14 DAY TRIAL // A number of retailers in Australia are reported to have broken the launch date for the role playing game The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, prompting major chains that are also associated with video games to also begin selling the Bethesda made and published title.
At the moment reports on forums and on Twitter from individuals and some news outlets are saying that both EB Games and GAME have made Skyrim available earlier than they should have, while some department stores like Harvey Norman are selling it openly and without any restrictions.
Some industrious games have also managed to convince sales clerks at Target and Kmart to sell them the game, profiting from the fact that the launch date was not clear.
PC gamers might not be able to take advantage of the early sales because The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim uses the Steamworks suite from Valve, meaning that the game will probably still be locked until midnight next day.
Those playing on the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3 should be able to play the game, although they might also want to hold off from doing so because Bethesda has already confirmed that it will have a significant day one patch ready to launch tomorrow, eliminating some issues that have only been caught after the game has gone to certification on home consoles.
Broken street dates are a problem especially when the launch dates for a big game are staggered for different regions of the world and the publishers at Bethesda sought to avoid this problem by launching Skyrim at the same time in all countries where it will be available.
Earlier during the fall release season the street date for Battlefield 3 was broken in Australia and retailers were forced to bring the launch forward for half a day in order to deal with the situation.