The stores involved were nos. 4627, 4260 and 6005 at the Hudson Mall and Newport Centre. In calls placed to the stores, sales associates said another store in the area had started selling Assassin's Creed II and Left 4 Dead 2 early; they sought permission to break street from "higher ups" in GameStop, and it was granted. The broken street date was only for Jersey City, they said. Calls to stores in Hoboken and Clifton said Assassin's Creed II was not for sale until its Tuesday release date.

Last week, GameStop authorized stores in a much wider vicinity of the U.S. northeast to break the street date and begin seling Modern Warfare 2. Independent stores selling advance copies were also blamed in that instance.

Kotaku has emailed spokesmen for both GameStop and Ubisoft. Should they have any comment, it will be updated here.

Forum threads are popping up on Gearbox and publisher 2K Games' forums from indignant fans who purchased the PC version of Borderlands at stores either accidentally or purposefully breaking the street date of October 27th, upset that the game won't be playable until October 26th, even in single-player mode. One such purchaser, a Twitter user in Germany with the handle Crimvel, posted the following tweet to Gearbox:

I own a legal PC-copy of Borderlands, and we can't even play the Singleplayer cause of the shitty Securom-protection

A few hours later, Gearbox responded:

The PC version won't be playable until the 26th - your retailer broke the street date :(

As you can tell from the sad emoticon, Gearbox isn't happy about the situation. Fans aren't happy about the situation, and 2K Games is more than likely a little ticked at the retailers who caused the situation.

There was bound to be some confusion, really. When you have three versions of a game in your storeroom and one has a different date than the others, there are going to be mix ups. Still, it's one of the responsibilities of running a video game store or department, and I frankly don't see the point in blaming 2K or Gearbox for this debacle, as so many of the forum posters seem to be doing.

We've contacted both 2K Games and Gearbox for comment on the situation, and are awaiting response from both.

Thanks to everyone who sent in this tip!

GameStop was selling the real-time strategy PC game from Gas Powered Games as early as last Friday, days ahead of the planned April 15th street date. Those wondering why street dates are imposed need look no further than the post on the official Demigod forums, which details a ruined Easter weekend for many Stardock employees.

it was Easter weekend. And many of us had just finished a good solid 8 weeks of massive crunch and were looking forward to the weekend to recover. Instead, we found ourselves back at work having to turn on and configure the multiplayer matchmaking servers (we had enough for a beta but not for thousands of people).

The post also raises concerns that the early release maximizes piracy, as the game was only available through the one retail channel for several days, but Stardock looks on the bright side..."The good news, however, is that we'll get to actually see the effects of piracy". When life gives you lemons...

To help ease players' pains, Stardock released the game on their Impulse early, so the game is now available for purchase online.

Demigod is early [Demigod Forums]

A spokesperson tells MTV Multiplayer that not only is the company attempting "council" offending stores, it's working with its legal department to warn franchisees of "repercussions" for selling you Gears of War 2 thirty-six hours early. Thanks a lot, 7-Eleven legal department!

7-Eleven Trying To Ditch Reputation For Early Game Sales [MTV Multiplayer]

7-Eleven Breaks Wrath of the Lich King Street Date [1UP]

If you can't wait for next week, now might be the time to start scouring your local mega-retailer. More patient types can pre-purchase — but not pre-load, annoyingly — Fallout 3 via Steam or Direct2Drive. For the rest of us, expect to see Fallout 3 hit retail shelves starting next Tuesday.

I actually held one in my hands at a local Walmart nearly two weeks ago, with the ever-friendly electronics clerk (one of the few at a Walmart who knows what he is on about) even offered to sell it to me early, if the computer let him. Sadly it did not, once again flashing the message warning not to sell the game until the 21st. If Nintendo changed up the release date on retailers they didn't do it in enough time to change the box stickers and POS system fail-safes.

Don't even bother looking for one today. As far as the retail world is concerned you can get your Wii Fit on tomorrow. We've been lazy this long, another day won't kill us.