Gamertell

Street date, schmeet date.

It should probably not come as a surprise that some retailers decided to break the November 10, 2009, street date on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 The events that transpired afterward are definitely worth noting, though.

GameStop contacted COD publisher Activision regarding retailers breaking the street date. According to Kotaku, these conversations led to the retailer deciding to break street date in areas where other retailers had already done so.

GameStop did this - Activision is stressing to anyone listening - without the publisher’s permission.

PC gamers who purchased the game early still had to wait to get their warfare on as the IWNet and Steamworks components can stop anyone from playing until Activision allows the game servers to go live. Infinity Ward’s Robert Bowling tweeted  about the whole situation:

ANY store selling MW2 early is in violation of street date. There are no “special permissions”. That said, we won’t punish players for it.

This seems like an opportune time to mention you can also follow Gamertell’s tweets.

Street dates get broken very often, as with Halo 3: ODST which was sold in France a full 10 days before its planned release.

This situation is somewhat unique: A major retailer actively seeking and then being denied permission to break street date, then doing so anyway.

The gaming world is watching to see what happens. OK, the gaming world is playing the game, only game journalists are sitting around waiting to see what happens to GameStop.

Get your death streak going, we’ll be here to update you if and when Activision declares war on GameStop.

Read [Kotaku]  Also Read [FourZeroTwo on Twitter]