I have worked in the gamin industry a few times over the years. Worked for Rhino, Gamestop, Managed a Game Crazy and worked at a local Play N Trade for 4 years. While I understand everyone wants their game now, let me explain why breaking street is bad for us all. Lets say it is like it used to be, a full week before launch everyone has their games ( now a days they usually get them the Friday before launch if not the Monday of launch for later that night). Sounds good right? Actually no, and this has happened, lets say a local mom and pop decides to break street and go early, as a gamer this sounds awesome!
No its not, firstly as soon as word gets out, all the locals immediately head to the offending store after getting refunds if they can or just outright buying copies to play or ebay. This means that all that money that should have gone to the other mom and pops as well as National Chains is diverted. This also sounds good but nope. A few stores where I worked offered a commission on every sold copy picked up after a certain percentage. It only really worked with AAA titles like Halo and COD, but it was a very nice bonus. Now because mom and pop decided to heck with that, we lose our bonuses. Again how does this effect you as a gamer? Well very quickly these mom and pops and big chains are sitting on tons of dead inventory. Most sales take place within 4 days of launch, if everyone goes to Mom and Pop before launch, all that revenue is lost to all the other dealers.
This can seriously hurt a local small dealer and can in all seriousness bankrupt them. On occasion major publishes may buy some back due to this, but not always. So now you have a bunch of employees who are getting paid much less and now hate the gaming industry and their bosses may have to close their doors. Remember most places, Wal-Mart included usually pay around 5 bucks less than you do as a consumer, there is no money in new if you run your own shop, there just isn’t. So now your losing more local game stores and the big chains decide to not carry as many copies to offset their losses on other titles, why risk the investment? So your local game supply is now also effected directly. If your towns small enough, larger chains may all together pull out or severally limit your access to limited editions and other promotions, see how this effects you all?
Believe it or not breaking street is tracked, as soon as you start popping in the disc and either going online or popping achievements, they are logging where you are. Once a cluster is identified or a distributer is identified, the local rep is notified and they pay visits to stores and shipping centers. On Halo 2’s launch I had to show the exact number of factory security sealed boxes and company provided security sealed boxes 5 hours before launch. Our management warned any store with broken security seals that the entire store would be fired and management would run the store that night. It happened in an off the path location and they ran the store and the entire staff was terminated on the spot.
The fines usually run up to 100,000 per copy on major titles and a loss of carrying the publishers products for up to a year. They then also reserve the right to delay shipping you new product for 2 weeks. No biggie right? Just remember most sales occur within the first 4 days, it can be the kiss of death. All this to ensure no one breaks street and gets an unfair advantage and bankrupts other sellers. It sadly also protects a crap games rep until its too late on rare occasions ( I am looking at you Force Unleashed 2) but usually the reviews have already done that before launch.
Can you get into trouble for playing an early copy legitimately obtained? Nope not at all, but they will look into the way you got it and move accordingly. However if you play a stolen or cracked copy, yes they can and have prosecuted. Microsoft is really fond of perm banning your Gamertag, labeling you as a cheater and kicking your system off live for life. If you doubt that go over to their support forums and look up console bans. They used to reply with much more freedom and some responses from 4 or 5 years back were EPIC ON A GALACTIC SCALE, but now they are pretty cannned. But believe me, more than a few people have lost their Xbox Ones to pirated copies of Halo 5 already.