A pair of lawsuits filed in Collin County and Dallas County District Courts late in 2015 emerged on Friday, each revolving around a nasty dispute between the former general counsel of Transmission Studios (makers of the Borderlands and Aliens: Colonial Militaries video game series) and its CEO, Randy Pitchford.
A November Gearbox filing uncovered by Kotaku’s Jason Schreier alleged that the business’s previous general counsel, Wade Callender, “make use of [ed] Transmission’s generosity and trust for his gain.” Callender’s countersuit, submitted in the same court one month later, went a fair bit more. Callender’s fit alleges that Pitchford “breached his fiduciary duties by using Gearbox employees and property to money Pitchford’s private cravings.” One part of the match makes two mind-blowing allegations about Pitchford’s habits: that he inadvertently left a selection of “minor” pornography on a USB stick at a restaurant and that he utilized his company’s money to host celebrations where “adult males have supposedly exposed themselves to minors, to the amusement of Pitchford.”
The allegations about a USB stick discovered at a Medieval Times in Dallas, down the road from Gearbox Software’s Plano, Texas, head office. Callender alleges in the December fit that someone from the dining establishment perused the USB stick’s contents upon their discovery and called the video game studio so that its employees might recover it. “Pitchford stated that the thumb drive was his and requested its timely return,” Callender’s match states.
At this time, Callender and other Gearbox counsel were “moderating yet another case in which Pitchford’s conduct was front and center: the Aliens: Colonial Marines class-action.” Callender declares that he asked Gearbox staffers in Texas to “make a copy of the USB drive, to guarantee that its contents might be verified and if needed, acted on.” Callender was unable to see these files, he states, because “Pitchford stepped in by recovering the lost USB drive himself and paying Gearbox employees to destroy the copy that Callender requested.”
Pointing out “information and belief,” Callender alleges that the USB stick in question contained “Randy Pitchford’s collection of ‘underage’ porn,” in addition to “delicate business documents of Transmission and organization partners like Take-Two Interactive, 2K Games, Sega, Microsoft, Sony, etc”.
Additionally, Callender declares that Pitchford “siphoned Gearbox profits to fund parties thrown by Pitchford and his wife.” They explain these parties, referred to as “Peacock Celebrations,” as gatherings where adult male guests “have reportedly exposed themselves to minors, to the amusement of Randy Pitchford.”.
David Eddings, a former Gearbox vice president (and voice of Borderlands character Clap-trap) up till 2017, took to Twitter after Kotaku’s report went live with a vague, two-word post: “It’s true.”
Callender’s suit does not validate whether the police were alerted about these claims of direct sexual exposure to minors or the possible existence of child porn on a USB stick owned by Pitchford. Neither Callender’s legal counsel nor Gearbox agents reacted to Ars’ concerns as of press time. However, Gearbox did declare to Kotaku on Friday: “The allegations made by an unhappy previous employee are ridiculous, without any basis in truth or law. We eagerly anticipate resolving this meritless lawsuit in court and have no more remark at this time.”
Agents from the Dallas FBI did not instantly react to concerns about possible investigations concerning kid pornography and Pitchford. The Frisco, Texas, police department stated it had no examinations involving Pitchford at this time.
Randy’s counterclaim: The porn was a “magic trick”.
Bizarrely enough, Pitchford proves a few of the story’s information by appearing on a podcast that went live one day after Callender’s suit was filed. On the December 22 episode of The Piff Pod, Pitchford talks at length about porn that he delights in watching, consisting of “camgirl” porn, in which a host exposes themself to a live feed and takes requests and financial suggestions from consumers. Pitchford explained that he was “a customer of this material.” He validated that he copied a specific video “to this memory stick” to, as he describes it, “exercise the technique” of how a camgirl host fabricated the act of female ejaculation. (Be alerted: he explains how the video looks, especially graphic detail.).
“I understood. This is not a sex worker,” Pitchford stated on the program. “This is a fucking magician.” Pitchford, for those uninformed, has a beneficial interest in the field of magicians and owns the magic-focused Genii Magazine.
“This was before I discovered I need to probably have password-protected memory sticks,” Pitchford says, admitting that he had indeed left a USB flash drive at a Middle ages Times Dinner and Tournament restaurant.
“Some kid, a staff member of Medieval Times, discovered this memory stick, took it home … and discovered secrets of my business and future video games in development, and likewise discovered the pornography. It was ‘barely legal’ pornography. This girl’s age was ‘Only 18.'”
Randy Pitchford
The USB flash drive was returned to Gearbox, Pitchford states, in exchange for “swag” and video games.
Pitchford declared that the flash drive reached the studio while Pitchford was on vacation, so his executive assistant checked its contents.
“Before I know it, I think the entire office looked at it. And there was one piece of content on here. And it never occurred to any of them that the reason why there was just that single porno was because of the magic trick, not because of [pause] I don’t know whatever the fuck they thought.”
Randy Pitchford
Later in the podcast, Pitchford suggests putting this “Only 18” performer “on the cover” of a future Genii Magazine concern.
Claims about Media & Magic.
Gearbox’s November lawsuit submitted versus Callender seeks over $1 million in damages. It declares, in part, that Callender did not pay back a $300,000 loan provided by Pitchford in 2015 and that he utilized Gearbox’s business credit cards for personal usage before resigning from the business in July 2018.
Callender’s countersuit looks for damages from Pitchford and Gearbox Software application “more than $1 million” based on the defendant’s “intent to defraud or hurt” the previous Gearbox general counsel. Callender’s legal team claims these actions “destroyed [Callender’s] residential or commercial property and pecuniary interests.” The match in addition, alleges that Pitchford accepted a $12 million bonus offer from game publisher Take-Two Interactive to “Randy’s side entity, ‘Pitchford Entertainment Media & Magic,” which occurred “unbeknownst to Gearbox employees,” thus placing a “monetary concern” on those staff members.
“Randy Pitchford is a manipulative and morally insolvent CEO who shamefully exploited his oldest pal, a Texas attorney and military veteran called Wade Callender”
Countersuit
Late Friday, Pitchford reacted to Callender’s suit on his Twitter account.
“Though the podcast episode came out a day after Wade’s match was submitted, the actual recording (and informing of the story) was done before the suit was filed,” Gearbox Publishing PR supervisor Austin Malcolm wrote in an e-mail.
Still later Friday, Gearbox PR published a prolonged statement concerning the December claim filed versus Gearbox and Pitchford. It starts with Gearbox’s promise to “submit a grievance with the State Bar of Texas versus our previous general counsel for disciplinary proceedings.” The declaration concerns Callender’s “use of hedged lawyer language and clever application of quotation marks” and then alleges that Callender is “plainly using deceit and lies to try to cause damage by promoting a narrative that he knows is false.”.
Gearbox’s declaration consisted of a link to the same episode linked previously in our report, thus apparently backing its declarations on a business level.
The declaration also describes something called the Peacock Theater as if it were an existing, publicly accessible arts place (” owned by the Pitchford’s and hosts a variety arts reveal that has featured some of the most highly regarded and renowned performers in the world”), when it is, in reality, a private, invite-only event hosted at Pitchford’s “huge house in a gated community.” Gearbox claims that “every efficiency at the Peacock Theater is tape-recorded” and welcomes press members to “watch any or all of these videos in private for additional recognition.” (The statement says these videos’ public release can not happen without permission from the performers.) We will follow up with Gearbox’s deal to see these videos.
The company’s declaration concludes with the following: “Randy is stunned by the meritless allegations raised by a previous friend and associate, to whom he has extended his funds numerous times to help him acquire a home, an automobile, and even fully fund his tuition and costs for an executive MBA at Pepperdine.”
