a bleak picture for the future of Borderlands 3 and Steam users. It seems that these fans will either have to wait 6 months for the Steam release, or they will have to succumb to corporate greed and download the free Epic Games Store Launcher.