Gearbox's Randy Pitchford celebrates Borderlands 4 going gold by explaining what that means: "The moment we're done is about as monumental as anything we experience in our lives"

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a day ago

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Borderlands 4 has officially gone gold, Gearbox has announced, and just in case you don't know exactly what that means, let studio head Randy Pitchford put his reading glasses on, lean back in his creaky wooden rocking chair, and tell you the origin story behind the phrase.
Alternatively, if you're short on time, I can just tell you real quick: it means the game's done, theoretically anyway. These days, developers continue working on games up to and through release, fixing bugs and working on future content releases. But, essentially, it means Gearbox has a master copy of the game that's, again theoretically, ready for launch.
Back in the days of the disc, though, things were different. "For videogame development, where a lot of emotion and creativity from a group of hardcore devs working together on a team, the moment we're done is about as monumental as anything we experience in our lives," Pitchford said, prefacing a tweet thread with some insights into the process of securing that coveted gold certification clearing the way for launch. "So, when is the exact *moment* that a video game is 'done'?"
As Pitchford explained, back when games were still only released on physical discs and sold in stores, but recent enough that information largely traveled via the internet instead of magazines and retail endcaps, devs would send those physical discs often by mail to press, tech companies, and most importantly, first-party hardware companies like PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo for certification.
"When we were ready, we'd submit a build of the game as a candidate to be the 'final' version," Pitchford said. "The 1st party would receive the game and make master discs that they would run through their tests and, hopefully, approve it for licensing and manufacturing.
"When the first parties approved the build, they would create a new master copy of that software to be sent to the physical media manufacturer to be replicated onto the discs that would be packaged and sold to customers," Pitchford said. "Those master discs were literally gold colored."
So there you have it. In case you hadn't already heard the origin story a thousand times, the phrase "gone gold" is from back in the day when there were actual gold-colored discs. Thanks, Randy.
"Today, the process doesn't involve burning builds onto gold colored discs the way it once did," he added. "But, we still use the term 'gone gold' to describe the *moment* the game is finished. Today 'Gone Gold' means that the video game has been approved for launch on all platforms."
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