Alpha was reached in December 2000. Multiplayer mode nearly had to be dropped for this to happen, but the problems were fixed just in time. Electronic Arts became involved in the production; testers were employed (they found three thousand bugs), localisations were checked, and a marketing campaign was launched. Fearing the bugs could kill the game, lists were sent to every member of the team, who had a chart, updated daily. The biggest problem was the final set, and fixing them created more bugs. Molyneux commented that "It was as if the game just didn't want to be finished and perfected", and remarked that the team felt like they had run a marathon after fixing the bugs. The end product was so large that they "almost felt lost within the code" which consisted of over a million lines, and took over an hour to compile. The music, dialogue, and sound effects were compressed to fit on one CD, as they took five times as much space as the game. People not involved with the game's development began playing it and were extremely impressed. The release date was then set at 23 February 2001. Electronic Arts complained that the age at which the villagers were reproducing was below the age of consent for some countries, so this had to be changed. Lionhead announced that the game went gold (became ready to be released) on 16 March 2001. Molyneux credited fans for making the hardest times worthwhile. Because players encountered technical issues, rumours that Electronic Arts had shipped beta versions circulated; Lionhead denied them. Molyneux said "Black & White" was the most important and difficult game he had made. In June, a patch that fixed bugs was released. The Japanese version was released on 24 May 2001, and re-released as "Black & White Special Edition" under the EA Best Selections branding on 18 March 2004. Another patch was released, which would allow the Hand to be controlled by an Essential Reality P5 Glove, a virtual reality glove.