No, I will not break the law because you're spoiled and whiney.

[marty]

I'll start this one by saying that it is illegal to sell anything before its street date (the date it is supposed to release). Your store will get all sorts of fined, the associate who sold it is usually, depending on the store, automatically terminated and dragged into the fine-paying, usually thousands and thousands of dollars. Your ass will get sued.

So we found out from one of the guys at the other store that the K-Mart down the road got in their shipment of Assassin's Creed, then proceeded to sell it a week before its street date. Which means a few people got the game earlier than everyone else, because either someone at K-Mart wasn't trained right or they just didn't care. This, of course, led to a bunch of people demanding the game from us a week early, because, "Well, my friend soandso already got it from K-Mart!" We all tried our best to explain to people what exactly is going to happen to K-Mart now, and most people understood, but a lot kept on pitching their fits and trying to get us to sell it to them (though, truth be told, our copies were sent to us only one day before they were to be sold so mostly we didn't ahve any to sell anyways).

I even had one guy scream in my face about it, almost touching noses with me (of course, being as desensitized to screaming as I've become, I took a step back and calmly told him to leave). I mean, is there something in the water here that makes people think we'll do something illegal just because they want that video game before everyone else? EVERYONE wants EVERY video game before everyone else, but that's not going to make me sell it early. Some people just could not understand why I wasn't willing to shell out thousands of dollars in fines and lawyer fees just so they could have something a few days early.

Word's out now K-Mart sold Mass Effect early too. Man, they're really screwing themselves..

[Hobgoblin]

Yeah, when that happens around us we call the hotline to report the broken street date. Although, in this area, it usually seems to be pretty good. It was irritating to look at my friends list last week and see people playing a game that came out yesterday.

[Namrepus221]

Umm quick little tidbit of truth here for marty or anyone else who'se experienced this.

It's not against any law to sell anything before it's "street date"

There is no such law. Never has been, never will be.

The street date thing is supposed to be enforced by the store due to their head offices signing a contract with the publisher stating that they agree to ship them the game as long as they don't sell it before the marked or advertised date.

Corporate is then responsible for letting all stores known that when they recieve their shipments of the merchandise to not place it on the sales floor untill the specified time.

And it is the responsibility of the Store and Department managers to honor their part of this 3 part agreement by complying with what Corporate says.

Now, should there be someone who doesn't care about the street date and believes that "merchandise is merchandise regardless of when it's supposed to go on sale" or that they decide they don't have enough room in storage to keep something for weeks (or in the case of the last harry potter books, months) in advance and simply put it on the shelves.

The publisher will more than likely cut store ammounts or limit orders to or from the corporate entity as a whole because someone lower on the food chain can't be bothered to adhere to operating procedure given to them by their bosses


So again.

There is NO LAW stating that it's illegal to sell a video game before it's "street date".

[Record Store Tough Guy]

It's not exactly illegal in the strictest sense (it would be a violation of contract, and therefore a civil matter, if anything), and the enforcement, if any, of Street Date violations depends on the retailer in question, and the discretion of the record label. The most the label usually does is to stop sending early shipments of new releases to the offending retailer, although they could theoretically fine them under their vendor agreements, I would think.

Some retailers will toss an associate out the door for deliberately breaking street date, some just let them off with a warning. I was written up for it once, since we put some product out in a regular shipment, and one got sold before it's SD.

We were once ordered by corporate to break street date on a popular movie the weekend before Christmas, because the street date was the first Tuesday after New Year's, and the suits knew there would essentially be no one to report the violation to until after the movie was already out. Unfair? Maybe. But extremely shrewd in my opinion. Seeing as the local Wally-World and Worst Buy habitually broke SD, we just saw it as turnabout being fair play.

(Of course, once they broke street date, it was then okay for everyone else to do so, to cut down on the unfair competition)

Also, only a very few video games have Street Dates as adhered to by the Record and Book industries. The entire three years I worked at the Record Store I only saw one video game that had a violatable street date. Everything else we got in could be immediately placed on the shelf, regardless of the street date listed. We never got any directives from corporate stating otherwise, and only once were we told not to put a game out before x date. It may have changed since then, but this was current as of '06.

[marty]

I know it's not illegal in the sense of, "I'll get thrown in jail!" It's illegal in the company's sense of the word (which is the frame of mind I was in when I started the thread). Regardless, at my store, if we sell something before street date, we'll get a first and final or just get plain fired, which is why I won't do it under any circumstances. (That and the chance of getting the dick sued out of you) Since the beginning of this year the number of violatable street dates has increased dramatically, since seemingly every new game is going to "make" the new systems. Yeah, K-Mart won't be getting another shipment of those games before christmas.

[blas]

Street Date? Hehe that sounds like a good episode of COPS.

I don't have any stories similar to that, although one time at the gas station, our cigarette vendor had to have had a retard moment, because all the Newport cigarettes we got that week were stamped MINNESOTA. Uh oh! My manager said we weren't allowed to sell out of state cigarettes. None of the employees smoked menthol cigarettes, so they just sat in the warehouse for the rest of eternity.

[Tito]

Some people just could not understand why I wasn't willing to shell out thousands of dollars in fines and lawyer fees just so they could have something a few days early.

'Certainly, Sir / Maam. If you're willing to pay my lawyer fees when I get sued, I will be more than happy to sell you the game a day early.'

I have a feeling that the SC would not like that idea.

[blas]

Um, the customer in question in these situations usually claims to be a lawyer (blargle blargle!!!!) or doctor or someone who you'd think would know better....

[Raieth]

The worst street date to break is anything from lucus arts.

If you break ANY street date from them they will stop selling you ANY product. Nothing, nada, zilch is what you'll get from them for breaking street date.

(disclamer: This is what my manager said when we found boxes of starwars toys with a date on them)

[Imogene]

The worst street date to break is anything from lucus arts.

Ha! Ha haha ha!
Not even close!
Disney is the absolute worst to break street date. Trust me, you break even one of their street dates, they refuse to send you anything else until weeks, sometimes months, after they're streeted. Plus, easily $1,000 or more fine, one for the store, one for the associate.

[Gurndigarn]

Ha! Ha haha ha!
Not even close!
Disney is the absolute worst to break street date.

Anyone in the book industry want to chime in with what the penalties were for putting out the last Harry Potter book before its time?

[Namrepus221]

marty

you said "break the law" and "illegal"

Which implies the cops would be involved.

Poor word choice because they aren't interchangable with "breach of contract"

[Immortal1982]

Didn't i hear it was a near-death penalty from scholastic for the Harry Potter street date breaks?

Something like automatic termination, fines, and the store would only recieve minimal, if any product from scholastic for a period of time?

[marty]

marty

you said "break the law" and "illegal"

Which implies the cops would be involved.

Poor word choice because they aren't interchangable with "breach of contract"

Like I said, illegal in the sense of the company. Breaking company law. I know.

[Record Store Tough Guy]

Yeah, the one game we had with a concrete street date was Revenge of the Sith from... you guessed it. Lucas Arts. I could see Disney being pretty draconian with their street date violations, though.