Friday, March 20, was always going to be a busy day for game retailers thanks to the scheduled release of both Animal Crossing: New Horizons and Doom Eternal. Unfortunately, the ongoing spread of Covid-19 is a major concern around the world, and to ease the potential stress associated with consumers flocking to pick up their games, GameStop has announced its plans to begin selling Doom Eternal a day early.

Meanwhile, Animal Crossing: New Horizons will have its release date kept for March 20. It is interesting to speculate as to why Doom Eternal was chosen as the title to break its street date. The most likely reason is that no organization would ever want to anger Nintendo, so Doom Eternal was the safer pick.

While the move is certainly going to help with efforts of social distancing, there is no doubt that many consumers who had planned to purchase a physical copy of either game will gladly acquire the game instead through digital purchase. Ultimately the risk associated with going out to buy a video game in a crowded shop seems disproportionate to the benefit, so it is overall a great move on GameStop’s part to attempt and divide its potential traffic among both player bases.

Fans are right to be excited for the release of Doom Eternal. The last few weeks have been a busy time as hype has been building regarding what to expect, and certain leaks about gameplay mechanics have only helped add to the excitement.

While GameStop seems to be making the right decision here, it is not the first organization to break street date on a popular game. In the past year, Walmart was often the source of several broken street dates. This seemed to be the case for Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening, several amiibo, and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Complete Edition for the Nintendo Switch.

The obvious problem with breaking a street date is the loss of credibility with the developer, and Nintendo is among the biggest. Still, Walmart seems to be completely unconcerned with any consequences given how often it seems to sell games far earlier than intended.

Best of luck to everyone in the coming days as they head out to pick up their new games, or for the sake of personal safety, consider going digital!

Source: GameStop