This never gets mentioned, but did everyone's memories just drop sharply while I was away?
They played two f**king hours of the game live on IGN before release. The entire beginning of the game, exactly as it was in the final product, for everyone to see.
If that doesn't more than cover their ass, I don't know what does.
I'm glad this lawsuit is out there, if anything just to bring attention to this and make others think twice before deciding to follow practices like the ones used, but I don't really think it will get anywhere other than that. Gearbox can just say "we had some unexpected development problems, things changed, and we decided to show the final product before release."
Now if it gets deeper and probes the money paid to Gearbox for the game and how it was handled, that should add a lot of weight to the claims made by the group pursuing the suit.
Pursuit of the suit.. .. suiting, pursuits in suits. Um.