Recently, it was learned that the street date being broken by GameStop was a corporate decision. Chris Olivera who is the Vice President of corporate communications from GameStop headquarters said, the decision was made to break street date in regions where other retailers had already broken it. Olivera said they made this decision after speaking with Activision many times.
Our decision followed many conversations with Activision and was an effort to protect our customer base.
Earlier today, Activision told Kotaku that they gave no retailer permission to break street date.
Activision has not given any retailer permission to sell Modern Warfare 2 prior to the Nov. 10 street date. The company fully supports the Nov.10 street date
Activision and has been adamant about protecting the game from not only pirates, but removing video clips from YouTube and most Live Streams on sites like JustinTV as well. The statement above issued by Activision makes all too much sense. It’s very clear they want to keep the game from being put out there before Nov 10th, so why would they approve breaking street date? Was there a miscommunication somewhere between GameStop and Activision?
Let’s look at a “conspiracy theory” about this for a second and ask, did GameStop do this without real permission just to protect pre-order sales in those regions? While it has been isolated to a few areas in eastern part of the US, Olivera said the breaking of street date was, “an effort to protect our customer base.” With Modern Warfare 2 being one of the most desired games of all times, gamers would jump at an early chance they could to get their hands on the game. Especially the weekend before release.
Street date for games being broken can have a domino effect. Let’s face it, when Small Store A is selling it, someone at Small Store B starts selling it because of A, and then people call their friends word gets out, Stores C & D start selling as well, and then people will more than likely go to store A – D to buy that game instead of where they originally intended or had their pre-order. Pre-orders will either be canceled or moved to other games.
Having worked retail at a small game store for 5 years a while back, the few times this happened, we did break street dates as an effort protect our sales on those highly desired titles. So from a business standpoint, it makes sense. Tuesday is supposed to be a big day for many places, but what if 20-40% of your expected sales that day don’t show up because they got it somewhere else a few days before the release?
Now, let’s go back to the Non conspiracy route and ask was there just a major miscommunication between the Activision and GameStop? Why is one saying something different than the other? Activision has yet to say anything about what Olivera said about the breaking of MW2’s street date, and when they do will they acknowledge they gave permission or stay with their original statement? Bowling said via a tweet that any retailers selling early copies is a violation and there are no “special permissions.” Maybe GameStop is going to pay a fine for this? If so, a fine might cost them less than losing customers that have their copy paid off or on pre-order.
We will update you when any more information is available.
What do YOU think about this one?
Here’s the funniest thing, a mom and pop style store breaks street date on the biggest game of the year, what really gets out? 100 copies? How many copies did the real game chains buy? One store with a 100 copies versus the buying power of the nation? Sure we only found that 75 of 100 copies got out but hey guys you bought a million copies, so go ahead and sell them we dont care. GameStop, Game Crazy, Wal-Mart, Best Buy and whoever would never be given the rights to sell the game early. How do I know this? Plain and simple logic… They wouldn’t tell only one company they could do it and piss off the rest of the world! Everybody and their brother with the game would be given the rights to sell it because street dates are for FAIRNESS IN SALES! I’m an actual retail person and we have had street dates pushed back a day to make sure everyone gets a fair shot at selling the game at the same time! Did you know that movies are in stores up to 3 weeks before they release on DVD? Movie studios don’t care where you buy your movie, game studios don’t care where you buy your games… They only care that by the street dates noone gets to screw the guy down the street on Friday because he won’t get his till Monday morning! if I couldnt get this item till Monday and Joe down the street has his on Thursday and sells it, I won’t buy as many. Street dates on anything are for a fair and even capitalist market! That’s it. Game stop f’d up and is trying to save face end of story. They swear that the new games they sell are new too and if you look at the history and yahoo.com news from like a month ago they don’t tell the truth! Philadelphia game stop admitted to selling used games as new! Look it up! In closing game stop has no respect for the rules and no respect for you. IMO I’d rather shop a big box dumb 17 yr old kid at walmart then get my games from gamestop! I’d say to shop game crazy but the ones by me closed and it’s too far to drive an hour for a $60 game… Thanks for reading my rant and remember treat those well that treat you well!
I can see Gamestop’s stance from a purely financial standpoint, being that I thought about trying to get it early this weekend from somewhere else and then canceling my pre-order from Gamestop. Like Kreyg mentioned in the article, if I felt that 20-40% of my sales were going to be affected because some other company broke the street date then I might be inclined to do the same.
Either way, it wasn’t right for anyone to break it. But we’ve been seeing the game for over a week now on JTV, so somebody did it. I stopped by one channel over the weekend and the broadcaster was saying that he stopped by a 7-11 and picked it up early on Friday. Seriously, that is why not everyone should be allowed to sell video games.
That being said, I believe Gamestop is just trying to cover the “mistake” they made on purpose. They knew that there would be canceled pre-orders and they wanted to make sure they didn’t lose out on too many of them.
Gamestop made a booboo. All I know is I’m getting my copy in 9 hours 20 minutes
Gamestop fucked up, IMO. They just said they’ve talked to “Activision” to cover their asses.
All about the moneys. They knew they weren’t meant to release it early
I don’t think it was a communication. This is one of the most anticipated games of all time, so I think GameStop made sure they didn’t miss out on any piece of that pie.
I have a question. Does releasing it early like this hurt the sales of the game? Or is it mainly an issue of mistrust here – the game retailers going against the release date Activision put in place?
“I don’t think it was a miscommunication.” Sorry about that.
I think it could be miscommunication cause I doubt that they would want to get in trouble with Activion and pay a fine. Then again a game like MW2 means huge sales, and greed can lead to stupid decisions.
“Conspiracy theory”
If game stop was in contact with Activision “many times” I’m sure they would have managed not to miscommunicate.
Probably to try and get a head start over the other competitors
Well, from working in retail, I remember that when you broke street date you were like subject to a fine and you could lose your right to sell that companies stuff. I doubt activision would do that, but a fine seem like it might happen.
I think they did it to keep up with sales because their greedy bastards
Gamestop failed nothing new to my eyes ohhh well better reach into their pockets and produce some cash to smooth this over
I think it’s miscommunication, Gamestop wouldn’t risk getting sued for breaking the street date.
they can get their asses sued
miscommunication in this day in age pure and simply is unacceptable, i would still rather wait till the official date as the player base will be 10x’s what it is at the moment.
dude! its a conspiracy man