Gearbox President Randy Pitchford told the official Xbox Magazine that, in the end, it just all came down to costs. “One of my partners, Brian Martell, had “Blade Runner” on the list (of titles to use). We chased it down and we coulda had it,” he acknowledged in the interview, “but that one failed on the business side, because the way we wanted to do it we wanted to spend twenty five million dollars. And when you do the math on that, we weren’t going to make it back.” As he went on to explain, “You’re going to spend twenty five million, there’s another ten to fifteen million risk in the publishing process, and then you’ve got another ten to fifteen million marketing, and we didn’t think we could make that back. So that’s too bad.”

It’s certainly too bad for fans of the cult classic movie, but the harsh reality for them unfortunately is that a game based on a film that is nearly three decades old is unlikely to do big business nowadays – and with such a hefty price tag attached, Gearbox’s decision to pull the plug on the project is, alas, only too understandable.

Rebellion is producing a game based on the “Aliens Vs Predator” movies, while Gearbox is producing “Aliens: Colonial Marines”, loosely based around the 1986 James Cameron film, and Brickley admits that it is important for his company to “keep pace” with what their rivals are up to. “I think if we all want to produce the best possible game at the end of the day, you’ve got to use your own imagination but keep pace with what other people are doing,” Brickley conceded in an interview with computerandvideogames.com that took place in London last week. “We’re gamers as well and want as many good games as we can get in our hands… There’s been some high level contact at trade shows, stuff like that,” he says. “Gentle ribbing and the trading of drunken ideas but nothing cooperative in that sense.”

One thing he is clear on is that at the end of the day, the games may be based around the same franchise but will still be very different experiences. “There’s no point in being direct competition in that sense,” Brickley notes, saying that Gearbox’s release is “ a game that’s very much focused on the USCN so for that reason alone we’ve taken it in all sorts of different directions.”

Gearbox clearly took the fault very seriously and just yesterday released a statement saying that the issue had been addressed and fixed “invisibly”. “We are very pleased to report that using PSN friends’ lists with the game should now work properly for all PS3 users,” the statement read.

“The fix has been released invisibly and should work automatically for all PSN users on the PS3 platform.” The statement went on to assure gamers that “No special action is required by PS3 customers to apply the fix – just play the game and you’ll find that everything works fine now. We thank you all for your patience and for making us aware of the issue!”

The game is a science fiction first person shooter set on the harsh frontier world of Pandora where up to four co-op players (who can choose to play between four different characters) may participate in a quest to find the mysterious legend of the Alien Vault, believed to contain vast amounts of alien secrets and technology, and has been developed for the PC and Xbox 360 as well as the PS3.