Amazon has revved up a small number of gamers, but doubtless irritated the creators of one of the greatest video gaming franchises ever, by shipping copies of Grand Theft Auto 5 (GTA5) earlier than its launch date.
Grand Theft Auto 5 was supposed to launch today Tuesday and was embargoed for release but British gamers who had bought the new sensation online with Amazon began receiving it as early as last week. Whilst the individuals who received it have been thrilled by the sneak preview, others have been annoyed and frustrated to have the surprise and excitement ruined by the the online spoilers (Pun? -Ed.) posted on the web by those who got the game early.
GTA5 creators Rockstar North haven’t made a public comment on this shipping car crash, ahem. But Amazon have tried to put the brakes on speculation by claiming a that only “a small number” of customers got the gear.
Amazon commented “We have established processes in place to deliver new titles to customers on their release date and are looking into the circumstances that led to a small number of customers receiving this game earlier than intended on this occasion.”
4 Responses
If you read the posts on amazon it appears that they (Amazon) released the packets into Royal Mail Tracked 48 hours on Saturday afternoon and emailed people the tracking numbers, leading to stupid customers expecting the games on Monday, even though it clearly stated expected delivery the 17th.
I’ve yet to see any evidence that anyone got a game on the 16th, and I doubt most people will get one on the 17th due to the use of tracked 48 rather than special delivery.
Its quite amusing to see the posts saying Rockstar will investigate amazon selling it early, anyone who has seen a amazon suppliers contract will know its more likely that Rockstar will have to pay Amazon for the privilege of having a embargo date, and if they did break it Amazon will probably charge Rockstar for the postage on the basis the customers got a better deal than they should have. Biggest game release ever maybe, but without Amazon’s sales it would be a Mario brothers failure.
It’s fairly common to get new releases early, I got MW2, MW3 and Black Ops II before the release date, not through Amazon I should add.
PS3 Gamer tag ‘whirly1’ if anyone ever fancies a gun fight.
My postie said ‘Is that GTA 5?’ feverishly when he handed it to me. He was going to Sainsbury’s after his shift to buy one.
We are a one telly house, which means I am not watching my programs for a while now! (Apart from Bake off, GTA 5 stops for biscuits)