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Borderlands dev Gearbox says it might 'expand outside' Texas over transgender legislation

Borderlands dev Gearbox says it might 'expand outside' Texas over transgender legislation

Borderlands maker Gearbox Software has said that it might set up shop outside of Texas and the US in the wake of proposed transgender legislation.

As reported by Kotaku, the company's director of institutional partnerships testified in the Texas House of Representatives speaking against the state's House bill 4042. This would have transgender athletes in public schools competing based on their gender as assigned at birth. It has been widely panned as discriminatory.

“I’m a Texan,” Najjab said. “I was born here. I know it’s a welcoming, friendly place. I want us to push that, not be making up laws we don’t need.”

He continued: “Our game company’s in competition worldwide. We sell more to Asia than we do in the United States. We bring a lot of money into this state. We’re headquartered here. Don’t drive us to where we have to start expanding outside of Texas and outside of the country. We want to keep doing business here.”

Gearbox was recently acquired by Embracer Group in a deal worth $1.3 billion.


PCGamesInsider Contributing Editor

Alex Calvin is a freelance journalist who writes about the business of games. He started out at UK trade paper MCV in 2013 and left as deputy editor over three years later. In June 2017, he joined Steel Media as the editor for new site PCGamesInsider.biz. In October 2019 he left this full-time position at the company but still contributes to the site on a daily basis. He has also written for GamesIndustry.biz, VGC, Games London, The Observer/Guardian and Esquire UK.