Rumor Control: Half-Life 2 apparently went gold

[Orange™]

Gamespot Rumor Control has uncovered a nice bit of info that suggests Half-Life 2 went gold today.

Ever since the release candidate for Half-Life 2 was submitted to VU Games in mid-September, a piñata has hung in the lobby of Valve's headquarters. The plan: to bust the sucker open when the game achieved gold status. Earlier today, GameSpot learned from an informed sourced that "the piñata has been broken" and the game has gone gold. Further evidence of the game's completion was a press release issued this afternoon touting the first review of "the entire game." Though nothing official has been announced yet, it appears the fat lady is at last clearing her throat.

If true, this means an offical announcement is right around the corner, most likely Monday

Gamespot Rumor Control

[Zilevoli]

How does a game title go gold before it is released? What does this freaking gold title mean? WHY GOLD AND NOT PLATINUM! I dunno I feel like complaining because people say this game is gonna rock, its gonna be the best game ... blah blah blah. Well I understand it is very likely its gonna rock ... but should we place a stamp of "gold" on the game before half the population that say its gonna rock actually gets to play it? For all we know its gonna suck a** ... not to be mean to doom3 but it sucked multiplayer ... and multiplayer makes or breaks a game these days (first person shooter wise).

Ah well

[prathapml]

Well, the explanation is a bit different. By "GOLD" they mean that the software is now on Gold CDs. Back in the old-time (yeah, just some years ago, but time flies in the digital world), when any software was about to be "Released to manufacturing" it would be burnt on Gold CDs (no, don't take "Gold" literally, its "Gold" since CD-Rs with that dye were of better quality), and then RTM'ed.

Gold, Platinum as in having sold a million copies (or whatever) is a different thing.