Gaming Executives Say The Silliest Things

Yesterday was a bit of a bad day for Gearbox as lead designer for Borderlands 2 John Hemingway made a stupid mistake when describing a new 'Best Friends' skill tree that would be available for the Mechromancer class.

The design team was looking at the concept art and thought, you know what, this is actually the cutest character we've ever had. I want to make, for the lack of a better term, the girlfriend skill tree. This is, I love Borderlands and I want to share it with someone, but they suck at first-person shooters. Can we make a skill tree that actually allows them to understand the game and to play the game? That's what our attempt with the Best Friends Forever skill tree is. -John Hemingway, Lead Designer (Borderlands 2)

Before I get into the ridiculousness of this statement, let's break things down a bit.

Yes, this new 'dumbed down' skill tree is a good idea to those who would like to get into the game but aren't veteran FPS gamers (or gamers at all). It's a smart decision and it's the kind of thing that gives me even more faith in Gearbox, but calling it Girlfriend Mode? Ouch. Hemingway didn't just hint at the sexism aspect of his decision, he explained it further by flat out saying they named it after the apparent fact that women suck at video games. My girlfriend's Siren in Borderlands begs to differ...

The outcry from fans was pretty severe; so much so that Randy Pitchford (Mr. President himself) took to Twitter to do a little bit of damage control, stating that 'Borderlands 2 does NOT have a girlfriend mode. Anyone that says otherwise is misinformed or trying to stir up something that isn't there

Looks like Hemingway stepped into some trouble, but it happens...a lot in the gaming industry. Come to think of it, the industry has it's fair share of stupid quotes...