IG Press release - MOO3 gone gold

[H Tower]

/me notifies the university that he is dropping 3 classes for this semester

[ravagon]

Only dropping 3 classes? I am truly impressed at your academic dedication.

On the Moo3 gone gold issue -

[DoctorNO]

What does it mean?

Please excuse my ignorance but what does it mean when a game has "gone gold"? whats special with that?

[Harry Seldon]

Going gold means the game is ready for distribution and no further work will be done with the product. All that's left is printing the CDs and shipping them to retailers.

[Rantz]

Originally posted by GP
Yeah...and they were disingenuous for stressing that it could be less than a month (sometimes heatedly) when it IS going to be a month.

Our final code drop was two weeks before the gold announcement and we were told that the game could be on the shelves within 5-7 days. and that the latest it was expected to be on shelves was Feb 5th.

At this point IG marketing can hold it as long as they want, it's in their hands. Honestly, *we* at QS don't know when it will hit shelves, Con at IG I believe still doesn't have a firm street date, and we're pushing to get it on the shelves earlier, but marketing has the ultimate say on that.

If you want to bug them about it, I'll be glad to give you their email addresses

[Harry Seldon]

If you're serious, I'll take'em.

[ravagon]

Originally posted by Rantz
If you want to bug them about it, I'll be glad to give you their email addresses

You don't like them very much do you?

[Rantz]

Originally posted by ravagon


You don't like them very much do you?

I have no problems with them, it's simply in their hands as to when the game hits the streets now, not mine.

[Cedayon]

Normally I'd refrain from bugging people about how to do their job... but if you're serious about giving us those email addresses I'd be happy to bother them silly for the greater good of getting MOO3 out earlier

[Harry Seldon]

'Bother' is such a strong word. How about 'share our enthusiasm for a timely release at frequent and inconvenient intervals?'

Just PM them to us when you get a chance, Rantz.

[Gooberman32]

Originally posted by Rantz


Our final code drop was two weeks before the gold announcement and we were told that the game could be on the shelves within 5-7 days. and that the latest it was expected to be on shelves was Feb 5th.

So why did you wait two weeks?although i am thoroughly happy it is coming out way sooner than feb 25th

[kalbear]

Gooberman - here's how it typically works.

The game developers - Quicksilver in this case - have a list of bugs that must be fixed, as well as a list of bugs that they know had existed at one time or another. They fix the bugs or attempt to, run a bunch of tests to verify this, run some more tests to show that everything works as well as it did before, and then...

They hand it off to their publisher/partner to do really heavy testing. In this case, IG. IG throws it to the wolves, really tears it apart. When IG is satisfied that it's shippable, they can announce QS.

This process can take anywhere from a couple days to a couple months, depending on how thorough the publisher is and how complex the product is.

As another example, we have a similar deal with our publisher. We drop off code, they test it and file bugs, we fix them and send them off. We drop off code once every week. They try and get back to us as soon as they can - but not always is a bug fixed in a week. SO it can take a while.

Anyway, it's a very common practice in the industry, and QS doing it isn't surprising in the least.

[patrickjb53]

Originally posted by Gooberman32


So why did you wait two weeks?although i am thoroughly happy it is coming out way sooner than feb 25th

I believe than Feb 25 is still the official date for the stores. Rantz was just stating that the game was done and in IG hands. IG said it was possible to hit stores Feb 5, but they must have decided on Feb 25 for some reason their not telling us.

[The Mad Monk]

Oh, I am bouncing with anticipation! <---see?

[Kc7mxo]

Oh, I am bouncing with anticipation!

It was hard enough to keep my anticipation up before the game went gold, now that it has I'm just getting irritated thats not released yet. Oh well.