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[kicker]

There is much less reliance on physical distribution, so the concept of master copies and going gold seems odd to still be using

Correct me If I'm wrong, but going gold used to mean that a master copy of the game (with a minimal level of bugs and glitches, and the vast majority of content) was ready to be given to publishers, then put on cds en masse and distributed to retail stores. There was also the suggestion that the bulk of production had ceased and the final version of the game was ready.
That obviously isn't true for modern games (I could list examples, but I will assume most of you know what I mean) and so why should the announcement that a game has gone gold mean anything more than "the game is launching soon whether or not it's ready"

What does "going gold" mean for modern developers?
What does a game "going gold" suggest for you?

 

[Skifi28]

Does "Going Gold" mean the same thing it did in the past?​

 

[SeraphJan]

Its just a colloquial habit I suppose

 

[kicker]

What does it suggest now, for you?

 

[Skifi28]

What does it suggest now, for you?

PR to build hype before a release. Most games don't ship finished even after the day one patch.

 

[Schmendrick]

It means exactly the same it ever has: "greenlit for production/release"
The requirements for that however have ...let`s call it "adapted"... to the explosion in complexity and budget.

 

[Black_Stride]

Still means effectively the same thing for any studio thats actually gonna sell physical media, the blank BluRays are still actually gold
For studios that do digital only releases, I dont think they even call their game gold, they just say its finished or ready to be sent to the publisher.

 

[Mr Reasonable]

What does it suggest now, for you?

Version 1, will be experienced by some of the public.

 

[MayauMiao]

What does a game "going gold" suggest for you?

It suggest the game is entering beta phase. The real "going gold" will be GOTY edition.

 

[AlphaDump]

It's the "gold" baseline image. Basically the final cut product.

The term got turned on its head a bit bc companies that would proudly announce something went gold would typically imply that it was "ready" and not rushed, and with relatively little bugs or errors, emphasizing quality.

 

[mrmustard]

It still means 'The disc is burned'. The only difference is in the past you got a fully playable game and now it often means advanced beta that requires 100GB day1 patch + severals more patches.

 

[Drizzlehell]

In software it basically means finished version that's gonna end up being submitted for wide audience release. We still have physical releases for most triple-a games but the concept is pretty much the same for both digital and physical, and the difference is that this gold master is gonna be pressed into shipped copies of the games for physical distribution, as well as submitted to various digital storefronts (which is also a process that you have to go through in order to publish a game digitally).

 

[Heisenberg007]

Yeah, kind of.

It means v1.0 of the game -- whether it's physical or digital now.

 

[kicker]

It means v1.0 of the game -- whether it's physical or digital now.

I guess this is still the truth. It's just that the standards for 1.0 have dropped massively

In software it basically means finished version

Finished? I can't say I consider any game that needs a day 1 patch finished, especially in terms of software standards

 

[Ar¢tos]

"Playable from Start to Finish" = Pre-development started
"Gold" = Alpha
"Day 1 patch" = Beta
"We are dropping support for the game, this will be the final patch" = Gold

 

[Dr. Wilkinson]

It means the game is finished, and the master can be printed for physical copies. In modern times, it also means they can keep working on the game right up to release due to the internet and the ubiquity of patches and hotfixes. So it no longer means the game can't be changed after the game copies are being printed.

 

[Punished Miku]

Nintendo remembers

 

[Robb]

I feel like it used to mean ‘now we’re finished, enjoy our hard work’.

Today it’s more like ‘here’s a version of the game that runs, we hope it doesn’t break’.

 

[01011001]

it truly has no meaning anymore no.

a gold master these days could literally be 100% unplayable without a patch, which would have been impossible in the past

 

[GMCamaro]

I got my music terminology mixed up and thought it had sold 100,000 in preorders.

 

[DeltaPolarBear]

There is much less reliance on physical distribution, so the concept of master copies and going gold seems odd to still be using

Correct me If I'm wrong, but going gold used to mean that a master copy of the game (with a minimal level of bugs and glitches, and the vast majority of content) was ready to be given to publishers, then put on cds en masse and distributed to retail stores. There was also the suggestion that the bulk of production had ceased and the final version of the game was ready.
That obviously isn't true for modern games (I could list examples, but I will assume most of you know what I mean) and so why should the announcement that a game has gone gold mean anything more than "the game is launching soon whether or not it's ready"

What does "going gold" mean for modern developers?
What does a game "going gold" suggest for you?

It still holds meaning in the Console world, as going Gold means the platform allowed the game to be released. That doesn't mean the game would be any good, but it passes what ever metric Xbox, Playstation or Nintendo deemed necessary to run on their hardware with their blessing.
One rule on PS4 was apparently a maximum booting time. One of the PS4 Star Wars games had you pointlessly run around killing people as Darth Vader on launch, purely so they can bypass the restriction and load the rest of the game while still get a pass from Sony.

Note that Playstation killed the Cyberpunk launch retroactively once they decided the game is not actually up to standards and should never have gone gold. Hence also the refunds.

The meaning is non-existence on PC gaming, because there is no gatekeeper.

 

[RoboFu]

Nah, Nintendo and sega use to have very strict approval processes that took a long time. so much so that devs began using tricks to get passed approvals if there were little bugs by making exceptions go to a stage select screen or the like.

These days since you can patch anything a lot of stuff passes.

 

[Captain Toad]

Nope. Today "Going Gold" means the game turned out so bad it goes straight into Games with Gold.

 

[McGILLAZ]

There is much less reliance on physical distribution, so the concept of master copies and going gold seems odd to still be using

Correct me If I'm wrong, but going gold used to mean that a master copy of the game (with a minimal level of bugs and glitches, and the vast majority of content) was ready to be given to publishers, then put on cds en masse and distributed to retail stores. There was also the suggestion that the bulk of production had ceased and the final version of the game was ready.
That obviously isn't true for modern games (I could list examples, but I will assume most of you know what I mean) and so why should the announcement that a game has gone gold mean anything more than "the game is launching soon whether or not it's ready"

What does "going gold" mean for modern developers?
What does a game "going gold" suggest for you?

I'd say no - consider the amount of day 1 patches. While not particularly new, the number of games released with large issues has become more and more common place. I'm still shocked Capcom allowed the Series X version of Resident Evil 4 fly with its poor controls for example. I'd say that there's a lot of conversation "in house" that's evolved over time with Agile and Manufacturing Principles....ala, is it more cost effective to postpone a release to fix issues and miss out on potential sales.....or is it more cost effective to push something slightly broken out the door and then fix in post.

It's literally my main argument against $70 dollar games. (folks can say well....N64 titles used to be $80....and that might be true, but you knew you were getting something playable out the door. Food for thought)

 

[SmokedMeat]

Doesn’t look like it. In the past going gold meant the game was finished and ready to ship.

 

[winjer]

Today, it means nothing, as most games are released with tons of bugs.
Most games get a day one patch. And then take several patches to be a "finished" product.

 

[Drizzlehell]

Finished? I can't say I consider any game that needs a day 1 patch finished, especially in terms of software standards

Semantics. Obviously it means a version that comes at the end of the development cycle that goes on sale on the release date. Whether it requires post-release aftercare is a different story.

 

[01011001]

Semantics. Obviously it means a version that comes at the end of the development cycle that goes on sale on the release date. Whether it requires post-release aftercare is a different story.

there are gold masters that are quite literally not playable tho.
so going gold literally has no meaning anymore.

Halo Infinite's gold master for example is not playable without patch

 

[adamsapple]

No.

Today, going gold just means the game is ready to be put on a disc to ship out while the team is crunching extra hours to iron out hundreds of bugs for the inevitable day 1 patch.

 

[Drizzlehell]

there are gold masters that are quite literally not playable tho.
so going good literally has no meaning anymore.

Halo Infinite's gold master for example is not playable without patch

It is what it is but what can you do? Goalposts have moved at the dawn of digital age because it's so much easier to just patch the game after the release, while back in the day, you had to make sure that the game that's gonna be pressed on the disc is as polished as possible because it couldn't be updated afterwards. What's considered a gold master nowadays in a lot of cases would be unacceptable 20 years ago.

Also worth keeping in mind that games didn't used to require as much effort and time to produce, so the situation is also largely caused by balooning workloads and limited dev cycles.

 

[22:22:22]

 

[cireza]

Nowadays going gold means that your posts have a golden color to them.

 

[hemo memo]

It suggest the game is entering beta phase. The real "going gold" will be GOTY edition.

Pretty much. Back then, a game released in a bad state means that’s it it can’t be fixed unless they ship another version of the game so they made sure that the game they are shipping is the best version of the game. Today it just means that the game is entering beta phase.

 

[Mr.Phoenix]

Sheesh, these days finished/shipped/launched doesn't even mean what it used to mean.

 

[Gamer_By_Proxy]

Why do I get the feeling we're questioning this now cause Redfall is 2 weeks away and hasn't gone gold yet . . .

 

[DavidGzz]

It's still a good thing, I mean I don't remember many(any?) games being delayed once they go gold.

 

[Black_Stride]

It's still a good thing, I mean I don't remember many(any?) games being delayed once they go gold.

Well once the game has gone gold the disk is off to the printers.
Even if it got delayed at that point chances are there would be some "old gold" prints of the game in the wild.
So might as well just release that im assuming broken game with a massive day one patch.

 

[DavidGzz]

Well once the game has gone gold the disk is off to the printers.
Even if it got delayed at that point chances are there would be some "old gold" prints of the game in the wild.
So might as well just release that im assuming broken game with a massive day one patch.

Yeah, all I'm saying is gold is still good for anyone who is looking forward to it. Like it's not like D4 is getting delayed until August now, it's gold baby. So sure, it may not mean a bug free game, but at least we get to play it on or around launch.

 

[Black_Stride]

Yeah, all I'm saying is gold is still good for anyone who is looking forward to it. Like it's not like D4 is getting delayed until August now, it's gold baby. So sure, it may not mean a bug free game, but at least we get to play it on or around launch.

Yeah im agree with you.
Once a game has gone gold, its release date is all but guaranteed, bugs and all.

 

[Ev1L AuRoN]

Yes, going gold just mean it's ready for manufacture and distribution, doesn't say a thing about the quality of the product. Games now receive continuous support for its entire shelf life, it's just how it is. Games are a lot more complex nowadays, on PS2 and backwards you cannot easily patch a game so they make sure the games are at a standard of polish, but the games themselves were a lot simpler.

 

[RAIDEN1]

To me it doesn't mean what it used to, these days half baked games are being released ready for launch, and then the rest of it gets updated in patches....just look at e-football it was a shadow of what came before it...

 

[kiphalfton]

It means the same thing to me, because I never understood what it meant.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Means nothing except "Hey, we got a copy ready for sale" And that copy could be shit. For many, got to hit that Christmas release at all costs (Cyberpunk 2077).

It's like the term "beta". I remember betas as a PC thing back in the 2000s where studios sent out beta downloads to some people to test their online game a year out. They get feedback and tidy up the game. The final game is much different.

A "beta" now is often a free download for everyone to test the game out 6 weeks before launch. The game probably already has a gold version ready to go. To me, it's more like a demo. And the fixes will come at launch (if they got time to do last minute tweaks), or major fixes months later.

 

[justiceiro]

Means what always meant: game won't suffer any more delays.

 

[Tsaki]

I played a lot of Pokemon Blue. Let's just say that "going gold" didn't mean much either back then.

 

[MP!]

Gold means the build is ready to be sent off to manufacture.

But nowadays it also means TIME TO Make the DAY ONE PATCH!

Fun fact it's because the discs were actually gold back in the day on the master copies

 

[Alebrije]

Before intertent /online patches...going Gold was the final product.

Now going gold is a half baked steak served on your table just to be returned several times until is well cooked..but chances are chef will never deliver it well done.


Basically Going Gold does not exists any more.

 

[AJUMP23]

It use to mean ready for release. Now it just means this disk is getting released but we are working on bug fixes.

 

[BabyfaceRe]

Means the same thing as Beta, Alpha, Early Access etc..... absolutely fuck all.

These terms used to mean something, now they are just for PR spin to be used when suited.

 

[ReBurn]

No. The gold copy was the one all other copies were made from. It was rare to change that version. Nowadays it means viable for release.

I like that there's a model to update games post-release these days. There was a time where your broken game just stayed broken or you hade to buy a re-issue. It just sucks for people who buy physical at launch. Unfortunately for them that's probably the worst version of a modern game there is.