Instead of a delay, the Coronavirus has created a very slight speedup for one game's release date. Rather than launch on the same day, GameStop is staggering the release of DOOM Eternal and Animal Crossing: New Horizons by releasing DOOM Eternal one day early, on March 19th. This is, according to the company, being done as part of CDC guidelines and social distancing practices to help prevent the spread of the Coronavirus to both customers and employees. For the Nintendo fans out there, Animal Crossing: New Horizons is still releasing on March 20th, so no early release for you...unless you've found other means of acquiring the game. Midnight launches for both games have been canceled, so make sure you're there during regular store hours, if you are getting the physical copy.

Source

 

[wartutor]

It's clear you don't get my point. If you want to down play the situation, you can go do that in Twitter or Instagram then let us know how it goes. I'm not going to bother arguing with you on this.

Lets put some numbers out there for you to ponder, asia had ~81,000 cases. Out of 1.3 trillion people thats 1,300,000,000,000 that means 1 out of every 16,000,000 people caught it. Now most of those people are cramped up in a space way smaller than in america. Now out of those only ~3,300 died yep end of the world scenarios here lets stop everything and hide in the hills.

Edit on topic. Guess i will have to wait for doom so i can pick both up at the same time like i planned anyways.

 

[Bladexdsl]

sweet can pirate it a day early

 

[morvoran]

I would go and buy a copy of Doom today if they released a corona virus mod for it where you fight demons for rolls of toilet paper and slap the faces of the humans who are being overly hysterical over such a small issue.

On a side note, the animal crossing virus mod would be boring as the mayor of your town would ban social events and force you to stay in your house and have no contact with your neighbors

 

[Veho]

As a "safety precaution" against other stores and digital distribution eating into their sales.

 

[XDel]

Game stop employees remind me of pod people.

 

[Deleted User]

More like Gamecantstopwontstop

 

[arcanine]

Way to switch it up bro...

He said "life", not "your life". Going to work is endangering life. Maybe not your life, but somebody's. Just because you do not understand the nature of the situation does not mean you are correct in your assessment of the risk.

 

[FAST6191]

To be fair I view Animal Crossing/Nintendo fanboys as contagious and generally to be avoided. If you can use a nice mass panic as a guise to avoid it then so much the better.

 

[Pipistrele]

All people criticizing Gamestop very harshly need to realize something...
This virus will kill people directly and indirectly. The economic impact is already massive and it will cause more casualties.
It's a sad world, but because there is no safety net in the US people still need to have money to well... survive the confinement and what comes next.

That doesn't undermine any of the reasons people criticize Gamestop very harshly. Just to summarize it, during the increasing spread of the virus:

- Gamestop told employees that they'll provide more sanitizers and masks into every store, yet only a small fraction of those received the equipment. In some places, Gamestop corporate pretty much put responsibility on shoulders of workers by asking them to spend money on their own sanitizers and masks.
- Gamestop told customers that every store is properly sanitized, despite that not being the case
- Gamestop didn't provide any support or replacement for those who fell ill, essentially overloading people who are still healthy and increasing their chances to become ill too
- Despite having the opportunity, Gamestop didn't send a single employee to work from home
- Similarly, employees who fell sick are left unsupported by Gamestop, despite corporate's own incompetence in protecting the workers (and what's the point in staying at work if you get infected anyway and lose on money and health regardless)
- Till the last moment, Gamestop refused to cancel launch events for Doom Eternal and Animal Crossing, only caving in after vocal backlash.

Now that they're going the whole "We truly care, it's not to sell copies earlier, we promise" route, it's only fair and justified that people call them out on their piled up BS.

 

[Japermen]

- Despite having the opportunity, Gamestop didn't send a single employee to work from home

What is a Gamestop employee going to do from home?

 

[Pipistrele]

What is a Gamestop employee going to do from home?

There's a lot of things selected retail workers can do from home. Stuff like accounting, managing online orders, dealing with customer support, etc. That kind of offload is already practiced in some places here in Eastern Europe during quarantine - sure, you can't send all workers home, but you can mitigate risks by giving that kind of job to high-risk employees who can end up being screwed by coronavirus if they continue to work in non-quarantined environment (especially poorly sanitized places such as most Gamestop stores).

 

[Japermen]

There's a lot of things selected retail workers can do from home. Stuff like accounting, managing online orders, dealing with customer support, etc. That kind of offload is already practiced in some places here in Eastern Europe during quarantine - sure, you can't send all workers home, but you can mitigate risks by giving that kind of job to high-risk employees who can end up being screwed by coronavirus if they continue to work in non-quarantined environment (especially poorly sanitized places such as most Gamestop stores).

Ah, I see. This is to be expected of Gamestop by now.

 

[The Catboy]

Imagine being such a piece that you think you need to keep a video game store open during a pandemic.

What is a Gamestop employee going to do from home?

Easy, they can stay home and not risk their health and the health of others just for the sake of selling video games.

 

[AkiraKurusu]

Everyone that has been following GameStop news should know how well they are doing. The thing to keep in mind is that the government will most likely force most if not all non-essential stores to close at some point, and GameStop is no exception. It's just a matter of when that happens.

Also, GameStop have been laying off employees throughout the past years and are still losing money. If they are forced to close their stores, guess what, there may be more layoffs in order to keep afloat. So how would you help those unemployed then?

Would supermarkets and the like be considered "essential"?
What about stores like Big W, Target, Myers (I live in Sydney)? Stores that sell a wide variety of things and not just food?

 

[Japermen]

Imagine being such a piece that you think you need to keep a video game store open during a pandemic.

Easy, they can stay home and not risk their health and the health of others just for the sake of selling video games.

Please do not reply to me with stupid comments. Thanks.

 

[m_babble]

I'm going into day 3 of Animal Crossing. Never got into these games before, but it turns it it's exactly what I needed right now. Four kinds of fruit trees. First house upgrade, Nook's Cranny, museum and new residents on the way. Be safe, people!

 

[NoNAND]

I wonder if .NSPs files will be available earlier as well.

 

[64bitmodels]

sweet can pirate it a day early

I wonder if .NSPs files will be available earlier as well.

really guys? i mean come on they JUST came out and you're already getting ready to pirate?

 

[deinonychus71]

really guys? i mean come on they JUST came out and you're already getting ready to pirate?

Welcome to gbatemp, where people openly admit to pirating ~

 

[NoNAND]

really guys? i mean come on they JUST came out and you're already getting ready to pirate?

My life my game. I play my games by my own rules
My policy: it's never illegal to pirate if you're not getting caught
Whether people like it or not.