Official release date?

[Sava]

sorry if this is posted somewhere else, I'm slow and stupid...

What is the release date for Civ3: Conquests? if there is one...

[asleepathewheel]

nov 4 US

nov 14 world wide

[vmxa1]

I was just in GameStop and they are expecting it to be on the shlef on the 5th, so the release date of the 4th seems good.

[Wittlich]

Yes. Gamestop sent me an email stating that the game will be shipped to me on 04 November.

[Provost Harrison]

Of course Infogreed treating the rest of the world like sh*t once more. Why do they insist on doing this?

[sabrewolf]

oh come on... what's 10 days?
iirc the PTW patch 1.21 took half a year to come to the rest of the world...

and as jeff foley expained: it's thanks to atari USA that they'll get it a week earlier than planned. the european atari representatives probably just aren't that flexible.

[Provost Harrison]

10 days is a gesture...that is what...

[Provost Harrison]

...I mean, they insist on releasing different versions in different areas of the world, and why? What was the delay between the patches if there is no inherent difference between the games. Why do Atari carry on like this? It seems bizarre, and somewhat offensive. I really urge Firaxis to find a different distributor for their next game...

[Panag]

Originally posted by Provost Harrison
...I mean, they insist on releasing different versions in different areas of the world, and why? What was the delay between the patches if there is no inherent difference between the games. Why do Atari carry on like this? It seems bizarre, and somewhat offensive. I really urge Firaxis to find a different distributor for their next game...

hi ,

what , different versions for the world , again , ......


have some people not been paying attention the last time , ......

have a nice day

[WarpStorm]

Here's Jeff's reasoning on why there is a 10 day gap.

U.S. releases are always on a Tuesday and ROW (Rest of World) releases are always on a Friday. Normally our simultaneous releases happen in the same week. In this case, we were headed towards a November 11th U.S. release and a Nov 14th ROW release, but the Operations team here in the U.S. managed to pull a rabbit out of their hat and found a way to squeeze in time at the duplicators this past weekend. (Normally very difficult at this time of year; many duplicators are operating at full capacity.) That's why the unusually fast turnaround between gold master and finished packaging. ROW managed to cut down their schedule from the normal 4 week period down to this.

I imagine it is cheaper to send one disk to a European duplicator than to make them in the USA and ship thousands of packages across the ocean.

I can't find the quote right now, but I seem remember Jeff saying that there would only be one version this time around (it was probably on the other Civ fan site).

[Stuie]

I think there is only one version of C3C, it's just a matter of where they are being replicated that is causing an earlier US release.

[The Viceroy]

It seems to me, that its the European arm of the distribution process that is slowing things up.

Be thankful they are not shipped to the UK, and distributed by Rail .. ha ha ha ha .. at this time of the year, the wrong kind of leaves combined with the wrong kind of snow would mean we'd never see Conquests anywhere in Europe.

[Panag]

Originally posted by WarpStorm
Here's Jeff's reasoning on why there is a 10 day gap.



I imagine it is cheaper to send one disk to a European duplicator than to make them in the USA and ship thousands of packages across the ocean.

I can't find the quote right now, but I seem remember Jeff saying that there would only be one version this time around (it was probably on the other Civ fan site).

hi ,



the cost of operating are way more expensive in the EU then in the US OF A , taxes on everything , labor tax , health insurance , etc , .....

even by air it would be cheaper and faster then by letting it to be made in the EU , .....

aldo with one exception , there are some extremely good companies in Greece and Malta that are cheaper ( thanks to the living standards ) and have high quality , but try to find one that can handle a huge volume ( 500 000 ) at a weeks notice , ....

have a nice day

[Provost Harrison]

Hmmm, well I am glad that they have coordinated the versions, if it is true...the difference in European and US versions was a farce...

[Jeff_ATARI]

Manufacturing and Operations 101

Originally posted by panag
the cost of operating are way more expensive in the EU then in the US OF A , taxes on everything , labor tax , health insurance , etc , .....

even by air it would be cheaper and faster then by letting it to be made in the EU , .....

Hi panag,

Manufacturing and Operations is a funny subject. Not funny ha-ha, but funny head-scratch. In my tenure, I've encountered many things that I thought would be simple but become very costly, and many things that I thought would be very difficult to manufacture that are quite straightforward. In this case, I can shed some light on the subject...

First of all, remember that packaging outside of the U.S. has completely different requirements. Right off the top of my head, I can name several:
- no box flap
- in this case, different artwork on the packaging (chosen by our international offices so they can convey more game information without the flap)
- different ratings board with different rating requirements
- localization of the box copy (not everyone is as well informed as we are here on what the game contains)
- in some cases, different box size
- translated manual
- different security requirements

It takes time to set up film, set up the master CD, do appropriate checks for defective discs, assemble packaging, print manuals, stuff 'em all in a box, stuff the boxes into bigger boxes... and can you imagine having to do this all from one duplicator house, and having to reset everything for each run of a langugae? It's very helpful to distribute the load, and if you're going to do that, why not do the duplication in the territories where the units are going to be delivered anyways?

It's like our email newsletter. I remember being upset when we sent our second one out on a Tuesday, and I didn't get mine delivered until that Thursday. But then I realized, if you're sending out over 100,000 emails, and an email server sends out an email say, oh, every 3 seconds, you'd only be sending about 29,000 emails a day. The point being, it takes time to manufacture tens of thousands of CDs and stuff them into packages, and to make sure that it's done right.

I hope this gives some insight into what goes into putting a game on the shelves worldwide. Suffice it to say, we are working hard throughout our organization to remain a top-quality video game publisher in every territory.

Best,
Jeff Foley
Atari