Pitchford "astonished" that Borderlands hasn't been cloned

Gearbox boss Randy Pitchford asks the hard questions - like why hasn't anybody tried to rip off his tremendously successful shooter RPG Borderlands?

Speaking to Gamasutra, Pitchford expressed surprise that Borderlands and Borderlands 2 don't have any genre rivals yet.

"We're in an industry where people do nothing but steal from each other. I'm actually astonished that we're about to launch a sequel and no one's stole it from us," he said.

"The formula's right there. No one's stolen it yet. That's weird. Not that I want anyone to steal it, or I'm challenging people to steal it."

Pitchford said the original Borderlands it was a tricky sell because Gearbox didn't want anyone else to latch onto its formula before launch.

"When talking about Borderlands 1, it was really confusing, because on one hand we gotta scream from the highest mountain to get attention because it's a new IP. On the other hand, it's like, 'S**t, we don't want to tell people our secret because then they're all gonna copy it because it's so good,'" he said.

VG247 is pretty damn excited for Borderlands 2 - pretty much because there's no other game like it. The hybrid lootfest launches on PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in September.