After all the news recently, Australia doesn’t seem such a bad place to live in. Yes they have an issue with games classification, but that will be rectified eventually. But the game shop magnets in Australia seem to have their own ideas on how to behave…
Most of us will know about Spore. There was an EB Games in Australia that sold a copy because of the mistake made by some young douche-bag that didn’t know he wasn’t supposed to sell it yet. The Receipt got faxed (those still exist apparently) to EB headquarters and from that point on they were allowed to sell it. Pretty weird considering all the issues with release dates recently. Most games are getting pushed back a certain amount of time to smooth over all the bugs (or for miscellaneous) maybe breaking street-date is part of some elaborate ‘change of pace’ strategy.
But now Fable II has had a bit of a controversial thing. This time around it wasn’t EB Games that had broken the release date, exhibit B is K-Mart. They were selling Fable II before it was officially released. Maybe it was a conspiracy kind of thing or maybe K-Mart took EB Games as an example. Whatever the cause, in Australia gamers could go pick Fable II before everyone else.
But Microsoft apparently Really did not appreciate it. In other words: They Were Not Amused. As a fine for putting out Fable II too early, they have too pay $10.000 Aus. This of course isn’t that much for such a big chain, but what’s more important: K-Mart will be forbidden to sell Gears of War 2 until two weeks after release. Microsoft Game Studios apparently doesn’t believe what K-Mart put as a ‘error in judgement’. This hasn’t been reported by a reliable source, it was a over the counter conversation. So it remains to be seen if it’s true.



But it does raise an interesting question. Should/ are the shops that break street-date be(ing) punished? It can be argued that the Spore leak affected sales, as it was available via download before it was officially released, but how strict are these release dates really? As something that is universally accepted, it seems to be ignored again and again. Maybe people should be punished for this kind of thing.
It does almost seem like it can be used as a marketing tool. After all, look at Spore. All EB Games were conveniently stocked the moment that the Spore street-date was broken. Other shops were allowed to sell it from that point on, however they didn’t have it in stock. Mostly because they were expecting to sell it 3 days later.
On the one hand, street-dates are used to ensure the entire release region has stock and seeing fair treatment all around. So it does make sense to punish those that break street-date. K-Mart might get punished, but EB Games seems have gotten away without as much as a speck of dust on their black, black heart.
On the other hand, we as gamers couldn’t care less. We just want the games, if we can get them sooner that’s a good thing right? It’s just that all the corporations will end up unhappy. This eventually might cause friction and affect us. If this will happen is all talk for the future, but it is a bit worrying.