Tomorrows Update

[zapatista]

going gold means the final "master' version of the to be released product has been compiled, and has been sent to the manufacturing plant that will press the cd/dvd's. the term is used to differentiate in time the point up to which further fixes and changes are possible, and when the product has been finalized (but not manufactured or shipped yet)

"Gone gold" means that the gold "master" CD has been delivered to manufacturing (the CD may or may not actually be gold. The term derived from the fact that CD-R media used to be gold colored. "Gone green", "Gone blue", or "Gone silver" just doesn't have the same feel as "Gone gold"). This is the CD from which all shipping CDs are pressed (shipping CDs are pressed, not burned like the master CD). Depending on the manufacturing run, a game that has "gone gold" may ship to stores in as little as a few days or as late as a few months.

You may also see "RTM", an acronym for "Released To Manufacturing". It means the same thing as "gone gold". "Gone gold" is usually used for games, while "RTM" is usually used for applications. For web sites, you may see "RTW", an acronym for "Released To the Web", as a similar statement to "RTM" or "Gone Gold"

[Oldschool61]

Originally Posted by zapatista

going gold means the final "master' version of the to be released product has been compiled, and has been sent to the manufacturing plant that will press the cd/dvd's. the term is used to differentiate in time the point up to which further fixes and changes are possible, and when the product has been finalized (but not manufactured or shipped yet)

And if Im not mistaken the master disks at one point were "gold" in color

[IceFire]

Originally Posted by Oldschool61

And if Im not mistaken the master disks at one point were "gold" in color

Actually I think that's a myth. Not 100% on that ... at one point I was pretty close with some game devs and I asked jokingly about the gold discs. I was told that they were very unremarkable CD's (at the time) with the game title written on in black pen just like the rest of us normally do. It gets sent to Q&A and then off to the production house where they churn them out by the thousands with all of the fancy stickers and logos and such