illegal?

[niguel]

Obviously some of you have got your copies of doom 3, from store i take it. this dude i talked to said he phoned local store that said to have doom3, but it is illegal to sell it before 3rd august. and, it pisses me off that i as an european have to wait so fucking long.

[Scabbed Angel]

I'm pretty sure it is, even the guy at teh register told me they could be fined. Heh.

[Melfice]

However Todd Hollenshead also said they wouldn't be stop stores from selling the game as soon as they got the shipment. So obviously Id doesn't care.

[Shaviro]

Scabbed Angel said:

I'm pretty sure it is, even the guy at teh register told me they could be fined. Heh.

I certainly hope they do!
This doesn't really make it any easier for us in Europe.

[Majnun]

Yep...it's illegal but I've bought a few games a day or 2 early before. And never heard of any lawsuits for selling a game early.

But some huge chain (I think it was Blockbuster or maybe EB but may be wrong) recently put a Lord of the Rings DVD out for sale 10 days early. The publisher told them to stop selling it till the official release date...they kept selling it. They got sued.

[Scabbed Angel]

Melfice said:

However Todd Hollenshead also said they wouldn't be stop stores from selling the game as soon as they got the shipment. So obviously Id doesn't care.

Does Activision?

Shaviro said:

I certainly hope they do!
This doesn't really make it any easier for us in Europe.

What do you mean?

[Goliath]

I really don't see why anyone would care. If they did they should have shipped it later.

[Linguica]

The problem with stores breaking the release date is that suddenly all the business which would have been distributed equally around all the different chains is suddenly funneled into the store that decided to sell the thing early. This provides an incentive for stores to sell stuff early and breaks down the whole concept of a release date. The only leverage a pubisher has is to charge fines for selling stuff early (which may or may not be large enough to counteract the extra profit the store made from selling so many extra copies) or to stop allowing that store to sell their stuff (which gives the publisher less retail outlets for their game).

[Goliath]

Right but why is that bad for the publisher..they are still pushing the same amount of product.

[Trilinear]

Goliath said:

Right but why is that bad for the publisher..they are still pushing the same amount of product.

It's not really bad for the publishers, but rather it is unfair for the competing retailers who are abiding by the rules. As Linguica said, these stores will be stealing business from the other legitimate businesses because they are releasing the game sooner than allowed.

It's also not fair for end-user in other regions or countries who's local retailers may not stock the game yet.

[AirRaid]

Scabbed Angel said:

Does Activision?
What do you mean?

It means that people in the US are now getting the game fully 2 weeks before we can, so basically a lot of the game will be spoiled by the time we get it.

[Cajun[CC]]

From what I understand, the fines for breaking street date are in the hundreds or even thousands of dollars PER COPY sold before street date. With video games this usually isn't a big deal. The only time you see big fuss about street dates is with games based on movie properties: Enter The Matrix, Van Helsing, etc. They ship the game early so that stores will have it the same day the movie comes out, but for obvious reasons, they don't want the game out before the movie.

Most games don't even ship until the street date though, so you don't hear about street date problems too often. And from what I've heard, Doom 3 doesn't have a true street date. It's a "sell it as you get it" deal. So these places aren't doing anything wrong.

[Epistax]

Correct me if I'm wrong (for those who don't know me, that means I'm right) but a synchronous world wide release would cut down on warez, possibly dramatically. I can't go out and buy the game right now, but I can download it. That makes downloading it tempting. By having places release the game a couple days early this effect still exists, just to a lesser amount. I've already seen "anyone with a ftp want doom 3....msg me".

[Spore]

Lets clarify. It is not "Illegal", meaning against the law, however they could be fined for braeking a retail agreement they have with company for releasing before official street date. Usually it is the small stores that do, very rarely will you see a big chain take the risk, i.e. Best Buy, Circuit City.

[Wobbo]

Linguica said:

This provides an incentive for stores to sell stuff early and breaks down the whole concept of a release date.

Whats wrong with that?

Epistax said:

Correct me if I'm wrong (for those who don't know me, that means I'm right) but a synchronous world wide release would cut down on warez, possibly dramatically. I can't go out and buy the game right now, but I can download it. That makes downloading it tempting. By having places release the game a couple days early this effect still exists, just to a lesser amount. I've already seen "anyone with a ftp want doom 3....msg me".

Possible, but i think the main reason warezing happens is because of peopel not wanting to spend the money, not impacience