Gone Gold Has Gone Old?
Jan 17, 2012 at 9:01 PM by Tyler Ohlew 
They pop up every now and again, these "Gone Gold" threads. Your interest piques.
"If it's thread worthy, then it must be important," you say aloud.
"What's that, sweetheart?" your girlfriend asks from across the room.
"Oh, nothing, video game stuff," you mutter back.
Her eyes glaze over as they always do when you mention the V and G words.
Sorry to break it to you, but it's not worth your time, friend. You just embarassed yourself for nothing. Gone Gold threads are a waste of time.
Just who are these Gone Gold people? Where do they come from? Why the hell are they clogging up my forum of choice?
These types of questios are generally reserved for those who present some sort of threat to our national security. But perhaps we are endangered by the type of individual who cares enough about a game being manufactured in some dusty old factory to then create and post a forum thread about it. Does this sound like the normal response to a blank disc being encoded with various bits and bytes of data?
If you move away from the idea that a disc being printed is a HUGE DEAL to someone, you're left with the why; why do they think I should care, and why do they themselves care?
It's likely that if these individuals have managed to find themselves on a message board, they likely understand its intent. If I need a place to talk about how busted Hyrule's economy is, or go on a tirade regarding the latest studio closure, there's a forum for me. However, I don't need dummies with no inner monologue busting up the joint. It's a place for discussions, not proclamations. NINJER GIEDIN 3 HUS GONE GOLD they shout! Most everything does at some point, my friend.
The only real reason I can come up with stems back to the individuals childhood. Like most problems in a young adult's life, the blame falls squarely on their parents. Because of the decisions of two consenting adults, this Gone-Golder was A) born and raised as far away from any semblance of a cultured and Wal-Mart centered society,and B) unable to ascertain a copy of EGM or, god forbid, mid-90's GamePro. Because of these factors, the subject couldn't be aware of just when a game he was anticipating was hitting the shelves.
What I envision is a sad boy showing up at his local grocery store, bewildered by the fact that Perfect Dark had still not arrived for purchase. He was told it would arrive in a couple months, and when the time came, the game was still unavailable. Why was this happening? What is stopping Perfect Dark from coming out?
Well, after lessons like these, it's no wonder the world ended up with someone who felt it necessary to shout from the heavens the release of each and every high profile title. To go from living in a bubble where games just randomly appeared to suddenly knowing when a game had gone into full production was too much of a shock for such a young mind. It became his duty to clout the information superhighway with posts and threads regarding such times of importance.
So to the Gone Golders out there, we may understand you now. But it doesn't mean we approve.
Reader Comments (3)
See this, and NPD numbers, are some sort of foreign-relations thing in my mind: I know they have some importance in the industry, but what's the pure significance of them, as it were?
We know the game was going to release sooner or later, and as far as NPD is concerned, having two months of less-than-spectacular sales rarely (if ever) pointed to an immediate buy-out or shut-down of a company. Yes, it can be a gauge of success, but I don't see any GAFers buying 12,000 copies of a game so their favorite niche studio could stay in business for 5 more months. Also, it seems the results are fairly easy to predict, as you'll have Final Fantasy/Call of Duty/Monster Hunter/whatever was marketed by Nintendo that week at the top of the charts, with everything else far behind.
These two things are a part of the 'scene' I can just never understand, I suppose. Great article!
Tim Schafer said it best years ago in response to threads like these and people asking him about sales numbers for Double Fine games. It's fine to be emotionally invested in the well being of a studio but unless you have some sort of financial investment in said studio there's absolutely no reason to care if a game has gone gold or how much it sells. Just enjoy the game.
I like liking games. And it boggles me when there are people wishing BAD SALES on a thing (perhaps unless it's something like the Ocean Marketing fiasco).
Of course I want game studios to succeed and do well to further fuel the industry that feeds directly into my brain, but yeah, how a game sells has no affect on my enjoyment of it.