Gearbox: Blade Runner Game, Too Expensive

Think what you will about Gearbox President Randy Pitchford, but he's not afraid to say what's on his mind. This week he tells Official Xbox Magazine that the studio turned down a chance to make a game based on the film Blade Runner.

Pitchford says that the way they wanted to make the game would have meant spending 25 million dollars on development – money he says Gearbox wouldn't have made back.

“One of my partners, Brian Martell, had Blade Runner on the list [of IPs we wanted to use]. We chased it down and we coulda had it,” Pitchford recalls. “But that one failed on the business side, because the way we wanted to do it we wanted to spend 25 million dollars. And when you do the math on that, we weren't going to make it back.”

"You're going to spend 25 million, there's another 10-15 risk just in the publishing process, and then you got another 10-15 million marketing, and we didn't think that we could make that back. So that's too bad."

Blade Runner is still a timeless cult classic today, but perhaps the mass market would not be chomping at the bit to be playing a game based on a 1980s science fiction film, no matter how good. A shame. Now if you'll excuse us, we're going to watch the film for the seventh time this week...