7-Eleven Breaks Gears 2 and WotLK Street Date…Also, They Sell Games!

It’s a big deal when a street date is broken for anything. Usually, it involves a lot of messy legal issues between the two companies. Apparently, 7-Eleven (yes, the convenience store) didn’t know this, and some stores were selling the long-awaited Gears of War 2 and World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King early. However, the most surprising news here is that 7-Eleven sells games. Who knew?

Like other gamers who had experiences with the “game retailer” in the past two weeks, namely 1UP and GameGirl, I too ventured into a 7-Eleven before the release of these games to find myself just a little confused. The date was November 6th, and upon entering the store, I was shocked to see a poster for both games hanging up on the wall behind the clerk. I already knew that 7-Eleven started carrying Microsoft Points and items like that, but I had no idea that they actually had games for sale.

 So, after grabbing my usual energy drink and Slurpee and proceeding to the checkout, I decided to ask when they would begin selling Gears of War 2, just to see what he would say, and if they would be doing a midnight launch. Apparently, I was a little late to the game; they were completely sold out as of a couple of hours prior to my little excursion.

The point here is this: if you want your game’s street date to be broken, 7-Eleven is your retailer of choice. For gamers, this is definitely a big deal, as I am sure many of you out there that will be checking 7-Eleven days before a game release for a chance to snag it early. I know I will. Unfortunately, it is only a matter of time before action is taken from Activision Blizzard and Microsoft Game Studios, so we may not see this early release trend continuing in the future.