GMs: You cant please everyone...

[Corran]

In response to above post about play.com having it in stock the last reference I read was that this referred to the full boxed set.

.

Play.com have the expansion only in stock as that is what i was discussing with them. And they cant ship it due to legal reasons as stated before.

As for the full box set, well that isnt due for release until the 15th anyways and had always been set as that date so doesnt really matter if play.com do or dont have that one yet.

Bank Holiday wasnt an issue as far as i can see as would of had it on time with postage by Play if they were allowed to ship it out. That means Game etc would have had plenty of time to put it on a shelf i would of thought.

At a guess, Game had made a contractal agreement with another online game which did not allow them to release a game in that time period. It could be for WoW as they had a major patch apparently, or possibly to do with the American launch of Matrix Online. I'm just guessing at this point but i cant see any other sort of company would make such a contract with Game that would block the release of an online expansion.

 

[Corran]

Nerf edit button -

Also just reading back through some of the old threads, it's easy to bash certain companys when you only have one side of the story. You might want to wait a while before you make any assumptions.

Reason why people are coming down on Game is the fact they made a contractual agreement with someone that prevented the release of the expansion. They forced this agreement onto other distributors due to the huge influence they have over the UK market.

If you can contact your legal department at head office and find out what this agreement was then fine, while your at it get them to make an official statement as to it. Not likely to happen, and as such they will continue to have just the single side to the story that puts them in a very bad light.

 

[Flimgoblin]

Nothing new... As he said, you can't say bad things about mods nor goa people since they all can ban you and all protect each other this way.

Posters are more than welcome to disagree (note that semanon is still posting) but if you want to be an asshat you can eff off But have fun with your conspiracies, they're almost entertaining.

 

[TheBinarySurfer]

All i can say for sure is that a large number of players may well have the wrong end of the stick and certain companies now look very very bad in the eyes of the playerbase - i would suggest they make a clear official statement to (if they werent involved in the problem) exonerate themselves and restore their customer confidence a little?It has to be at something of an alltime low now for certain companies amongst the community...

Its good PR/Customer relations if nothing else.

 

[semanon]

Posters are more than welcome to disagree (note that semanon is still posting) but if you want to be an asshat you can eff off But have fun with your conspiracies, they're almost entertaining.

Nice.

 

[Skaven]

Reason why people are coming down on Game is the fact they made a contractual agreement with someone that prevented the release of the expansion. They forced this agreement onto other distributors due to the huge influence they have over the UK market.

If you can contact your legal department at head office and find out what this agreement was then fine, while your at it get them to make an official statement as to it. Not likely to happen, and as such they will continue to have just the single side to the story that puts them in a very bad light.

If I had any weight in the company I would, unfortunatly im just a lowly member of staff on the shop level, even if I asked I doubt they would tell me.
Again, I hate to sound like im sticking up for big corporate companys, but at the end of the day the buck stops with GOA to make sure no matter what circumstance their product gets to the end user on time - whether it be through online means which I believe to a certain extent they have done, or other methods. I can see both sides of problem though to a certain point, GOA are under pressure to get there product out on time and 'mega' has certain contractual agreements they have to uphold - I haven't really been following this to be fair so forgive me if im wrong but im sure I read in another thread that there was a passing thought that GOA had been told about this problem since January.
Really though, any comments I have to make is pure speculation as I haven't a clue what the details are about the hold up was, nor do I think we'll proberbly ever find out what truly has happend unless you work high up for both the companys.

 

[lairiodd]

Yes if everyone had bought into a release date how could there be 'heavy handed legal action' - comething doesn't add up here.

I believe that the law is that if a company set a release date then it is illegal for anyone to sell it before that date.

What probably happened was that GOA, in their negotiations with GAME/Mega (whatever), agreed that they would set the release date at 1st April in UK cos they wanted them to stock the product. It was probably "set the release to 1st April or we are not stocking it or the combination pack". Now, GOA decided to accept despite what they said about the same release Euro-wide. Basically, the benefit of GAME/Mega stocking the game (and probably the combination pack) for a few weeks after release outweighed the fact that they were delaying their release of the expansion (as far as GOA were concerned and also GOA assumed that they could bypass the agreement).

Then, the "winked" at everyone and told the other destributors that they could ignore the release date. This is a breech of contract with GOA/MEGA. GOA should have either refused to modify their release date (since 99% of the sales were going to current players) or accepted the delay. It is not heavy handed legal action to insist that GOA stick to an agreement.

BTW, maybe they didn't even make the wrong decision. IF people want new players to start the game, then the expansion pack is irrelevant. GOA needs to get stores to sell the combination CATA pack so that potential new players start the game. So, is it worth the few days delay in exchange for potentially a few new players ?

OTOH, agreeing to clear a release schedule is kinda weak on behalf of GAME/MEGA. Surely, they have enough marketing clout to not have to make such agreements. BTW, has anyone figured out what game was being released this week-end ?

 

[Corran]

I believe that the law is that if a company set a release date then it is illegal for anyone to sell it before that date.

What probably happened was that GOA, in their negotiations with GAME/Mega (whatever), agreed that they would set the release date at 1st April in UK cos they wanted them to stock the product. It was probably "set the release to 1st April or we are not stocking it or the combination pack". Now, GOA decided to accept despite what they said about the same release Euro-wide. Basically, the benefit of GAME/Mega stocking the game (and probably the combination pack) for a few weeks after release outweighed the fact that they were delaying their release of the expansion (as far as GOA were concerned and also GOA assumed that they could bypass the agreement).

Then, the "winked" at everyone and told the other destributors that they could ignore the release date. This is a breech of contract with GOA/MEGA. GOA should have either refused to modify their release date (since 99% of the sales were going to current players) or accepted the delay. It is not heavy handed legal action to insist that GOA stick to an agreement.

BTW, maybe they didn't even make the wrong decision. IF people want new players to start the game, then the expansion pack is irrelevant. GOA needs to get stores to sell the combination CATA pack so that potential new players start the game. So, is it worth the few days delay in exchange for potentially a few new players ?

OTOH, agreeing to clear a release schedule is kinda weak on behalf of GAME/MEGA. Surely, they have enough marketing clout to not have to make such agreements. BTW, has anyone figured out what game was being released this week-end ?

Dont know if you realise. The distributers can change the release date at a whim and there is very little GoA would be able to do about it. Just one of them things which they got the power to do.

Legal action... as i stated before i believe that a deal was struck between Game and another company thus preventing the release of this expansion. Which company i do not know. With such a contract signed it probably came down to the fact that if they did try to release the game through other means they would have been told that stocking the game full stop will not be possible. And Game being the largest retailer, and also the fact that they can influence every other retailer in the industry due to this then it would be hard for GoA to do anything to push it through.

Read through all the posts by GM's on this matter and you can piece alot of things together. They have not actually stated anything directly but i deduced this from the many posts about. I would say the GM's done a good deal of work to make it downloadable, and infact that would of been difficult to arrange as they would need distributers permission as they would be in direct competition with them. Not something the company would want.

<shrug> Personally i think that the matter should be dropped. It happened and was out of GoA control. Once the game given to the distributer this is not much they can do. Sure they can cease using them, however they be stuck with them till the contract is over, and do you really think it wise to anger someone that you possibly stuck in long term contract? As well as possibly losing your because retailer.
We just got to live with it a few more days then we up and running. Better yet the lands will be a bit quiter as people have moved on which can only help in leveling as you not fighting for areas.