New iGP launch schedule

If you have been playing the iGP Manager open beta, you will already know we aren’t just testing, but actively developing and improving it based on your feedback. Much of the initial feedback requested more depth, which was expected. We started with very simple interfaces and simplified procedures throughout the game. We decided to add depth incrementally based on feedback, to strike the right balance between the desktop version and coming apps. After a season or two, many players are enjoying the game a lot, finding it has the same depth combined with more convenience. We will keep adding depth and variability to strategy right up to launch, to keep everyone on their toes.

Open beta is a great place to experiment with this, as we can tweak things daily. We would like to stay in open beta for a while longer and capitalise on this opportunity. Once we go live, this kind of rapid deployment will not be possible, as the balancing act becomes slow with everything needing very thorough testing before being put live. In some ways, the open beta can be viewed more like alpha testing in that sense. We’re using it as a chance to make rapid updates with few distractions from development.

Because we want this flexibility to continue developing the game in open beta, and even adding a new feature or two, we’ve decided to extend the launch by a few weeks. So, our target for releasing the new web game to igpmanager.com is August.

The extra time will bring several benefits to the final version of the game. One of the major benefits of this will be a mobile launch that quickly follows the desktop launch, meaning they will be weeks rather than months apart, as well as being a more polished and refined game.

This is important because it will also minimize confusion with our mobile audience. The mobile game is going to be an app, but we’ve seen many in open beta thinking it is meant to be a website, just because it can be opened in a mobile browser. While the entire game can run on some devices in the browser, it’s not intended and we want to be sure that everyone has the app available to them as soon after the desktop web launch as possible.

We also have a couple of new things we are working on with this extra time. Nothing major, but some nice finishing touches that we think everyone will appreciate. :)