Peek in the box, get fired on the spot.

I just read a blog post from www.rated-m.com that said GameStop exployees were warned about leaking Halo 3 early and for opening the boxes. These boxes which contain the game and are specially marked are expected to be shipped to stores September 13th in anticipation for release on the 25th.

In fact the email that was sent out to employees was so cut and dry, that apparently even if you accidentally nick the tape that seals them, your fired on the spot. That applies to managers as well as counter clerks.

Now that’s not what surprised me, what surprised me was the fact that this wasn’t already in place! Reading some of the comments under that article I’m surprised that many people are shocked that other retailers like Wal-Mart, Gamecrazy etc are following suit.

They do it with films, they do it with books (latest Harry Potter fiasco comes to mind) as well as music, so why not games? With the frequency of broken street dates I do suspect that some are intentional, many never seem to retaliate or penalize for this behavior. Why would they? Free publicity and breaking news never hurts a game to be sure.

Then again if a game turns out to be a stinker, they don’t want you to know that until release date. It’s like when McDonald’s started making you pay at one window, then sit in line for the next one to get your food. You’ve pretty much committed yourself to receiving it no matter how long you have to wait, and you can’t drive away if your drink is warm and they’ve run out of McChicken sauce.