Battlefield 3 breaks street date Down Under

When a game as big as Battlefield 3 is just a day or two away from being available to the public, it seems almost inevitable that one retailer, somewhere, will "accidentally" put the game on shelves a little early.

Reports started popping up a few hours ago that a New South Wales Target store had started selling the EA blockbuster today, ahead of the October 27th scheduled launch.

A JB Hi-Fi employee informed the media. The representative explained that - as one of their competitors is now selling the game, all Australian JB Hi-Fi stores would be doing the same.

All Australian retailers - including JB Hi-Fi and Target - were originally ordered to pull the games from shelves by both EA and the Australian distributor, All Interactive.

It seems that the efforts were too little, too late however - as both GAME and EB Games updated their twitter accounts with news that the game was on sale, and a memo soon circulated from the distributor, saying to all stores - essentially - sell 'em if you got 'em.

If you'd planned on attending a midnight launch for the game this evening, we're told the events will still be held as organised - but if you'd prefer to be at home playing your newly-acquired game, that makes a lot of sense, too.

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This story was featured in Episode 37, Season 2 of GamePron News:

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2 Responses to “Battlefield 3 breaks street date Down Under”

1. Battlefield 3 Aussie street date temporarily broken | VG247 says:

   October 25, 2011 at 9:19 pm

   [...] Gamepron reports a Target in NSW began selling the game today, ahead of its official launch tomorrow. [...]

   Reply
2. Why Street Date Breaks Are Bad For The Games Industry As A Whole | Kotaku Australia says:

   October 26, 2011 at 4:13 pm

   [...] to unverified sources the two stores which sold early were informed by EA and the distributor All Interactive Distribution to stop selling the game. When only 2 have broken nationwide its very easy to reverse the trend but JB HiFi allegedly flat [...]

   Reply

Article Details

• published: October 25th, 2011
• by: Jessica Citizen
• in: Australia, Company: All Interactive, Company: DICE, Company: Electronic Arts, EB Games, GAME, Game: Battlefield 3, Gametraders, JB HiFi, Target
• comments: 2

Author Bio:

I like video games, fishing, Depeche Mode, long walks on the beach, writing discussion papers and cups of tea. Not necessarily in that order.

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