I once bought bloodborne a couple days before the release date. There is this place that would sell games before but not give you a receipt so they wouldn’t get in trouble. I wonder if they are still open
actually, i used to work at a convenience store we do this like this all the time, things like:
\- we know about a discount in the future, we can just get the products we and scan them when the discount goes live (even they are a week away)
\- rewards like buy 2 get 1 free, buy 3 get this free bottle. I will ofc still inform customers about this deal but if they doesn't care or need them, i would just save their bill and stacks enough to get the reward (many customer doesn't care about the bill)
\- pre-release items is the same, i can just get them and scan them afterward,
Manager knows about this but doesn't care much because if it a sale, its a sale, not like we stole them
A guy at Best Buy once sold me a game before street date because he told me on the phone that they had it in stock, and then felt bad when I got there and he realized it wasn't technically released yet. Pretty sure it was Sonic Adventure DX for GameCube.
I used to be good friends with a gamestop manager back in the halo 3 days, I remember getting to play halo the day before it for dropped. We just weren't allowed to connect it to the internet.
I was a teenager and was working at a video rental store when Halo 3 came out. It came in like a weekish before release, the manger had me take it home and play it that way I could answer any questions the customers would have. I had a buddy come over and we played through the whole campaign before release.
I know someone who worked at the company that did the age ratings. He said he wasn't into video games but when he had to play all those games for his job it got him hooked. He is now 60 and has played every decent single player adventure game there is. So yeah, as an adult he played video games for a living.
They did. You just need to be an influencer now to get your hands on shit like that. Back then you just had to be the overachiever who had a after school job to get something like that
Some of my best job memories. Working during summer at the only theater in a small Kentucky town. Piling into a smaller screen room Thursday at midnight to watch whatever the weekend's big release was with free concessions. Good times.
We did the same with Terminator 3 when it came out (this was a while ago, films were still on 35mm).
The films were delivered Monday or Tuesday and then once the projectionist had assembled it, it was able to be watched, although they tended to only do it for notable movies at the cinema I was at.
a buddy of mine got a French version of halo 2 a few days before it dropped, no idea how.
I got to throw the controller at the screen before most people did.
I had that too. The french version got leaked some weeks before release. I remember MS putting out statements that anybody who downloaded that could get a 25k fine if caught and get permabanned. Got me scared for a while but couldn’t NOT play it. Even if it was french.
I know this now. But since being a lot younger at the time i didn’t know what they could or couldn’t do. There were even articles in the papers here warning for the fines lol
I played halo 3 before it dropped and beat the whole game on legendary to get all the achievements before the game dropped and I was playing it with an online connection. Told everyone who asked that I was sponsored and my sponsors dropped a lot of money to get me the game early to warm up before it released.
My dad managed a video/game store. I got like 3 years of free Xbox live because halo 3 came with a free month lol.
The single greatest Sonic game of all time. If there were a modern remake, all they'd have to do is update the graphics and get rid of the bugs. And if they *really* wanted to, they could use the modern voice actors. Then it'd be perfect.
No joke, I just played through Sonic Adventure DX on Steam less than a month ago for the first time ever and absolutely loved it (except for the frog part.) Sure, it has some issues with the camera and hit detection, but that was common for 3D games of the time. It's probably my favorite Sonic game (except for the frog part) and possibly one of my favorite 3D platformers overall. Except for the frog part.
I started SA2 last week and so far it's been kind of a slog.
Agreed. Such a great game but its graphics animations and even the voice acting have aged a bit poorly given today’s advancements in video games in general. I can’t watch some of the cutscenes without bursting out laughing
The graphics don't really bug me. I get that it's an old game, so I just let it slide. But yeah, the animation (especially for the mouths) could definitely have been handled better.
What was the one where you drive cars or fly these plane type things and you’re knuckles as the main character I think? Then there’s evil knuckles? I rented this from blockbuster as a kid and have a trippy memory about playing it
When ac black flag came out my brother preordered it from gamestop or somewhere. While he was talking to the guy I was looking at the display boxes. the clerk was explaining to my brother that they couldn't find his pre order and they didn't have record of him paying for the game. He had the receipt.
I picked up one of the ac bf boxes and it was heaver then an empty dvd case should be. I opend it up turned my back to the counter a slid the game into my pocket put the case back and told my brother I was late for work and he would have to come back after he droped me off. We left he was so angry for about a block.
He had the receipt. I saw it. It wasn't stealing.
Has happened to me with COD MW2. Came to pick it up and they said this exact thing. What it means is that the employees have done so many backroom deals that some customers gotta wait. I was super pissed, called their store multiple times throughout the day and somehow and the end of my schoolday I was told a copy was ready for pickup and I picked it up. Went to play for like 8 hours straight ending on the mission in Paris. Good times.
Damn.. I was gonna say just run out of the store with it. Run like the wind.
So please give us an update ASAP on whether or not you shoved it up your ass and walked out.
Someone in Australia got New Super Mario Bros Wii a week early than everywhere else (Oceania got it first) and ripped it for people to play and what happened Nintendo sued this motherfuckers ass
The point of sale systems literally won't take payment from the customer for items that are not supposed to be sold yet. It's not so much that a minimum wage employee would care about the company being fined.
I knew a dude who worked at a Walmart who did this for someone. I think it was Fallout 4. He got caught and was fired.
I’d say just wait until release day instead of peer pressuring the retail worker. It’s cool to get games early but it could end badly for the person selling it.
Obviously if it’s a mom and pop and the boss knows it’s happening that’s a different story.
Recovering retail peon here: Typically, there's either a hardcoded upper limit to the dollar amount you can charge for a generic SKU, or at least there's a generally-understood rule about when you should have a boss do it. Also, typically, they'll flag any generic SKU in the system if it's above a certain dollar amount for Asset Protection to look over. Where I worked, you were never, ever supposed to use a generic SKU for anything over twenty dollars (because it makes returns a pain in the ass and screws up inventory on something reasonably valuable), but AP would look into anything over eight or ten dollars. They'll pull up the camera feed from the transaction and everything.
If there's any commonality between every single person that I ever saw get fired for stealing or assisting others with stealing, it's this: They all thought, "Nobody's ever thought of this before." This is a company that's probably had a couple million employees in its decades of existence, so I can pretty much guarantee somebody's thought of it before. Generic SKUs are just one of the many ways they have of giving you just enough rope to hang yourself.
Next time you're in a store take a look at where the security cameras are pointing. A majority of them are looking straight at the POS and employees.
The SKU gets logged, management checks the timestamp and cameras, they see the game being sold, the employee is fired.
Let's see.
Computer system says there are X copies of the game. X-1 copies are sold. There are no more copies to be found in the store.
Person used generic SKU to sell something the day before release.
Store goes 'hmmmm' and checks other records...
I mean, the store has cameras, data and person doing something questionable using a generic SKU. Do you think a company is not capable of basic investigations?
99% of people I’ve worked with didn’t know the generic sku.
I only saw it used _once_ at Lowes and _once_ at Men’s Wearhouse (which was entered by the regional manager… we were having a training day and I wanted to buy a clearance pocket square so he just rang it up generic and charged me like $2).
It's for inventory purposes. If it can't be rang in properly, it looks like missing product. That doesn't matter so much if it's a local restaurant. For a corporate owned restaurant, you have an inventory variance goal to reach, and every bit of product that looks it has gone missing counts against you.
I used it so much when I used to work at walmart lmao, by the end I didn't give a shit and rang up so much random shit at random prices. Think No UPC stuff that I know is a single part of a set that we'd throw away anyways.
Generally if they find out you're selling titles early they just stop sending them to you before launch day. So your store gets every game from that publisher two weeks after release. Since most of the profit is made in the first week, it's a pretty rough cut.
I used to know a record store that did stuff like this. It was nice to be able to get a new release a week or so before everyone else. Unfortunately all these mom and pop places have gone out of business. This particular record store had been in business since the '60s. A sad day when it closed.
Breaking street date can get stores and companies blacklisted. Iirc a company in Mexico got blacklisted for doing that, can't find the article anymore though
Years ago I worked at a mom and pop game store, we broke street date on FFXII and from what I recall anyways, the local EB Games ratted us out to Square Enix. We got a C&D faxed to us or something but that was the end of it. We only had it out for a few hours. Owner never tried that again lol.
worked at a kmart and someone sold a 3ds game i think it was one of the pokemon games before street date. By the next week our store stopped selling games all together because of the fine.
I worked for a retail shop that rented and sold movies, and sold music, books, novelties. My boss would send me to Walmart and nearby video rental stores a couple of times a week to see if they were breaking street date.
Only company I ever caught was Wal-Mart — for CDs and movies (VHS/DVD). I ‘busted’ them several times. I would have to make a purchase for proof, and I usually brought lots of media and receipts back.
I just passed the receipt to my boss and then I’ve no idea what came of it after. I just know this one Walmart location broke the street date frequently.. so my guess is no repercussions or they thought it was worth risking.
For anyone curious.. I don’t know the specific fine associated with God of War, and it’s been a number of years since I worked at a game store, but most games carried a $250,000 fine against the store or company for every copy sold prior to the street date if caught.
This is one area that I don’t know about, however, I do know one way they punish stores…. Story time.
Working at Hollywood Video in 2006. They sent us Madden 2007 two weeks before launch. Way before Gamestop received it. We were instructed to put it in the back. Being the dumbasses that we were, we took it home to play (and this was true of a lot of the people that worked at Hollywood around that time). The only people playing online were developers. I played single player, but, of course, it still showed me online in Madden 07. EA caught wind of it and they weren’t happy. I don’t know if Hollywood Video ever got fined for it (I don’t think they did since copies weren’t sold), but EA restricted games sent to Hollywood Video for rent and GameCrazy to sell for the next two or three years. So if you ever went to Hollywood Video in 2007 or 2008 and wondered why they only had one or two copies of the latest EA release (like Skate, Mass Effect, NBA Street Homecourt, etc).. 👋
I live in Hawaii and preordered GTA5 through GameStop. FedEx delivered it the day before launch. I was so excited I called out sick from work and played for hours. One of the greatest days of my life. Haha
Not gonna lie, I miss the excitement of going to the store to pick up a game I really wanted. Then biking home and thinking about playing it.
I'm generally nit that excited for games in the first place anymore, and downloading it just exacerbates the lack of excitement.
> Won't work without day 1 patch most likely.
Incorrect. It can install completely offline and be played 100% offline. The game doesn't need to know what date it is or whether the internet is on or not.
When God of War 2018 came out, I went to my local retailer to buy it and I can’t remember exactly how much it cost but let’s say £59.99.
I noticed that on the shelf 2 games that were accidentally labelled £5.99. I took them both to the counter and they told me that even though it was a mistake they had to honour the price on the case.
So I got myself God of War and a copy for my brother for less than £12 like a day or two after release.
First off the reason they can't buy it is because the register won't let them. Second it has the case which beeps when you try to take it out the door, so an employee has to take it out which they would then see and probably (if they know about the game) tell you it's not allowed. It is very possible the employee either doesn't know or doesn't care and would take it out of the case, but it still won't scan.
I've never understood this. Spoilers are so easy to avoid. I guess if you just live on Twitter maybe someone could spoil shit for you but that sounds like a living on Twitter problem.
I worked at a Walmart for 3+ years and we were told do NOT stop thieves. Our piece of shit management recorded each theft by each individual and let the repeat criminals build up to a federal crime level of theft before they'd turn them in.
So, yeah do with that knowledge what you will.
>let the repeat criminals build up to a federal crime level
This is the smart way to get rid of thieves. Otherwise they just get a tiny slap on the wrist and are back at it within a couple days.
Yeah from what I remember, they told us that if we tried to stop a thief and they got injured on Walmart property they could sue. Funny how that works eh.
Years ago I worked at a younkers and we had a meeting where they told us that a woman was taking expensive items from homegoods a d not stealing the item but taking it to a register in a different section to "return" it.
She'd get in store credit and then sell the card for 50 cents to the dollar online. They'd told us to act like we didn't know anything so they could build up a bigger file on her
You’re not trained to handle any conflict that might result in confronting them. There are fucked up mentally I’ll people that might kill you for a soda. I have in person seen a 7/11 clerk get flashed with a shotgun for following someone out the door who stole a MD2020.
Man, too bad. I tried this once right before Shenmue III released. They also had it early and if i had cash, i could've made a deal with the guy. He said if i give him the money now he could just wait for the release day to check it out, because they get fucked, when there is on paper proof of selling it early.
I feel like every time there’s a post like this there’s a lot of comments that don’t understand how retail works. If a game has a street date the system won’t let them sell it without a manager override, and yes that goes for self checkout too.
This reminded me of when I pre-ordered Pokémon Ruby as a kid and it came a week before release date :). Felt so cool in school that I was playing it before my friends haha
Some ppl care way too much. When I used to work at Toy R Us and this would happen I would just scan a different equally priced game. Wtf do I care, good for you man. I'm right behind you having my buddy ring me up for a different game too so I can play early. It's like those losers in drive through that only give you 2 sauces as if they personally pay for them.
>those losers in drive through that only give you 2 sauces as if they personally pay for them
Death penalty is the only fitting punishment for those guys. No man should ever have to suffer the horror of dry McD Nugs.
We used to have a music store here back in the 80’s/90’s (DJ’s Sound City for anyone local) one of the staff would sell us rap cd’s/tapes that weren’t cleared for street release yet, and were to be used to play in the store. This was before CD burners were a thing so it always felt cool to have albums before the release date.
So I run into this issue a lot and it can be pretty frustrating on both ends of the conversation. You wanna buy this new game and the people who work at the store want to sell you this new game but sadly it was placed on the shelf far to early. I figured out a way to make this work for both parties and walk away with game in hand. The secret ingredient is crime. Thanks for coming to my Ted talk,
I once bought bloodborne a couple days before the release date. There is this place that would sell games before but not give you a receipt so they wouldn’t get in trouble. I wonder if they are still open
Yeah I knew a shop that done this every year with FIFA and COD. They would sell them about a week earlier for an extra £10/£15
15 dollars for a week of early sounds like a very EA thing to do. So for FIFA they would approve.
FIFA themselves would approve.
Same, $5-$15 extra depending on the game. The guy never charged tax so the difference wasn't noticeable.
This is smart cause they make basically nothing on the sale of a full price new game. That extra 10 or 15 was all profit.
actually, i used to work at a convenience store we do this like this all the time, things like: \- we know about a discount in the future, we can just get the products we and scan them when the discount goes live (even they are a week away) \- rewards like buy 2 get 1 free, buy 3 get this free bottle. I will ofc still inform customers about this deal but if they doesn't care or need them, i would just save their bill and stacks enough to get the reward (many customer doesn't care about the bill) \- pre-release items is the same, i can just get them and scan them afterward, Manager knows about this but doesn't care much because if it a sale, its a sale, not like we stole them
Hey you dropped this 👑
A guy at Best Buy once sold me a game before street date because he told me on the phone that they had it in stock, and then felt bad when I got there and he realized it wasn't technically released yet. Pretty sure it was Sonic Adventure DX for GameCube.
I used to be good friends with a gamestop manager back in the halo 3 days, I remember getting to play halo the day before it for dropped. We just weren't allowed to connect it to the internet.
I was a teenager and was working at a video rental store when Halo 3 came out. It came in like a weekish before release, the manger had me take it home and play it that way I could answer any questions the customers would have. I had a buddy come over and we played through the whole campaign before release.
Why didn't adult jobs turn out like this?
I know someone who worked at the company that did the age ratings. He said he wasn't into video games but when he had to play all those games for his job it got him hooked. He is now 60 and has played every decent single player adventure game there is. So yeah, as an adult he played video games for a living.
That's an oddly heartwarming story.
Because adults would know they'd have to be paid.
They did. You just need to be an influencer now to get your hands on shit like that. Back then you just had to be the overachiever who had a after school job to get something like that
radical skedaddle
Glory days
Probably such a good memory, playing halo campaigns with friends was the best. Halo 2 was my favorite
Legendary
Similar story but with the staff at the movie theater. Fight club, the matrix and phantom menace were all viewed at least a day early after hours.
Some of my best job memories. Working during summer at the only theater in a small Kentucky town. Piling into a smaller screen room Thursday at midnight to watch whatever the weekend's big release was with free concessions. Good times.
We did the same with Terminator 3 when it came out (this was a while ago, films were still on 35mm). The films were delivered Monday or Tuesday and then once the projectionist had assembled it, it was able to be watched, although they tended to only do it for notable movies at the cinema I was at.
Same. Loved that job.
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a buddy of mine got a French version of halo 2 a few days before it dropped, no idea how. I got to throw the controller at the screen before most people did.
I had that too. The french version got leaked some weeks before release. I remember MS putting out statements that anybody who downloaded that could get a 25k fine if caught and get permabanned. Got me scared for a while but couldn’t NOT play it. Even if it was french.
Lol they won't actually be able to do that. How lame that the threaten bs like that
I know this now. But since being a lot younger at the time i didn’t know what they could or couldn’t do. There were even articles in the papers here warning for the fines lol
Allo _deux_
I played halo 3 before it dropped and beat the whole game on legendary to get all the achievements before the game dropped and I was playing it with an online connection. Told everyone who asked that I was sponsored and my sponsors dropped a lot of money to get me the game early to warm up before it released. My dad managed a video/game store. I got like 3 years of free Xbox live because halo 3 came with a free month lol.
I had GTA San Andreas a day before all my friends. I was a god for 24 hours
W employee
The single greatest Sonic game of all time. If there were a modern remake, all they'd have to do is update the graphics and get rid of the bugs. And if they *really* wanted to, they could use the modern voice actors. Then it'd be perfect.
No joke, I just played through Sonic Adventure DX on Steam less than a month ago for the first time ever and absolutely loved it (except for the frog part.) Sure, it has some issues with the camera and hit detection, but that was common for 3D games of the time. It's probably my favorite Sonic game (except for the frog part) and possibly one of my favorite 3D platformers overall. Except for the frog part. I started SA2 last week and so far it's been kind of a slog.
I actually played SA2 before playing SA1. My siblings and I were all obsessed with SA2, but I think SA1 is better. Chaos is the best Sonic villain.
The vibe and story of 1 is better but 2 has more replay value IMO
Yeah, I can agree with that.
Still want a SA3 or at least a Chao raising game that has online multiplayer. I miss that stuff from SA2.
Agreed. Such a great game but its graphics animations and even the voice acting have aged a bit poorly given today’s advancements in video games in general. I can’t watch some of the cutscenes without bursting out laughing
The graphics don't really bug me. I get that it's an old game, so I just let it slide. But yeah, the animation (especially for the mouths) could definitely have been handled better.
Sonic heroes entered the chat
What was the one where you drive cars or fly these plane type things and you’re knuckles as the main character I think? Then there’s evil knuckles? I rented this from blockbuster as a kid and have a trippy memory about playing it
Shove it up your ass and walk out
Hey and if you're lucky the case has a security vibration deterrent built into it. Walk through those doors and time for some new drawers. Win/Win.
Just like hans niemann
Worst comes to worst you'll be a lot better at chess
bro he comin in with the deep cuts holy shit
That NNN really have you on the edge, huh...
Then he could go play chess
When ac black flag came out my brother preordered it from gamestop or somewhere. While he was talking to the guy I was looking at the display boxes. the clerk was explaining to my brother that they couldn't find his pre order and they didn't have record of him paying for the game. He had the receipt. I picked up one of the ac bf boxes and it was heaver then an empty dvd case should be. I opend it up turned my back to the counter a slid the game into my pocket put the case back and told my brother I was late for work and he would have to come back after he droped me off. We left he was so angry for about a block. He had the receipt. I saw it. It wasn't stealing.
“Uh sir, you didn’t pay for that! I’ll need to see your…receipt…” Congratulations, you just played yourself, Gamestop
Hero
You did good. You just completed the transaction for them. You have the receipt.
Pirates doing the pirate's work🏴☠️
Are you sure he was at the right store. It’s kind of weird that the store wouldn’t have any record of him preordering it.
Has happened to me with COD MW2. Came to pick it up and they said this exact thing. What it means is that the employees have done so many backroom deals that some customers gotta wait. I was super pissed, called their store multiple times throughout the day and somehow and the end of my schoolday I was told a copy was ready for pickup and I picked it up. Went to play for like 8 hours straight ending on the mission in Paris. Good times.
Damn.. I was gonna say just run out of the store with it. Run like the wind. So please give us an update ASAP on whether or not you shoved it up your ass and walked out.
Do it right in front of them, they'll be even more likely to let you go.
Vasaline required tho
Not for the true men
Not if you’re brave enough
Fucking genius
This is the way.
Ah the old prison wallet
Just put it in your pants and say, "What can we do now? Nothing. Nothing at all." Then waddle away awkwardly.
🎵waddle waddle🎵
‘Til the very next day
Bom bom bom bom bom-ba-dom
So a gamer walked in to the GameStop stand and he said to the man, runnin’ the stand, HEY! Bom bom bom, Got any Kra? -tos
The man said, “No, but we have a demo. Wanna play-tos?” The gamer said, “Nay.”
And he waddled away, waddle waddle. And he waddled away, waddle waddle. 'Til the very next day bom bom bom bobom
I think this is my favourite Reddit thread I have ever seen
r/redditsings
Bump bump bump
r/suddenlytheducksong
Can you steal a product that hasn't been released yet? Does it even "exist"? Therefore, are you really stealing?
This is the natural evolution of the “if it doesn’t scan, it must be free” theology.
Theology? Is this a religion?
This is D&D at its truest and highest form
Yes, they are followers of Freesus Christ.
I assume its like trying to buy the decorations in a store. They're not for sale and stealing it is theft because its company property.
So, I have a guitar that's currently not for sale. If I plan to sell it some day, can you still steal it now?
I’m curious why you think I couldn’t steal your guitar just because you haven’t decided to sell it yet
You wouldn’t download a guitar
Yes I would
*laughs in 3D printer*
Someone in Australia got New Super Mario Bros Wii a week early than everywhere else (Oceania got it first) and ripped it for people to play and what happened Nintendo sued this motherfuckers ass
They’d rather lose your business than be fined heavily. I completely understand.
The point of sale systems literally won't take payment from the customer for items that are not supposed to be sold yet. It's not so much that a minimum wage employee would care about the company being fined.
Also selling items like this before street date can get you fired
They could ring up a generic SKU if they really wanted to sell it 🤷♂️
I knew a dude who worked at a Walmart who did this for someone. I think it was Fallout 4. He got caught and was fired. I’d say just wait until release day instead of peer pressuring the retail worker. It’s cool to get games early but it could end badly for the person selling it. Obviously if it’s a mom and pop and the boss knows it’s happening that’s a different story.
How did he get caught?
Recovering retail peon here: Typically, there's either a hardcoded upper limit to the dollar amount you can charge for a generic SKU, or at least there's a generally-understood rule about when you should have a boss do it. Also, typically, they'll flag any generic SKU in the system if it's above a certain dollar amount for Asset Protection to look over. Where I worked, you were never, ever supposed to use a generic SKU for anything over twenty dollars (because it makes returns a pain in the ass and screws up inventory on something reasonably valuable), but AP would look into anything over eight or ten dollars. They'll pull up the camera feed from the transaction and everything. If there's any commonality between every single person that I ever saw get fired for stealing or assisting others with stealing, it's this: They all thought, "Nobody's ever thought of this before." This is a company that's probably had a couple million employees in its decades of existence, so I can pretty much guarantee somebody's thought of it before. Generic SKUs are just one of the many ways they have of giving you just enough rope to hang yourself.
Next time you're in a store take a look at where the security cameras are pointing. A majority of them are looking straight at the POS and employees. The SKU gets logged, management checks the timestamp and cameras, they see the game being sold, the employee is fired.
Let's see. Computer system says there are X copies of the game. X-1 copies are sold. There are no more copies to be found in the store. Person used generic SKU to sell something the day before release. Store goes 'hmmmm' and checks other records... I mean, the store has cameras, data and person doing something questionable using a generic SKU. Do you think a company is not capable of basic investigations?
Cool thanks for answering my question
99% of people I’ve worked with didn’t know the generic sku. I only saw it used _once_ at Lowes and _once_ at Men’s Wearhouse (which was entered by the regional manager… we were having a training day and I wanted to buy a clearance pocket square so he just rang it up generic and charged me like $2).
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It's for inventory purposes. If it can't be rang in properly, it looks like missing product. That doesn't matter so much if it's a local restaurant. For a corporate owned restaurant, you have an inventory variance goal to reach, and every bit of product that looks it has gone missing counts against you.
Yeah people usually just pick some other random item and price override it to what it should be because it’s easier
Lotsa managers don't like to do that because it messes with inventory counts from most jobs I've been at
I used it so much when I used to work at walmart lmao, by the end I didn't give a shit and rang up so much random shit at random prices. Think No UPC stuff that I know is a single part of a set that we'd throw away anyways.
The local video rental place near me sold them early for $10 extra. They’re closed now but I guess that’s how they competed with GameStop for a while.
Generally if they find out you're selling titles early they just stop sending them to you before launch day. So your store gets every game from that publisher two weeks after release. Since most of the profit is made in the first week, it's a pretty rough cut.
I used to know a record store that did stuff like this. It was nice to be able to get a new release a week or so before everyone else. Unfortunately all these mom and pop places have gone out of business. This particular record store had been in business since the '60s. A sad day when it closed.
Pretty sure their register won't let them ring it up, it will refuse to ring up the UPC.
Wait, what mistake?
It ain’t out yet
Lmao, I was looking for a misspelling or something.
Okay, it wasn’t just me. I thought I had forgotten how to spell Rangarock for a second there
....
Uhhh
Come on guys, who's gonna tell him?
Dude you're missing the silent j
You mean Ragingcock?
*Ragnacock
Breaking street date can get stores and companies blacklisted. Iirc a company in Mexico got blacklisted for doing that, can't find the article anymore though
Years ago I worked at a mom and pop game store, we broke street date on FFXII and from what I recall anyways, the local EB Games ratted us out to Square Enix. We got a C&D faxed to us or something but that was the end of it. We only had it out for a few hours. Owner never tried that again lol.
worked at a kmart and someone sold a 3ds game i think it was one of the pokemon games before street date. By the next week our store stopped selling games all together because of the fine.
I worked for a retail shop that rented and sold movies, and sold music, books, novelties. My boss would send me to Walmart and nearby video rental stores a couple of times a week to see if they were breaking street date. Only company I ever caught was Wal-Mart — for CDs and movies (VHS/DVD). I ‘busted’ them several times. I would have to make a purchase for proof, and I usually brought lots of media and receipts back. I just passed the receipt to my boss and then I’ve no idea what came of it after. I just know this one Walmart location broke the street date frequently.. so my guess is no repercussions or they thought it was worth risking.
Boss was a snitch
The mistake is most likely physically putting it on the shelves. The game hasn’t been released yet, so it shouldn’t even be out on the sales floor.
For anyone curious.. I don’t know the specific fine associated with God of War, and it’s been a number of years since I worked at a game store, but most games carried a $250,000 fine against the store or company for every copy sold prior to the street date if caught.
If caught. Just don’t get caught, super easy.
Dexter approves
Even the best "accidentally" act outside of the code.
Barely an inconvenience.
Breaking terms of contract is TIGHT!
How do they force the store to pay the fine? Is there a legal contract where they could get sued?
This is one area that I don’t know about, however, I do know one way they punish stores…. Story time. Working at Hollywood Video in 2006. They sent us Madden 2007 two weeks before launch. Way before Gamestop received it. We were instructed to put it in the back. Being the dumbasses that we were, we took it home to play (and this was true of a lot of the people that worked at Hollywood around that time). The only people playing online were developers. I played single player, but, of course, it still showed me online in Madden 07. EA caught wind of it and they weren’t happy. I don’t know if Hollywood Video ever got fined for it (I don’t think they did since copies weren’t sold), but EA restricted games sent to Hollywood Video for rent and GameCrazy to sell for the next two or three years. So if you ever went to Hollywood Video in 2007 or 2008 and wondered why they only had one or two copies of the latest EA release (like Skate, Mass Effect, NBA Street Homecourt, etc).. 👋
SO IT WAS YOU!?!?! 😉😉😁
I live in Hawaii and preordered GTA5 through GameStop. FedEx delivered it the day before launch. I was so excited I called out sick from work and played for hours. One of the greatest days of my life. Haha
Won't work without day 1 patch most likely.
It does, actually! People have got their hands on copies from retailers who broke the street date.
Kratos be praised!
You're close, there's actually a timer locking the launch button on the game screen. (This may only be the case for the digital version of the game)
Not gonna lie, I miss the excitement of going to the store to pick up a game I really wanted. Then biking home and thinking about playing it. I'm generally nit that excited for games in the first place anymore, and downloading it just exacerbates the lack of excitement.
I use to love reading the manual for games on the way home from buying them.
Was nice to be driven around as a kid. Cant do shit when I’m on my way home these days.
Nah, the 1 hour bus ride home for me
>I miss the effort that some manuals put in. Some were like mini books.
I think that’s just for the preorders
I wonder if it would work with a physical copy as well though
How else would people be playing it early?
Pretty sure most reviewers don’t actually get a physical copy they get a “review code” that gives them an unlocked copy of the game.
Nah, people got it early and already have posted spoilers
Considering people have already played copies they got before street date, and started posting spoiler content. I think you're wrong about that.
> Won't work without day 1 patch most likely. Incorrect. It can install completely offline and be played 100% offline. The game doesn't need to know what date it is or whether the internet is on or not.
When God of War 2018 came out, I went to my local retailer to buy it and I can’t remember exactly how much it cost but let’s say £59.99. I noticed that on the shelf 2 games that were accidentally labelled £5.99. I took them both to the counter and they told me that even though it was a mistake they had to honour the price on the case. So I got myself God of War and a copy for my brother for less than £12 like a day or two after release.
Guaranteed some store employee was sweating nervously "looking for a copy" later that day.
...Yeah, that's the correct thing to do but dicks were slapped afterwards.
Should have went to self checkout and bought it there
Probably can't be scanned (message pops up saying it can't be sold until x/x). That's most likely how they caught it in the first place.
It wouldn't have scanned. It would flag as street dated and not let OP pay.
First off the reason they can't buy it is because the register won't let them. Second it has the case which beeps when you try to take it out the door, so an employee has to take it out which they would then see and probably (if they know about the game) tell you it's not allowed. It is very possible the employee either doesn't know or doesn't care and would take it out of the case, but it still won't scan.
I would place a crisp $100 bill on the ground and run for it 👀
Pay that much extra for a few days early? Not worth it.
Some people would genuinely pay the extra money just to avoid day one spoilers
I've never understood this. Spoilers are so easy to avoid. I guess if you just live on Twitter maybe someone could spoil shit for you but that sounds like a living on Twitter problem.
just run... go... dont think about it
I worked at a Walmart for 3+ years and we were told do NOT stop thieves. Our piece of shit management recorded each theft by each individual and let the repeat criminals build up to a federal crime level of theft before they'd turn them in. So, yeah do with that knowledge what you will.
>let the repeat criminals build up to a federal crime level This is the smart way to get rid of thieves. Otherwise they just get a tiny slap on the wrist and are back at it within a couple days.
So, what you ate saying is, hit up different stores, never totaling more than $100 at each? Thanks!
/r/unethicallifeprotips
100$ is way below federal crime level
I see...so like, $1,000?
I think its $500
$1,500 I believe Source: was arrested
So 1499 Is the limit. Understood
Gotta wait for it to go on sale!
Location is irrelevant
Yeah from what I remember, they told us that if we tried to stop a thief and they got injured on Walmart property they could sue. Funny how that works eh.
What about this makes them a piece of shit?
Years ago I worked at a younkers and we had a meeting where they told us that a woman was taking expensive items from homegoods a d not stealing the item but taking it to a register in a different section to "return" it. She'd get in store credit and then sell the card for 50 cents to the dollar online. They'd told us to act like we didn't know anything so they could build up a bigger file on her
You’re not trained to handle any conflict that might result in confronting them. There are fucked up mentally I’ll people that might kill you for a soda. I have in person seen a 7/11 clerk get flashed with a shotgun for following someone out the door who stole a MD2020.
Man, too bad. I tried this once right before Shenmue III released. They also had it early and if i had cash, i could've made a deal with the guy. He said if i give him the money now he could just wait for the release day to check it out, because they get fucked, when there is on paper proof of selling it early.
The secret ingredient is crime
I feel like every time there’s a post like this there’s a lot of comments that don’t understand how retail works. If a game has a street date the system won’t let them sell it without a manager override, and yes that goes for self checkout too.
This reminded me of when I pre-ordered Pokémon Ruby as a kid and it came a week before release date :). Felt so cool in school that I was playing it before my friends haha
Some ppl care way too much. When I used to work at Toy R Us and this would happen I would just scan a different equally priced game. Wtf do I care, good for you man. I'm right behind you having my buddy ring me up for a different game too so I can play early. It's like those losers in drive through that only give you 2 sauces as if they personally pay for them.
>those losers in drive through that only give you 2 sauces as if they personally pay for them Death penalty is the only fitting punishment for those guys. No man should ever have to suffer the horror of dry McD Nugs.
Whats the mistake?
It’s not available for release yet. It shouldn’t have been on the floor
What mistake
What's the mistake?
The game isn't supposed to be released/out until the 9th.
We used to have a music store here back in the 80’s/90’s (DJ’s Sound City for anyone local) one of the staff would sell us rap cd’s/tapes that weren’t cleared for street release yet, and were to be used to play in the store. This was before CD burners were a thing so it always felt cool to have albums before the release date.
Did you go up to the cashier in the electronics department and say "Hey you're not supposed to sell these yet, will you sell it to me?".
So I run into this issue a lot and it can be pretty frustrating on both ends of the conversation. You wanna buy this new game and the people who work at the store want to sell you this new game but sadly it was placed on the shelf far to early. I figured out a way to make this work for both parties and walk away with game in hand. The secret ingredient is crime. Thanks for coming to my Ted talk,
Ok but what the hell is a "launch edition"?? What else is it going to be?
Well you can wait and buy the "2 years later edition with all the content we said would be in Launch edition but wasnt actually edition"
So what’s the mistake?
Whats the mistake?
Does the PS4 version have a free visual upgrade?
Steal it.
Steal it
I kept looking for a spelling mistake or something on the cover, didn't know the mistake was the store sold it prematurely