Gearbox turned down Bladerunner IP

The potential for a modern-day game based on classic sci-fi IP Bladerunner is obvious – and such a reality very nearly came to pass, developer Gearbox has admitted.

Speaking to OXM, Gearbox president Randy Pitchford admitted: One of my partners, Brian Martell, had Bladrunner on the list of IPs we wanted to use.

We chased it down and we could have had it. But that one failed on the business side, because the way we wanted to do it we wanted to spend $25m. And when you do the math on that, we weren’t going to make it back.

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

Still, that means the IP is presumably still up for grabs. Bungie – it’s time for a break from the Halo, franchise, right? Alternatively, BioWare would surely do a great job with this licence.