Gamestop has a long history of selling games before the street date. This is no surprise.

In 'pirate' forums it is not uncommon for posters to brag about whose local Gamestop is selling the earliest. By selling only a couple days early, Gamestop can effectively steal a significant amount of sales from other distributors.

Have you considered refusing orders from Gamestop for future Stardock games?

If I was a manager knowing my employees were enjoying their first weekend in quite some time, I wouldn't bother calling them to see who is willing to come back in and take care of GS's mess by three days. Most would likely say no anyway, those that came would likely feel an obligation or come out of loyalty.

Either way, I wouldn't have the heart to do it. Just give 'em their weekend, eh?

That's nothing.  New Zealand has to wait until MAY for stock.  And it's distributed by Atari, so we'll be lucky if the stock even shows up!  (You see, Atari has this bad habit of losing our entire country's stock of a product for smaller publishers - they lost all of our Lord of the Rings Online AND its expansion!)

@Astonerbum: Boxed versions ordered from Stardock are CE's

I never said ask anyone to do anything, I was saying inform them and see if anyone volunteered.  If they want their weekend off I support them fully, if they feel like trying to counter GS they can do that too.  I already stated I'm keeping my preorder and waiting it out either way.

If the game did have a big red sticker saying do not sell till the 14th and they asked earlier if they could sell before release date and they denied - then thats illegal, which means there is no reason at all why Stardock cannot sue Gamestop, right? (I am not very good at knowing when you can sue successfully and you cant).

Well, DalzK, I think that's what it means... but the fact that GameStop apparently has a habit of doing this (according to another post) suggests otherwise.

Yes they can sue, for losses felt by everyone else because people go to GS to get the game first, there can also be fines, shame, and not dealing with them in the future.

I assure you, Frog, that no such sticker was in place on your game.  I was the one who processed the incoming shipment of Demigod at my store.

Distro centers removed the stickers before sending them to the stores, thus allowing the employees to claim incompetence to the release date... clever move.

You can sue anyone for nearly anything, the problem comes with getting it to court and then having it hold up in court.

And the sticker Frog is talking about should be on the original box shipments (not the games themselves) that get sent to the warehouses? I've been told they're usually split up and then sent to individual EB games in regular shippments, usually with other games.

I don't even know how to respond to you.  You're speculation is in no way helpful to this discussion.

Thing was at my Gamestop they said they only got 3 copies... Since they said if no one preorders at the store, they still get shipped a few copies before hand anyways. Haven't seen anyone say that these store had shelves filled with 'em, most saying they only had a few copies.

Maybe these stores didn't receive big packaging boxes, like I've seen places like Wal-Mart, etc, get on Tuesday mornings, that do have that HUGE sticker saying don't shelve til whatever date.

I don't know what to tell you then.  I know how the boxes got shipped out. Heck, we got our boxes in too (on Thursday) and they all had the stickers on them.

I also know that Gamestop asked to sell the game early and we said no and in response they cut their order by 2/3'rds.

As for speculation, Avalon, you were the one who just said how Stardock screwed up.  You'll note that Best Buy, Walmart, Target, and on and on are not selling the game and I can assure you they have copies.  I am not arguing that Gamestop/EB conducted any malice here. We are willing to believe that it was just a mistake.  But I can assure you we did everything humanly possible with our partners at Take 2 (who's distributing it) to ensure that the all sellers of the game had an equal opportunity.  

We have not decided yet how we're going to respond to this. Everyone's out until next Tuesday and at that time we'll evaluate our various options.

It would be at the warehouse level I would imagine since the boxes come with many units of Demigod in them.

Simeple facts are GameStop requested to sell it early meaning that they KNEW and respected the street date, even if the boxes came in unmarked there should've been a flag and memo about them in the system (I used to work for a GameStop store, I know how they work Avalon, quit acting special because you have a job any 16 year old who can write can get).  However, the boxes come in unmarked, there is no streetdate listing and there are no marking on the shipping list.. someone changed something.

Well, we can change his sentence to make it fact then.

'Someone at GameStop removed the stickers before sending them to the stores, thus allowing the employees to claim incompetence to the release date... clever move.'

There. No speculation. Doesn't make GameStop look any better though.

Very valid point...

I went to the gamestop 5 minutes from my apartment and lo and behold, Demigod was on the PC Game shelf.

I was surprised to see it because my gamestop has never released a game early, but due to the internet chatter on these forums I had to check it out for myself.

I'm living in Orlando at the moment, btw.

But I paid in full my DD copy so I have to stick with it ;D

Right now we can only speculate what happened.  And as unhappy as we are about the early release at Gamestop, I don't think it does anyone any good to assume malice on their part.  

We'll certainly find out exactly what happened next week when people are back from the holiday.

Frogboy, since you've already stated a suit is out of the question, could you at least outline possible responses to this, in a general 'we could do this' kinda way?  (Edit:  And of course, if there's anything we can do to help you other than not buying it from StupidStop, feel free to mention that as well)

I think we are talking about $2,000 worth of loss.  probably at most 100 preordered people bought it at gamestop instead of stardock.   Hardly worth a lawsuit or anything.  It's more of a prestige or rightous thing.

Bestbuy, target, walmart, etc are also at loss here, not just stardock.

I think Stardock should make Gamespot take that initial extra 2/3 shipment they backed off on.

Not that most gamer go game shopping for new releases at Target, Wal-Mart, or Best Try...but, yes, if anyone, they lost the most out of the deal. When those that compete with you can offer something you can't, technically you lose would-be customers.

And am I the only one who giggles with glee at the chance to see his bomberman avatar whenever Blitz64 posts? Man I miss bomberman.. (especially bomberman 64) That was quality gaming. Too bad newer bomberman games are less than fun, much like newer Sonic games. Only Nintendo seems to be treating their first party games like the long-time stars they are.

These sorts of things can be devastating to a game. I don't know if online play is available right now or if there are even enough people online to play; then there's the fact that it's the weekend and so support is going to be limited (if available at all since it's Easter weekend). All of this can result in bad reviews by customers.

It reminds me of Titan Quest by Iron Lore. The game was leaked out early on the net and pirated... but due to the game's anti-piracy code it would crash early on, as the game would check if the copy was legit. This resulted in a lot of negative reviews and complaints about the game.

As for Gamestop... They only exist so that people can buy console/handheld games these days. PC gamers are finding that digital download is a better option.

Not working on weekends is socialism. It's a good thing. Someone said it's been a long time since GPG staff have had a weekend off. As hard as a company works during beta, launching a game can be like opening a can of worms. GPG are going to need to be rested if they're gonna make the launch as smooth as possible. Personally I'm surprised that we're hearing anything at all from Frogboy & Co. If it was me, I'd be unreachable.