Borderlands 3 and the Claptrap dispute

Shawn Knight

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Bottom line: In place of Eddings, Gearbox hired Jim Foronda to do the voice of Claptrap. Foronda has plenty of experience in the industry, having previously voiced Mighty Mask in the Dragon Ball Z Kai anime series.

Astute viewers may have noticed something was a bit off in last week’s Borderlands 3 reveal. Claptrap, one of the franchise’s most lovable characters, sounded different and there’s a good reason for it.

David Eddings, who has voiced Claptrap up to this point, isn’t reprising his role this time around and that’s apparently caused yet another controversy among the game’s creators.

On Twitter, Eddings said that for the first time, he insisted on getting paid for his voice performance [as Claptrap] “and all of a sudden they couldn’t afford me.”

“Now I'm not telling them how to run their business but maybe next time they should put the $12M payment from 2K in the Gearbox bank account instead,” a jab at Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford who allegedly received a $12 million bonus from Take-Two Interactive. A Gearbox spokesperson earlier this year said the claims from a disgruntled former employee are absurd, “with no basis in reality or law.”

As GameSpot highlights, Eddings did the voiceover work for Claptrap while an employee at Gearbox. He reportedly didn’t receive any extra pay for the work, which Gearbox said is normal.


Pitchford, meanwhile, said on Twitter that Eddings is simply ‘bitter and disgruntled” about having been terminated from Gearbox (he left in 2017 to take a job at Rooster Teeth). Nevertheless, Pitchford said he offered Eddings double the standard voice actor rate to do Claptrap for Borderlands 3 but he refused.

“I don’t want him to do it unless he wants to do it, as motivation affects performance,” Pitchford said.

Borderlands 3 launches on September 13 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Windows PC.

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While I agree credibility is low, it doesn't sound like there's really any dispute about what happened here. All we're missing is what the original actor's demand was. Was it a minor difference like wanting 2.5x scale, or did he demand 10x scale? (I have no idea.)

In general I don't think there's a lot of people with full time professional jobs who also take voice acting gigs. The two schedules may not be that compatible with each other, and the gig money may not be very significant to someone who is already paid well full time. It may need to be something you pursue as a fulltime career across many different projects for it to make sense.
 
He left the company. He didn't accept the pay offer. I guess that's the end of the story...
The guy making the offter just personally received $12,000,000 from 2k, rumor has it he offered 2 years salary. Which, again, was rumored to be between 65,000and 70,000. Taking this offer would have cost him his current job. From what I hear about gearbox he likely didn't want to work for them anymore.

I don't kknow what he is getting paid but, frankly, ld rather make less money than work in a place I hate. You can't put a price on happiness
 
I don't kknow what he is getting paid but, frankly, ld rather make less money than work in a place I hate. You can't put a price on happiness

I used to think otherwise and that money directly is proportional to happiness. Maybe for some, but not for me.
I echo that, you can't put a price on happiness.
 
Eddings had previously tweeted about why Gearbox Software allegedly didn't want him portraying Claptrap again in the latest Borderlands title. According to Eddings, who had portrayed the iconic robot in all previous games.
 
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