IG holding game back?

[vovan]

Well, not Finnish maybe... But I think nowadays, more and more companies are trying to release European and Australian versions at the same time as in the US... They don't have any trouble translating the games into british and australian english, I hope, , but such versions as French and German might take some time to localize. That's what they usually wait for.

[QwertyX]

I'd like to put a few thing into perspective if I may.

I know only a little about manufacturing from a job I had with Motorala -made them strange little chips that go into these fancy gizmos we love so much for awhile; but I know more about distribution as a former Wally World employee-5 years and two of those as a dept manager.

IG had two products that went gold at the same time- Unreal2 and Moo3. Moo3 was late and U2 was on time(as far as I know) U2 was already on the schedule for the "big production line", So the proably either held Moo3 til U2 run was over or moved Moo3 to a "small production line" in order to send out review copies and to start building stock. Also there is this to consider they will most likely sell more U2 than Moo3. i'm sure that was also considered, but I don't know IG's standards of practices so I'm guessing they went with the ever successful corporate model i.e. the allmighty dollar.(btw this is all conjecture but its logical as far as I can tell). When U2 finished it intial run IG probably switched Moo3 to the "big production line" to complete their inital order fullfillment.

The next stage in the game is distribution. I'm going to use Wally-world cause I know hgow they work, but its easy to imagine that EB or Amazon uses simliar means. When a product is announced these business use market analysis (i.e. how did similiar products sell in the past, market saturation etc) to figure out how many they are going to need to fufill inital demand. They submit that number to to the manufacturer. IG is most likely contractually obligated to fulfill that order, as well as the orders of all the other distributors. So IG has to guage how quickly they can get the TOTAL amount of all those orders to the distributors so they can ALL get the product on the shelves at the same time. Thats the "release date". No distributor- especially Wal-Mart likes getting "shutout" of product and Wal-Mart especially has a rep in the biz for playing nasty with companies that do. So there is no way that IG is going to shoot itself in the foot- so to speak- by sending to say Amazon and telling them to go ahead and ship before anybody else.
Remember that hoo-ha a few years back about the inital release of the PS-2 (I think) when Sony couldn't make enough to ship over here and all the backlash that occured bacause of it. Do you want Moo3 in the same boat? I didn't think so...

[viciouscycle]

Yes, QwertyX has it exactly. This is the only reason IG would hold the release IF the game truly has been delivered to some stores.

And again, I say this stinks IF it is true because IG/QS should have said that the release date was set in stone and not subject to change instead of saying that it might be released earlier. Grrrr.

[vee4473]

you make my point that i posted a while back that ig may be in over their gaming head so to speak, by taking on more projects than they coould handle.

it happens.


as far as the ps2 goes, it was released in japan before the us release. they didn't wait for the pcb component shortage to abate before shipping. they shipped in japan, and the rest of the world waited.

but, reviews from japan about the system came in and it was great.

there was no "i wonder what they are hiding" syndrome. we all knew, there was a production/component shortage issue.

the system was out, and it was great, and people knew that. they just relaized that it would take a while before it came to their shores because of an electronic component availability issue.

do you think the ps2 would have done better if they decided to postpone the japanese release until the total worldwide quantitites were achieved?

[QwertyX]

I would have to say that a world wide release date isn't what I'm talking about. There is almost always a county-country delay. Only in recent memory has it been consistantly under 6 months. But I watched the retail side of the PS-2 Debacle. It was about a week(if I'm recalling rightly) maybe more before the US release that I heard the news that Sony announced that it would only be able to ship 100,000 units to the U.S. with a 2 or 3 monthy delay on the rest. Things got ugly-real ugly. Thats what I'm talking about Sony couldn't fulfil all of its US orders.

[vee4473]

I saw it from a development standpoint because my company was trying to buy components for our products from a company that supplied sony's ps2 components, and they increased our lead time because of their committment to sony, but sony shipped what they could.

good choice.


enough with the "inside experience" stuff.

and you say things got ugly with the ps2?

uglier than the pathethic drama playing out here?

it's gone down to worrying about the layoffs of developers and whether a patch will be produced...before the game is even out!

besides, we are not talking about an uncontrollable shortage of pcb components, but a company that can't handle the demand for the games it produces.

different

[Corentor]

Originally posted by Osweld


How are they losing any money by holding it back a week or two? If anything it'll just give more time for the hype to grow.


They aren't holding it back, anyways - the release date is still two weeks away.

Don't worry, Maestro likes to think he knows everything there is to know about development and publishing of games...when he really knows jack squat.

That comment is comming from the same guy that said that they shouldn't test the software anymore back in November because he speculated if there were bugs they would have been caught 'months ago'. I tried to explain to him the process but he didn't believe me until Chantz or Rantz (one of them) explained the entire Regression Testing thing to the masses.

LoL, don't mind him.

[Todd Hawks]

What did you expect? It was clear from the beginning that they won't release it earlier. No game takes a full month from gold to the stores and the date provided by IG made it completely clear that they will hold it back (otherwise it would have taken maybe 2 weeks).

Besides, there is no other language version than the English one. Germany gets the US version (not even translated manual) and I've heard that it won't even be sold in France. So no reason there either.

I guess the only reason for delaying the game is marketing. IG didn't realise the game being finished and didn't start marketing earlier than end of January (I mean... did anyone read something about this game last year in game magazines?). So now they have to advertise the game and highten the hype while they sit on their copies.

[Corentor]

Originally posted by vee4473
uglier than the pathethic drama playing out here?

The long and short of it is that IG really doesn't care if fanboys get mad about delays or what kind of drama gets played out on the boards. Qwerty probably is on the right track about making sure all retailers have it in stock before allowing it to hit the streets.

1) Fanboys will buy the game no matter how much they moan, groan and threaten about boycotting the game if its not released now. Maybe the odd one won't out of spite but they will not lose significant money from the Fanboy slice of the pie by delaying.

2) The casual browser or non fan who picks this up doesn't even know, or probably care, when this game is comming out. They will walk in, see the game and the odd one will pick it up when the game hits the shelfs. No losses on sales by delaying here either.

3) Their business retailers which they have relationships with WILL be seriously compromised if they ship to a few retailers and leave the rest out in the cold. Thats because, you guys, the type that froth by the mouth will rush to the first retailer who has it. Those unfortunate enough to not have it in stock will lose business and threaten reprisals.

In the end no one wants to piss off the retailers because they essentially offer the shelf space to broadcast it to the masses who aren't fanboys.

So since fanboys will buy anyways, now or later, why not please the retailers by allowing them to compete on an equal footing?

Edit - Caveat:

I am not saying I know the reasoning of why IG is holding back on release if indeed the games are in stock already.

I am merely trying to point out WHY IG might do something like this.

[TheMaestro]

Man, you panic and cry way too much -- btw, insulting me violates the message board rules on personal insults.

So if you apologize, I won't say anything about it -- but if ya don't...then of course I'd have to bring those rules up.

No one likes trolls, or people who insult everyone all the time. All you've done from day one is attack and insult me, and I don't appreciate it -- so you can apologize, or I will bring it up with moderators who follow the rules they established.

[Corentor]

Originally posted by TheMaestro
Man, you panic and cry way too much -- btw, insulting me violates the message board rules on personal insults.

Explain to me how telling the truth, that you know absolutley nothing about game development or publishing, constitutes as an insult.

And I am the one panicing and crying way too much?

Originally posted by TheMaestro So if you apologize, I won't say anything about it -- but if ya don't...then of course I'd have to bring those rules up.

No one likes trolls, or people who insult everyone all the time. All you've done from day one is attack and insult me, and I don't appreciate it -- so you can apologize, or I will bring it up with moderators who follow the rules they established.

Oh no pleeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaasssssseeee don't report me. I am soooooooo scared. Since...there was no insult in that post to begin with?

If you want to go dreg up the forums and go running off to the mods, go right ahead. What am I goning to lose? Oh no, I can't post here anymore, that just ruined my life.

Fact is, you knew next to nothing about game development or consumer rights back then when you were huffing and puffing about your "consumer rights" and you still know next to nothing about game development or consumer rights.

Which is kind of funny because you keep telling IG, run by people with more edcuation and experience in their pinky finger than you will ever accumulate in your entire life, what to do.

[darcy]

IMHO, stunts like this are symptomatic and one of the reasons why the traditional publishing industry is dying. These "market analysis" people have a long history of being completely ignorant about their customers' true needs.

[Daz]

It could really be the case they are holding it back.

They have a marketing campaign planed fom MOO3, thats for sure. In order to have a successful campaign you have to coordinate and organize stuff. Buy media space, airing time, organize promotions. Since they didn't know for sure when the game would go gold they planed everything for end of Feb (probably?! hopefully ). If you get the game out a couple of weeks earlier, you cannot change all the things you reserved 3 months (or so) ago. I mean you could, but that would be stupid from a marketing perspective. The fans will however suffer from this.

__________________________
moje 2 lipe

[Kellanved]

Originally posted by Corentor


The long and short of it is that IG really doesn't care if fanboys get mad about delays or what kind of drama gets played out on the boards. Qwerty probably is on the right track about making sure all retailers have it in stock before allowing it to hit the streets.

1) Fanboys will buy the game no matter how much they moan, groan and threaten about boycotting the game if its not released now. Maybe the odd one won't out of spite but they will not lose significant money from the Fanboy slice of the pie by delaying.
...
I am merely trying to point out WHY IG might do something like this.

Sound argument, but IG can only hold this up as long there are no leaked copies. With the game already shipped to retailers I can't see how IG can stop those from popping up .

[Grumbold]

Originally posted by Daz
It could really be the case they are holding it back.

They have a marketing campaign planned fom MOO3, thats for sure. In order to have a successful campaign you have to coordinate and organize stuff. Buy media space, airing time, organize promotions. Since they didn't know for sure when the game would go gold they planed everything for end of Feb (probably?! hopefully ). If you get the game out a couple of weeks earlier, you cannot change all the things you reserved 3 months (or so) ago. I mean you could, but that would be stupid from a marketing perspective.

Exactly.