We have a very tough week behind us, but the light at the end of the tunnel is very near now...
For the past several days, we have been creating so called Release Candidates for the Gold Master of Euro Truck Simulator 2. At the end of the beta process, when the game is mostly stable and the ship date is near, there inevitably comes the time start generating RC's. Release Candidate is a build of the game which the develop considers good enough for being used for distribution of the game to stores. This build goes through final test stages before eventually being proclaimed Gold Master. Not everything goes perfect on the first try, often show-stopping bugs are still found, that's expected, and that's why these builds are only considered candidates before the final GM is chiseled out of what started as the first rough Alpha and went through more and more refined Betas. When the GM is finally "cooked" and sent for duplication, it still takes on the order of weeks to manufacture the CD's (or DVDs), put them into boxes and distribute them to stores.
So here we are, on the brink of "Going Gold" - tired, but proud that we have finally fulfilled our ambitions and built the best game in SCS Software's 15-year history.
The game is not perfect, there will be small glitches discovered here and there, there will be additional features that people will ask us to add to the game, and we are committed to support the and improve the game well beyond the initial release. There are so many opportunities for evolving the game further, and it may be hard for us to choose where to focus our limited capacity. But we can discuss this later, for now, all our attention is on finalizing ETS2 for production.
The official release date across Europe is still October 19th both for retail and digital (ESD) version. We are getting lots of e-mails asking about this. Some retailers may take a bit longer to stock the goods, and may announce different dates. Keep in mind that we are not Apple or Blizzard to be able to orchestrate midnight product availability across the globe, in fact the release timeframe is a bit fuzzy as the game can be expected to pop up in various stores ± a few days around official date. Things also largely depend on our publishing and distribution partners in various countries - SCS is not the distributor of the game, just the developer.
When we are tired and need more energy, there is a great way to rest and recharge our batteries - looking at fan-made videos from our games. We are sure that once ETS2 is out, there will be an explosion of new movies. So far there is only a handful of beta testers with access to the game, and some of them don't hesitate to pour overtime into creating screenshots or recording and editing really great movies. You can check them out on our ETS2 Beta Testing Playlist. Most recently, this one movie made the greatest impression on us; it's just Epic as the title says, but admittedly the music plays its part there.
Some inspiring news are also coming from digital distribution channels. ETS2 is today basking on the front page of EA's Origin store, and it's there in the company of some very fine games.
