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[xibalbaprincess]

Where I live, EBgames and Best Buy are right next to each other in a mall. Tonight was a midnight release for an expansion to a game I am addicted to. It is illegal to sell a game before midnight of the release date

Comments

[teacuptempest]

It's not illegal per se to release a game before its street date, as far as I know, and I work for a company that has all of the new releases. If its embargoed, though, suppliers can do all sorts of things, from fining the company, to not offering discounts on bulk purchasing, to refusing to ship new releases until the day of the release so they can't put them out before

[xibalbaprincess]

Yea, it's the WoW lich king. hundreds of people were in line.

[teacuptempest]

Yeah I just spent an hour at work calling 46 people about their preorders. With about two in total seemingly holding phone manners or social skills, it was a looong hour LOL. Ahhh nerds. Gotta love em.

Enjoy your game (despite your 4hr wait), but I don't think much will come of it. I hope it does, because it sucks when other companies do that (especially because I know our store never breaks the embargoes) but realistically, I'm doubtful.

[libwitch]

They can get into major trouble with corporation for breaking street date. It is very often illegal in that they have broken a contractual agreement (we have one chain bookstore in my area that gets fined repeatedly for selling books before their street date, to the point that they are almost getting closed down..., and actually can no longer get any books from a few publishers because of so many violations!)

Report it to WoW directly, but I would also call the HQ for EB with the information about Best Buy (store number, location, date and time they put the game on sale) - it is very likely they have a direct number that they can report competitors violations to

[gargoylekitty]

Defiantely not illegal. They could get in trouble with the game company, but at an hour a head of time I don't see that happening. *shrug*

[saeva]

Most game companies are mega, mega serious about the embargo on releasing before street date. Even by an hour. If you allow an hour, someone will do a day, etc. and everyone else will follow suit to keep competitive. The result is no one paying attention to street date, choas, difficulty of control for the game distribution companies, and no one up that particular ladder wants that. Chances are the game company would pursue the fine, even for only an hour.

[sarielsedai]

When I was in line last night, the store clerk said that they got in trouble for releasing some game 4 minutes early. FOUR. I can't remember what game he said it was but the store got a call from the company about it.

[devilduckie831]

*groan*

We went to GameStop today to pick up Mirror's Edge. (Alaska sucks and gets their releases the day after it hits in the lower 48.) So we had to deal with all the WoW geeks today. There were several lines as people had to come in during regular business hours to pick up another receipt so they could pick up their copy at midnight.

We're standing in one of the lines so we could pick up our game and this guy was reading through the strategy line and was all like "hey, doesn't anyone use [hell if I can remember what class]????"
We had just walked in and hadn't realized it was a WoW release and just kinda got this confused look "They've got [such and such a weapon] now!"
*more confused goodness*
"What game?"
"For Lich King!"
"Ummm... we don't play WoW."

Then he proceeds to go on about how it is awesome, and if you get WoW you'll never need to get another game ever again and blah blah blah. I wanted to just bang my head on one of the racks.

/WoW rant.

There were people already lining up when we walked by at 1930.

[maelkann]

Incidentally, how are you finding Mirror's Edge? I'm finding the time trials to be more rewarding the more I do them.

[bitchphoenix]

From what I've learnt, WOW/Blizz are pretty hardcore about keeping their sellers to their stated release times. I'm getting my CE for WOTLK from a friend who's also a small supplier here in my state, and he had to sign forms up the wazzoo before the Australian distributor would allow him to order. One EB games here in Perth started selling them on Monday, and because of that, the distributor refused to mail out any of the small orders until yesterday, to ensure they'd get here late today and hopefully not be onsold early.

I'm really not sure who you could contact about it, the best you can do is probably what you've already done. Report it to Blizz and leave them to deal with it or not as they see fit.

Have fun in Northrend btw! I'm getting my game in about 30 minutes, but we're not allowed to use it until midnight AEDST, so I've got another 3 hours or so to wait *cry*

[xibalbaprincess]

I can't use mine yet, im so mad. I dont have a DVD drive in my computer, so I have to put it on my fiance's computer and put the key in on the website, then go log into the website from my computer and DL it that way! GAH!

[teacuptempest]

Activision/Blizzard sent us our stuff this morning, but it was COVERED in fluoro stickers with the embargo date all over them. When the warning is in english, spanish, french, chinese and arabic- you KNOW its gotta be srs biz.

Those Collectors Editions always go bonkers at my store! I got the Warhammer AOR C.E and its radddd.

[glacial_phoenix]

Five languages? Whoa. O.O

[luvlyssa]

*shrugs* doubtful anything will happen.

What about places that delivered the game via fedex this morning?
my best friend got his copy at 11am:) installed it... not sure if the patch was up or not but *shrugs* boat didnt' exist etc.

Probably the same idea. If it's 1201am est... they probably figure they're safe.

My roomate had dl'd and was playing it at 11pm my time.

Stupid and rude and such but no big deal

(i went to walmart at 11:55 lol... I was like the 150th person in line...only about 50 people behind me and I live in Provo utah)

[chibidrunksanzo]

*waves* Hello, fellow Provo-ite! I wasn't able to pre-order due to money issues so I wasn't one of the 200 in line. *sad* Still, I should be getting a check in the mail today from a friend paying me back, so hopefully places didn't sell out on the first day. My 70 belf pally needs to get her butt to Northrend!

[luvlyssa]

*nods* wallyword doesn't do preorders... so we all stood in line hopeful! lol
I would CALL them first. When I grabbed mine there were only a few (less then 25?) left last night. They may have gotten more in today (and probably did?) but I'm glad I went at 12:00 instead of waiting til today...

lolI created a DK this morning... did you know we start OUT at level 55??? She's kinda cute my butt kicking gnomer... who is dressed up as a ninja! (seriously. dks? look like ninjas)

Enjoy ;)

[chibidrunksanzo]

Friends don't let friends play gnomes. ...Although the thought of a gnome DK really, really amuses me. XD

Yeah, I was going to call before I actually travelled to places. Going to try the... GameStop? EBGames? Whichever it is in the Towne Center first since it's closer to work and home.

*whines about having to be at work until 5*