It must have felt like Christmas had come early. Grand Theft Auto V pre-orders arrived a full three days ahead of the September 17th release date for some fortunate Amazon customers, but the game’s developer isn’t happy.
It’s become commonplace for some online retailers to ship games early in order to get them to customers on release day, with some copies usually arriving the day before, but when copies of GTA V started falling through letterboxes on Saturday it came as a bit of a surprise.
The online retail giant recently sold out of its pre-order allocation, which is quite an impressive feat in itself, although the game itself is expected to make a staggering $1 billion in revenue for Rockstar Games, the developer.
Recent reports suggested that some European retailers had begun selling the game early and with Amazon then selling out, Rockstar has reportedly started investigating what’s going on. It also looks as though Royal Mail has been holding back copies to purposely ensure that no embargoes are breached.
“We are in the process of investigating early ‘sales’ to determine how and why that is occurring,” said Rockstar in a statement to GamesIndustry International.
Users on Reddit have also been reporting early arrivals of the game, including one user suntorytimo who posted a picture of the game alongside an Amazon receipt;
“Got the game at around 11 PM CST. Played nonstop 2 hours, I just couldn’t put the controller down. The 8GB install took roughly twenty minutes on my PS3, the longest twenty minutes of my life. The graphics on this game are unbelievable, and that is what I’m most blown away by thus far. Tomorrow I will really get into playing the missions and try and get pretty far. Sorry for rubbing it in guys! I was absolutely giddy with excitement when I had it in my hands!”
Numerous retailers across the UK and around the world will be opening doors at midnight tonight to cater for the rush associated with what is likely to be the biggest selling video game of the year.
Still got to wait until tomorrow to dive into Los Santos? Here’s that glorious gameplay trailer again to keep you occupied.