darkSpyro

http://www.ebay.com/sch/djcham...trksid=p2050430


UGH!! More scalpers and cheapo employees.

13 days and 21 hours left...


me: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA YOU LOSE SCALPER

Yep, that SUCKS for him.


But he lives in Florida...?

I heard GM78 got to literally hold Crusher and Bouncer.

At best buy.

I'm going on the 14th for the demos.

how do they get this stuff so early?! <seethes>

Me too.. Its a Sunday for me.

Just under two weeks left. Considering the commercial success of the original, I'd say that's actually a bit LATE from my expectations.

Well, time to inform TFB again. Hopefully they put a stop to this, by finding out it's some employee breaking street date for a store that probably has no idea.

What, exactly, is TFB going to do? It's no different than Toys R Us breaking the street date and shipping us all out the Cannon battle packs two weeks early.

Oh, I know what they'll do - they'll hook up with these eBay sellers and offer them exclusive Skylanders to sell... just like TRU.

It's the cost of them. Seeing a scalper sell a pack for thrice its value is honestly quite generous, when the game gets popular again...

TFB won't do anything. They would take action against Toys R Us over some random seller.

Well, it's a ripple effect.

It's how you can find out what store is breaking street date and which employee is doing it, so the appropriate action can be taken.

Remember when I alerted a TFB member to a guy selling fake variants as real? They were able to get in on them for that.

Here, let's use me as an example. Okay, so let's say my name is Bob, and I work for a Best Buy, Gamestop, Walmart, Target, or TRU. Now, let's say I am running electronics at one of those places, and I decide to buy them on my break, while no other employee cares because they may not know or be knowledged on the release date of them.

So, I get home and sell them, but TFB asks me to take them down, or they go to Ebay and have the auctions removed. They can also go further and get the information of the person selling said product, through filing a lawsuit, because we know stores put something in place, that doesn't allow the sale of these. Walmart rings up as "Ask and associate for help." Best Buy's system says "Sell not allowed."

It's a crazy process, but I will say this. If they spooked some European guy into removing his auctions for a fake gold Stump Smash, what could they do to a store employee who is breaking street date on the products they made (TF?

Why did a member of TFB last mention "I guess it's time to unleash the hounds" if they really have no control? I think these listings for items ready to ship now, will push TFB to really clean up.

I HATE EBAY!
V
I
L
!

I'm kind of glad these listings are here, because now I can see that Chill's figure is way more awesome than I initially thought, and that Swarm's figure is really ugly. I wasn't interested in Swarm's gameplay to begin with, but having seen how lousy his figure looks, I'm 100% not buying him.

Oh, and here's a guy on ebay.ca who has all of wave 1, and is waiting until October 22 the ship them. http://www.ebay.ca/sch/jaunver...=&_trksid=p3686

True, that. I've always hated Swarm's figure's plain look, and the transparent areas look blatantly awful. Also, LightCore Drobot looks awesome even though it's still Drobot. And it confirms Ignitor, Whirlwind, and Zook Singles will exist...

GM - all that and you didn't even address the question. How is a few random eBay sellers any worse than Toys R Us breaking the street date?

I'd be seriously, seriously surprised if TFB/Activision could actually get anything done about random dudes on eBay selling stuff. At most, I could see them potentially finding the seller and going after their employer, but if these sellers have half a brain, they've got a buddy selling them for them.

There is no criminal act for selling something before the street date. Street dates are merely a contractual agreement between the manufacturer and the distributors/retailers.

As for why they would have made the "hounds" comment... probably to make you think they cared.

Why would you buy the figures from him, as you can't play them anyway...

Exactly, Unclebob. It's not about any criminal charges being filed. It's about making said person lose their job due to greedy actions.

With employees breaking street date to make money, they're hurting the store they work for, because said store may not know a street date is being broken.

TFB could at least try and find out who the person works for, notify the company that one of their employees broke street date on an item, all the while the store may have never known, and the store will handle the rest.

This employee obviously put his own best interests in front of a store that gave him a chance and hired him. Greedy people deserve everything that's coming to them.

EDIT: WOW! Some dork really spent 50 bucks to have a Bouncer not even two weeks early after it gets shipped to them? HAHAHA! All of my local Best Buy stores alone, have 20+ of Skylanders Giants figures. That doesn't account for Sears, Target, Walmart, Sams, Gamestop, and Toys R Us. WOW!

I just hope that this time around the figures will be in such supply that within the week of release people can have those that they want from wave 1. The scalpers of the first game and those now thinking to imitate them better not wipe out the shelves/pegs.

ShaneG.

Quote: UncleBob

GM - all that and you didn't even address the question. How is a few random eBay sellers any worse than Toys R Us breaking the street date?

...??

so close yet so far

Well....

We are only getting closer and closer to the day these greedy scalpers will look like idiots, selling a singe figure for 30 dollars, while I'll be buying 4 figures with that same amount of money on day 1.

Oh, and I also got 15 extra dollars so I could get bouncer day 1.

Why buy them if you could just wait and get it for lower? STUPID SCALPERS.

Quote: ZapNorris

Well....

We are only getting closer and closer to the day these greedy scalpers will look like idiots, selling a singe figure for 30 dollars, while I'll be buying 4 figures with that same amount of money on day 1.

How will the re-sellers look like idiots? If people buy them from the resellers, then the resellers just made 3 times their cost, for a 200% profit.

If they don't sell, then the reseller can just return the figures to the store for a full refund and they're out nothing but a few minutes of their time.

And none of this even begins to address the idea that, perhaps, these evil resellers aren't even retail employees - they could be small business owners who just received their shipments early. Depending on their individual contract with their local distributor, the small business owner may not even be contractually obligated to abide by any street dates (which would put the onus back on the distributor).

Good things come to those who wait.

Exactly^ Don't buy off

Quote: ZapNorris

Good things come to those who wait.

Wise man.

You guys do realize breaking a streets ate can cost a store $10,000 per item sold early plus the rest of the stock made by that person. They really can't charge anyone untill they know who is breaking street date. But if it's a store that manufacture works with a lot of the time they look the other way. So the small privately owned stores get screwed if they sell early or because they lost a customer to it. Everyone break street date on some games. But it all depends on policy's and the manufactures who catch that store.

Quote: skittles4890

You guys do realize breaking a streets ate can cost a store $10,000 per item sold early plus the rest of the stock made by that person.

The word "can" is VERY misleading there.

It all depends on the individual store/chain's agreement with the manufacturer or supplier. I can assure you, there's NO WAY that Activision is going to stick TRU with some kind of huge fine for all the battle packs they shipped out early. I can guarantee that Activision isn't going to pull all their stock from TRU. In face, in spite of how badly TRU handled aspects of the first promo, Activision has *still* chosen TRU as the main partner for Skylanders.

Likewise, they're not going to fine someone like Walmart. Here's how that conversation would go:
Activision : "You sold a 12 pack of Skylanders figures two weeks early. At $10,000 each, that's $120,000"
Walmart: "Okay, here's a check. Also, please cancel all future and pending orders for Activision/Blizzard products. kthanksbye."
Activision: O.O

Lol I'm just saying that's how it normally would go. If it was a small store that did that you know they would get fined. But the big box stores hardly ever for breaking street date. I should know I work at a video game store that GameStop never get punished for selling anything early. If we even did we would get fined in a heart beat. It all depends unfortunitly nothing will happen to the employees there for buying them early.

The guy already sold Bouncer, Crusher, Fright Rider, and LightCore Drobot!


Quote: UncleBob

Quote: skittles4890

You guys do realize breaking a streets ate can cost a store $10,000 per item sold early plus the rest of the stock made by that person.

The word "can" is VERY misleading there.

It all depends on the individual store/chain's agreement with the manufacturer or supplier. I can assure you, there's NO WAY that Activision is going to stick TRU with some kind of huge fine for all the battle packs they shipped out early. I can guarantee that Activision isn't going to pull all their stock from TRU. In face, in spite of how badly TRU handled aspects of the first promo, Activision has *still* chosen TRU as the main partner for Skylanders.

Likewise, they're not going to fine someone like Walmart. Here's how that conversation would go:
Activision : "You sold a 12 pack of Skylanders figures two weeks early. At $10,000 each, that's $120,000"
Walmart: "Okay, here's a check. Also, please cancel all future and pending orders for Activision/Blizzard products. kthanksbye."
Activision: O.O

ToysRUs SHATTERED the street date for the DragonFire Cannon..

Like CRUSHED (my puns are bad)

Quote: skittles4890

Lol I'm just saying that's how it normally would go. If it was a small store that did that you know they would get fined. But the big box stores hardly ever for breaking street date. I should know I work at a video game store that GameStop never get punished for selling anything early. If we even did we would get fined in a heart beat. It all depends unfortunitly nothing will happen to the employees there for buying them early.

Can you find one single story reliable news story about a store actually getting fined for breaking a street date in the last ten years?

The issue you run into is that they're not going to fine one of the larger stores because they don't want to risk that chain no longer carrying their product. They're not going to fine a smaller store because, typically, they don't have a contract with the smaller store - they have a contract with the store's distributor... and they're not going to fine the distributor for the same reason they're not going to fine the larger chains - they don't want to risk that distributor dropping their products.

Also, seriously - could you imagine the article that would run about this...

Quote:

Multi-billion dollar international company Activision/Blizzard has forced the closing of Ma and Pa's Friendly Local Video Game store. After Ma accidentally sold a case of plastic toys a week early, a helicopter full of Activision/Blizzard lawyers landed on their roof and fined them $120,000. Pa was quoted as saying "That's more than we make in two years time - we simply can't afford to pay that and stay in business." Meanwhile, large company and Skylanders promotional partner Toys R Us shipped out thousands of the figures, fulfilling online orders weeks early and Toys R Us is continuing to sell Activision products - including special exclusive figures made just for them. Toys R Us executive Mr. X was quoted as saying "Yeah, it works out nice for us. We get to sell the toys early and if any of our locally owned competitors do it - *bamn* - they get closed down immediately. More sales for us!"

Okay, so by all of this logic, the retail stores would use scare tactics on any corporation who gets mad at them for breaking street date, thus street dates don't even need to exist. So, why do they, if all retail stores can threaten the company that goes after them for breaking street dates?

I mean, with the last few things being said, it makes it sound like retail stores have nothing to fear. However, TRU.com was so much in fear of Activision, it started intercepting packages of Dragonfire Cannon. Why should they, if they can just threaten to not carry a product by Activision again?

Quote: GameMaster78

Okay, so by all of this logic, the retail stores would use scare tactics on any corporation who gets mad at them for breaking street date, thus street dates don't even need to exist. So, why do they, if all retail stores can threaten the company that goes after them for breaking street dates?

I mean, with the last few things being said, it makes it sound like retail stores have nothing to fear. However, TRU.com was so much in fear of Activision, it started intercepting packages of Dragonfire Cannon. Why should they, if they can just threaten to not carry a product by Activision again?

Because they want to be a good business partner.

Because while Activision isn't going to fine them and risk TRU pulling all Activision products from their shelves, Activision doesn't have to do special things like exclusive figures and special bundles for them.

If manufacturers started seeing mass issues with breaking of street dates, then you'd probably see some action. But a handful of individual stores? At most a few employees might get a slap on the wrist (or terminated if it's discovered they broke a policy, like using their discount to purchase products for resale or if they stole the figures). And that's all dependent on the employee selling the products on eBay being stupid enough to have actually listed the merchandise under their personal account.

Even then, let's assume that Activision did have the clout to force eBay to give up the seller's info. What is Activision going to do with it? Call every retailer in the area, ask for their Human Resources department and ask "Do you have a Joe Bob that works there?"

*AND* - none of this even reflects on the idea that maybe, just maybe a well-meaning employee accidentally sold these early to someone who they thought really wanted them for personal use. Could be a grandmother or who knows. I hope it's some 80-year-old lady who ends up getting fired because she sold some plastic toys a week early. Then we can all rest easy.

toy for bob/activision should have a talk with evilbay and put a stop to people putting up skylanders or advertising sales for skylanders before the street date of sale. then this would not be a problem..

I mentioned to the eb games manager i know here, that toys r us sent out the battle packs early, and that people had figures on ebay. he told me if they get caught for breaking street date that store wont be allowed to sell the figures for a certain amount of time...He said that happened at walmart with a certain game in the past

Quote: kappapopm

toy for bob/activision should have a talk with evilbay and put a stop to people putting up skylanders or advertising sales for skylanders before the street date of sale. then this would not be a problem..

Why would eBay agree to this? eBay makes money off people selling stuff. They don't make money off not selling stuff. Therefore, it makes sense to let people sell stuff.

Quote: Tupelo

I mentioned to the eb games manager i know here, that toys r us sent out the battle packs early, and that people had figures on ebay. he told me if they get caught for breaking street date that store wont be allowed to sell the figures for a certain amount of time...He said that happened at walmart with a certain game in the past

Which obviously isn't true as there's no way Activision doesn't know about Toys R Us' slip-up by now.

^ Maybe they just dont care :/

Behold
The king of the idiots

http://www.ebay.ca/itm/Skyland...94#ht_500wt_922

Quote: Tupelo

^ Maybe they just dont care :/

Which is the point I've been making all along...

that is a very nice pic of all the skylander boxes. at least the scalpers give good pics.

Quote: ZapNorris

Behold
The king of the idiots

http://www.ebay.ca/itm/Skyland...94#ht_500wt_922

Nope,

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Skylan...=item416c3ffede

Quote: Plaag

I just hope that this time around the figures will be in such supply that within the week of release people can have those that they want from wave 1. The scalpers of the first game and those now thinking to imitate them better not wipe out the shelves/pegs.

ShaneG.

^THIS times infinity
Skylander hunting can be fun but ONLY if the stores HAVE the ones your looking for and only if the scalpers haven't wiped the shelves

Hoping for a good hunt this year, BTW I'm not a scalper - -' seriously for the most part I have one of each (I'm not even trying for golds, silvers, clears, etc.)

The funniest thing is 'will ship on October 22nd

I know and it will really suck if the supply of Skylanders is weak again like last year all because those scalpers are taking so much of the supply before release.

Wants: