darkSpyro

if an employee puts it out early, it just means they'll either go "oh crap!" and clean up the mess or let some lucky bum buy it. no problem.

Jealousy, entitlement, a complete lack of understanding how this kind of thing works in the real world...

Because for other games it's pretty much a leak. That preorder you made to get it one day early? Some dumb management of a game store just made some lucky people get it a week before.
But it's not /as/ harmful for Skylanders if it's just figures. Good job, you got yourself a S4 Gill Grunt whose Wow Pow you can't even use, and a bunch of 'landers that don't work on your current game. It's still crappy because some people don't understand how things work in the real world - as in release dates exist for a reason and that publisher told the stores to hold the games for two weeks a reason too.

Tell me, Bifrost... the figures on eBay... what store did they come from? I haven't even seen actual evidence they came from a store at all.

Tell me... UncleBob... Where the hell would someone get figures two weeks before release date? If it was stolen from a factory, why would the seller take his time to send this AFTER release?

Factory, warehouse, backroom of a store, gift to an employee, gift from an employee, samples given to retailers.... there's a world of possible explanations that don't involve a retailer breaking street date.

Yeah, all of them boil down to handing the game out, which IS street date breaking because you're giving someone the game before release date. Unfair, against the publisher's wishes, and you'll probably nitpick about it anyway so I won't even bother much past this.

What if it is the publisher handing it out?

Besides, a Street Date is a contract between two entities. If you are a third party (for example, your friend works for Activision and gave you some stuff early), then there is no contract and thus no Street Date.

Street dates are a sacred law set by the ancient council of retail.