YouTuber and content creator SupMatto is known for his Borderlands videos, and both he and his community were excited about Borderlands 3… just until they got a little too into the weeds of the development, and it allegedly resulted in a legal scare for SupMatto, which led to him calling it quits for now.
SupMatto posted a video on August 6th, 2019 explaining that he would be taking a break from YouTube and putting Borderlands down for now after his experience with alleged goons sent by 2K Games.
You can view the video below.
There’s another video by TheQuartering that also covers the issue, reiterating what SupMatto mentioned about how he encountered the information in the first place.
Basically, back in April there were random appellations that SupMatto and some of his subscribers followed after the names briefly appeared on-screen during a Gearbox Software livestream of Borderlands 3. It turns out that those random appellations weren’t so random after all and they were actually test-streaming accounts for the upcoming first-person shooter.
When you follow accounts on Twitch you’re alerted to their streaming activity, and this is what happened with those test-streams. However, the streams were private, but SupMatto was still able to see updates from the stream via the Twitch thumbnail, and he began collecting the information from that thumbnail.
Like any common content creator out there, SupMatto proceeded video content based on what was streamed from the Twitch accounts.
And that’s when things began to spiral out of control.
As mentioned in the video by TheQuartering about the alleged private investigators showing up at SupMatto’s house, it was further elaborated on by YouTuber Upper Echelon Gamers, who explained that this wasn’t the first time that 2K Games was accused of having sent goons to someone’s house.
Back in 2015 Destructoid reported on Take-Two Interactive sending investigators to the house of the modders who created FiveM, a multiplayer mod for GTA Online that allowed people to play separate from Rockstar’s official multiplayer servers. The mod was designed so that gamers could play with mods and cheats without bothering the players on the official servers.
Take-Two then followed this up two years later with other cease and desist letters sent to modders who made single-player mods for GTA V.
So not only is there precedence for Take-Two Interactive – the parent company of 2K Games, who is the publisher of Gearbox Software’s Borderlands franchise – taking extreme measures to stop the community from doing something, but there are instances of them having done it multiple times.
Now keep in mind that there’s no proof that 2K Games sent actual investigators to SupMatto’s house. That’s a claim that he made, which may or may not be true.
However, what is true is that SupMatto has decided that after this whole ordeal he’s going to take a break from Borderlands, from YouTube, and from all of the drama that came along with this unfortunate situation.
(Thanks for the news tip MaverickHL)
