Say a gaming journalist of whatever sort receives a copy of a game to review before it is released. Is the journalist or his company ever asked to dispose or return these items? Most importantly, what about a game that is cancelled before release, but yet exists in these preproduction forms? As a side-question: I'm not sure what the proper term for this is... White labels? [/noob] Is there some sort of compiled list of what manufacturers call each disc depending on what stage of production it is in? Red labels, green labels, white labels, silvers...
The whole label coloring is usually derived from what was standard for the system, dreamcasts had white labels, most ps3 press discs are red, xbox I have seen a few green ones, saturns had silver, etc. Almost all of the ones seen however, are from Europe, I personally don't know why. As far as what a manufacturer would call it, it follows every other piece of software, Alpha, Beta,…, RTM, Production, and possibly revisions.
I'm not speaking of any particular title, I'm just wondering how this sort of thing works. I do not own any such items. And yes, I would mainly speak of a current-gen system.
From what I hear, Nintendo sent out Gamecubes (NR Readers?) in padlocked steel boxes, accompanied by a big beefy security guard matey. I'm sure this sort of thing would only have been for important first-party Nintendo titles, but apparently this is how some magazines had to conduct certain game p/reviews.
Way back in the days of Atari, they sent out lab loaners with clear instructions that the carts were to be returned. It has been similar for many other companies ever since. Discs have similar instructions on them often. As for colour terminology, most of those are made by the public. They are quite often final retail discs - for example, what people call silvers for Saturn were just unprinted retail discs - more likely to have been referred to as a preview disc or something along those lines.
Speaking as a former game reviewer here in the U.S., I have a little experience with this. When I first started, I contacted Nintendo of America for a copy of New Super Mario Bros. DS to review, and I received a retail copy in box. Before receiving it though, I had to sign a contract stating that I'd return the game (via a self-addressed FedEx envelope included with the review copy). After that one time though, Nintendo, Sony, Midway, Atlus and others never asked for anything similar for retail copies of games. And they never asked for anything back, whether it was software or hardware (controllers, retail systems, etc.) Sony would send me PSP games on occasion distributed in small, white cardboard sleeves. Inside would be a copy of a PSP game with labeling marked "Test" on each disc with various build numbers. These would run just fine in retail systems, as I never had any debug/test/devkit hardware for any system. Sony never asked for any of these back. Atlus would do a similar thing, but for PS2. I received a few of their games on DVD in white cardboard sleeves with label on the disc that said "Review". These too ran fine on retail systems. Atlus never asked for these back. As for debug and earlier builds of games that don't run on retail systems, I can't give more info, as I never had experience with them.
Having received countless preview/pre-production debug discs over the years, it's my experience that most discs clearly state that they remain the property of the publisher, and must be returned once the journalist is finished evaluating them. In reality, though, these discs are rarely returned, and are instead absorbed into personal collections.
I've never previewed or reviewed anything, but I know people who have, and during the age of cartridge based systems, (Sega at least) would send eproms and the magazines and whatnot would have special carts with mounting slots for those eproms. Then whenever they were done they'd either send back the eproms or destroy them in some manner as to save on shipping costs and whatnot. I'm not sure if the destroy policy is still in effect, but at any time that shipping would've been a hassle, companies were simply asked to destroy the copies or otherwise insure they would not leak out. We all know that doesn't work but it does seem like a good policy from a shipping point of view.
I own a Donkey Kong Country comp' cart, well just a PCB that was sent to HMV stores for a contest in the UK. We were told to send the carts back to Nintendo's agent of the time (T.H.E. GAMES) or failing that the store manager was to destroy the cartridge. Basically the cart is a timed version of the 1st level. That's about it. I wonder how much it's worth these days?
As far as I understand only the US region version has been dumped so it could fetch quite a bit, but I dunno if, aside from region coding, it is any different.:shrug:
Probably not. I can't remember much about it apart from the board is covered in white Nintendo branded masking tape! The cartridge is in my parents place in the loft along with some of my other stuff. When I return to the UK this summer for a holiday I'll grab it. Yakumo
When one of the major UK publishing houses sold off their videogame mags around 2000, there was a HUGE skip placed outside the offices, which was eventually filled with hundreds of eproms, promotional goodies, and rare back issues of famous gaming mags. If I had a time machine, I'd go back, empty the skip, and live off the proceeds for the rest of my life. Even thinking about that skip makes me sad...
