14-02-2003 05:13									#1
	IG holding game back? Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

This from IGMOO regarding the possibility that some retailers have the game but are not being allowed to sell until 2/25/03:

Ok, some dirt from the chat:

(Rantz) pretty much (from what I understand) many retailers have it in stock now
(Rantz) and are ordered to hold it until IG says
(Oniz) WTF
(Davall) Don't tell us that Rantz
(Mictian) Rantz: Sounds promising
(Zcenicx) Rantz: Who should we strangle then?
(Zcenicx) 'cause we want the game. NOW
(Andyz) Aye
(Washu_Hakubi|AFK) well that matches up nicely with what EB sent me in the email, saying they would ship it if they were allowed, slightly paraphrased but it implied they had it in stock
(Rantz) hammer on IGs PR dept


The email to IG's PR department is: mgenovese@us.infogrames.com

Please everyone write them, and keep it civil and nice. Just ask for the game.

The above message was posted by a user. The following message was posted by Rantz later in the thread:

I *did* say what was quoted above... repeating what a friend who works at a retailer which will remain unnamed told me. Whether it is actually the case or not, I don't know

(edit: italics added for clarity)

Last edited by viciouscycle on 14-02-2003 at 05:31

	14-02-2003 05:17									#2
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Who knows. We certainly don't. All I know is that they told us it went gold three weeks ago. I still don't have it in my hands, either a leaked version or a real version. And there is nothing us normal folks can do about it.

	14-02-2003 05:52									#3
	Tired of ads?

gotta love the drama.

	14-02-2003 06:33									#4
	Re: IG holding game back? Support Apolyton

quote: Originally posted by viciouscycle The email to IG's PR department is: mgenovese@us.infogrames.com

So, it's the Genovese family that's behind the delays... That explains some of it I guess.

Come on, folks, it's not that long of a wait now, taking into consideration how long we have waited already.

	14-02-2003 06:35									#5
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This always happens. It's just being held a little longer then usual for some reason. (world-wide release? anticipating lots of sales?)

	14-02-2003 06:38									#6
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you're tight vovansim,

as long as they hit the feb 25 date.

if they miss that...well they deserve any complaints coming their way i think.

even the defenders of qs and ig would have a tough time responding to someone with a legitimate complaint for missing the feb 25 date.

enough is enough already.

	14-02-2003 06:40									#7
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i mean, you're RIGHT vovansim..not you're tight..ha

slip of the keyboard.

	14-02-2003 06:44									#8
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quote: Originally posted by Osweld This always happens. It's just being held a little longer then usual for some reason. (world-wide release? anticipating lots of sales?)

i dont think any company delays the release of a product of any kind because they anticipate "world wide release" or "lots of sales"

you release a product...if it sells like hot cakes, then you make more.

you don't delay the release because you say to yourself "i'm so cocky, I think EVERYONE is gonna want this game!, and I must make enough for the whole woorrllldd..."

It's like a bestselling book or album that gets sold out. you print more.

although the "other" reason you mention is interesting...

	14-02-2003 06:48									#9
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The longer they hold the game, the more money they lose though...so they're smart enough to know they should be shipping it now, instead of later.

Wait, or are they...?

	14-02-2003 06:54									#10
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quote: Originally posted by vee4473 i dont think any company delays the release of a product of any kind because they anticipate "world wide release" or "lots of sales"

By world-wide release, I mean releasing it everywhere at the same time. To do this, some copies will have to wait around in stores while it gets shiped to out of the way places like finland.

With popular games they will also sometimes have to spend more time printing the copies before selling them in order to fill out all the orders from the stores.

	14-02-2003 06:57									#11
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quote: Originally posted by TheMaestro The longer they hold the game, the more money they lose though...so they're smart enough to know they should be shipping it now, instead of later. Wait, or are they...?

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.

	14-02-2003 07:00									#12
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Well, I sent the Genovese person an email. I hope some good comes of it. With my luck, they may turn out to be a spamming, I.D. robbing S.O.B. who will use my email to nuke my accounts and credit cards to oblivion. I really don't care about all that now...I just WANT MY MOO3!.

	14-02-2003 07:09									#13
	Inflate your Upload Space

that's fine osweld,

but if i recall, almost all games are released to the major markets when they are ready.

And subsequent copies are made after the major release.

which is why you always see topics like "the german release is coming" or "spanish release is coming" on boards.

No, waiting for all compatible releases to be produced before making the major release is not the issue.

I may be wrong, but I just don't see a company like ig waiting for a Finnish version to be done before they release...

maybe thats an idea, but...

	14-02-2003 07:14									#14
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This is still conjecture at this point though the fact that Rantz is talking about it lends some weight. If IG is forcing stores that have the game in stock to hold until the 2/25/03 release date there may be a good reason behind it. They may be waiting for all the distributors to get the game before allowing it to go on sale rather than allowing a select few to get a head start. This idea was mentioned on IGMOO... but I think it may be a valid point.

However, if some stores really do have the game in stock and are forced to sit on it because IG won't allow them to sell it no matter what, then it stinks that we were told that the game may get released early. You would think that if there were absolutely no way that IG would allow an early release, they would have informed QS of this and not let anyone say that the game may be released early.

Very frustrating. Grrrr. And to top it off, I've got a nail in my rear tire. Grrrrr. This has not been a good week for me.

	14-02-2003 07:17									#15
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if the finished game is in stores, there is no good reason to hold it back.

come on now.

not to mention that i don't think ig is that coordinated.

	14-02-2003 07:18									#16
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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.

	14-02-2003 07:20									#17
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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...

	14-02-2003 07:34									#18
	Suffering from ads?

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.

	14-02-2003 07:36									#19
	Suffering from ads?

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?

	14-02-2003 07:47									#20
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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.

	14-02-2003 08:17									#21
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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

	14-02-2003 10:25									#22
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quote: 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.

	14-02-2003 10:35									#23
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

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.

	14-02-2003 10:42									#24
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quote: 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.

	14-02-2003 10:54									#25
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

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.

	14-02-2003 11:17									#26
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quote: 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?

quote: 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.

	14-02-2003 11:51									#27
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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.

	14-02-2003 14:40									#28
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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.

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	14-02-2003 16:21									#29
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quote: 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 .

	14-02-2003 16:51									#30
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quote: 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.