EB is still in business? I thought Best Buy ate their lunch.

Anyway, selling the ROTK DVD was a purposeful strategy to get people into their overpriced mall-based stores. Their model is obsolete and the company is desperate. I smell a bankruptcy.

I'd do the same, complete "Black List" for them for life. Not just for the broken street date, but for this:

I read that Warner will delay future shipments and is looking into a fine or legal action against EB.

In my local EB Games they just don't break street dates, they also sell bootleg copies of DVDs. I have seen in their used section bootleg copies of Return of the King for months now. They also had 3 bootleg copies of the second Harry Potter movie and a bootleg of Hluk and another of Bad Boys 2. I'm under the impression that they recieved those as trade-in for credit, but I was amazed that 1) They accepted the DVDs and 2) that they are too stupid to sell them.

It's purpose is to make sure each store has a standard of when they can release them. Just because they CAN, doesn't mean they have to. Besides, it's walmart.. what did you expect?

It is to ensure that all the stores have ample time to receive the product and prepare it for sale. That way when you walk into the store at opening, it is available for you and ready to go. The "release date" is to protect smaller stores from huge accounts like WalMart or Target that must get their shipments to the warehouses weeks and weeks in advance, even earlier than small retailers. If WalMart were to merchandise a DVD as soon as it came in, they would surely have it before all the other retailers and they would decimate their competition.

I agree and you can apply this to any mall-based retailer. Malls are going the way of the high priced dodo.

Why would you shop at a mall store for something you could get for 30% cheaper and readily available at another retailer?

I like to shop in Malls, but not for DVDs, that's for sure.

This news story would be much more inpacting if it involved a retailer that anyone actually cared about. Does ANYONE buy DVDs regularly at EB?

If this story was about Best Buy, Circuit City, Frys, or even Suncoast, it would be interesting, but EB?

Maybe its just me.

Bah, nothing will publicly happen. Nothing ever does. I was running a Suncoast when Star Wars Episode I came out. Fox had issued all kinds of public statements that they were going to re-release the trilogy (it had been OOP for some time at that point) in the fall and ANYBODY breaking street date on EP. I would NOT be shipped the trilogy in the fall. Walmart was nailed all over the place (by myself as well) and reported, and yet they still sold the trilogy that fall.
<P>Street dates are an excellent thing. Enforcement by the studios is a joke and thus the street date violations are a joke. Until a studio is willing to stand up to a heavy hitter . . .

But has a heavy hitter ever even broken the street date on this scale? The studios are usually fairly lenient when only a handful of bad apples break the date, but in this case there is ample evidence the decision was made at very high levels -- folks all over the country were saying their EBs had broken the street date, not just a few local stores, and the alleged refusal of management to rectify the situation even after being asked/warned to do so by WB takes this to pretty much a whole new level.

The only thing that surprised me about this story was that Warner Bros. brought the action, not Buena Vista. I still cannot believe there wasn't some punishment by "the mouse" against stores that sold their copies of Ed Wood (then again, Eisner & Co. have had other things on their minds of late...)

FYI - almost ALL indipendant "Mom&Pop" video stores break street date - it's their only way of competing against giants like Blockbuster & Hollywood, or Best Buy when it comes to sales.

A major "best" retailer is advertising selling ROTK tonight at 10:30pm! That's breaking street date! Granted it's only by 90 minutes, but still breaking street date.

Yes. In the case of Star Wars, Walmarts were mass reported from all over the country. Blockbuster jumped the gun on Signs a few years ago with a corporate directive mandating their employees to break street date to make a power statement to Disney. Repercussions: A serious talking to.

Update: Warner Bros. has asked suppliers to not send WB product to EB. EB's response, "We don't do much business with them anyway." However, this has all pertained to WB's home video department. Real repercussions will fall if WB can get its other branches to agree.

EB isnt in the business really of selling new dvds. All of their dvd stock is 99% preowned. I dont think its really a big deal to EB. Each store got in 3 or less copies, and honestly, thats not much. I dont think EB is losing any sleep over it.

That may be a mis-print in their ad. I bet it was suppossed to read midnight.


I'm even more surprised people walk-in and buy them.


Who can blame them. How are you going to punish your seller AND not affect your own sales at the same time? I think fines are the solution when dealing with all retailers.

I read it a couple times. They actually said "midnight sale", but said they would sell copies from 10:30pm until midnight. First 50 people get a free gift.

Granted it's not that big of a deal, but they're still breaking street date. Since this is in wacky CA, I wouldn't be surprised if some lawyer filed a zillion dollar class action lawsuit against this store.

Im going to be trading in another useless chick-flick that my girls bought, and only watched once at Blockbuster and getting RotK for $12.99

So people actually spent $10 more just to own ROTK a week early? That's stupid.

What about those that go to a store at Midnight, what are they?

Orc?

Unable to wait.

I can't say much about midnight sales. I once stopped by one (I can't remember if it was for the Beatles or Titanic) and free food was being served. Well, it was really late and I had just gotten off of work on my way home.......