PC Gaming

[juju217]

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"ArenaNet's official Guild Wars 2 Twitter says this post is misinformed:

https://twitter.com/#!/GuildWars2/status/189855504732930048 Best Buy will have pre-purchase. I guess I am just mad."

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I'm sure Kyle did his best to get the information as quickly as possible which may have resulted in him acquiring it incorrectly.  Remember that he said "the contract is still in the works" which is why I still had hope that he could've  been wrong.

Thanks for providing the link to the official twitter post!  I will wait to see if pre-purchase goes through or not this April 13th.

[juju217]

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"ArenaNet's official Guild Wars 2 Twitter says this post is misinformed:

https://twitter.com/#!/GuildWars2/status/189855504732930048 Best Buy will have pre-purchase. I guess I am just mad."

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I'm sure Kyle did his best to get the information as quickly as possible which may have resulted in him acquiring it incorrectly.  Remember that he said "the contract is still in the works" which is why I still had hope that he could've  been wrong.

Thanks for providing the link to the official twitter post!  I will wait to see if pre-purchase goes through or not this April 13th.

[prowlingfree]

I don't know whos fault this is or not, but Best Buy's management needs to step up to the plate and have better communication throughout the company. Communication is a big deal.

I spent a good 30 minutes during lunch trying to buy the $150 CE edition from best buy before giving up and heading to gamestop. Not handling an AAA titles like this is a sign of really bad lines of communication within the company itself.

I don't know how many prepurchases you guys lost to gamestop in a single day.

What amazes me is the continueing uncertainty in what is and will be offered. NCSoft and Best Buy really both failed big time on this on.

[nagashocki]

I am curious. What goes into this sort of thing? I imagine some sort of horrible terms are bandied back and forth until one side caves, and says, "Fine. I am okay with giving you x amount of the cut." Is that about right, Kyle my boy?

[juju217]

From Mike O'Brien himself:

"GameStop won't be the only retailer in the US selling the CE prepurchase. But they're big supporter...

NCSoft made sure that Gamestop would be ready for the April 10th launch of pre-purchases (as they're getting the biggest stock of CEs) so they got the ball rolling with them ahead of time while Best Buy was put on the back burner.  It's unfortunate that they were unable to get the Best Buy pre-purchases ready on time but since Gamestop was given the priority in North America people will most likely be purchasing the Collector's Edition from them instead of Best Buy.

The wiki provided by Stephane Lo Presti:

GW2 Prepurchase Retailer List

Now Best Buy was added as a participant of the pre-purchase program for Collector's Editions  just yesterday!  This tells me that the publisher was slow in making the deal with them and therefore the program would not make in time for April 10th.

As far as conflicting reports of Best Buy being an actual participant or not is nerve-wracking to me, as I was really wanting to buy the CE at my local Best Buy.  But all I can do is wait for April 13th to hear of any new developments.

[ogr8bearded1]

So Arena net is saying that Best Buy will participate in the prepurchase. Best Buy representative says they talked with the publisher and will not be doing prepurchase but will do preorders without any beta or items. Best Buy goes on to say you can preorder CE on 13 April and can preorder SE right now.

Though Best Buy did get into the game late for the CE this still does not explain why they were on list for prepurchase of SE for a couple weeks and still have do not have those available to sell as prepurchase unless they never intended to do prepurchase at all.

In his post Kyle seems to understand there is a difference in preorder and prepurchase, that prepurchase comes with bonus and states specifically they will not be doing any of the bonus items at all. From what I"ve seen said I wouldn't be surprised if Best Buy does a preorder of the CE on the 13th but not give any codes for beta access or bonuses.

Considering there will be no box prepurchase items and in the US only a code given to people who prepuchase, if they haven't been able to distribute these codes by now to stores electronically I doubt they plan on it at all. Maybe come Friday I'll be proven wrong but I still wonder, how was it the SE codes were not ready on the 10th?

[juju217]

The same can be said about Amazon who was also on the retailer list for pre-purchases of the SE at the same time as Best Buy.  Only certain contacts from NCSoft or ArenaNet may know for sure; we can only assume why it took so long.   I think I read somewhere that Amazon was having trouble incorporating the pre-purchasing aspect of the program into their system, but don't quote me on that.

I imagine the publisher  worked more diligently to have the main distributor of North American pre-purchases (Gamestop)  be ready by April 10th if it came down to a time crunch.  Why ArenaNet member Stephane Lo Presti added Amazon and Best Buy to the retailer list before it was confirmed by the retailer is beyond me.  And why they haven't recently updated the list to reflect Best Buy's refusal to acknowledge said list is another stumper.

I will also be crossing my fingers on April 13th, but I am seeing this glass as half-empty.

[Kyle-BBY Retired: Senior Social Media Specialist]

Hello all,

I understand there has been some conflicting information out there regarding what exactly we are offering in terms of Guild Wars 2 so I will do my best to clear that up.

We will be/are offering pre-orders for the physical versions of Guild Wars 2 without any promotions attached to them.  You can pre-order them on BestBuy.com or in our stores.  The physical standard edition pre-order is currently available and the physical Collector's Edition pre-order will be available on Friday, April 13th.

In addition, we will in fact be offering pre-purchase for the digital versions of Guild Wars 2, which is a correction to my previous post.  Those will be available on BestBuy.com soon.  Pre-purchasers will receive a single code for the Beta access, 3 day headstart access, and digital bonus content to be redeemed on the Guild Wars 2 website (more detailed instructions provided upon purchase).

I think some of the confusion may be coming from the terms pre-purchase vs. pre-order, as they mean different things.  Pre-purchase is paying in full for the game before it releases.  Pre-order is putting some form of collateral down, whether it is a credit card linked to a BestBuy.com order or $5 down on an in-store pre-order, to secure your copy when the game releases, at which point you make good on full amount of the game.

Guild Wars 2 on BestBuy.com

I apologize for the confusion and previous misinformation.  I hope this helps you to better plan out your Guild Wars 2 release experience!

[jsant027]

Thanks for clearing everything up Kyle.  Can't wait, now I can use all my reward zone certificates and Best buy gift cards to pre purchase Guild Wars and get into all the Beta Weekends.  I am a happy camper now 

[juju217]

That is indeed awesome, Kyle. Thank you for keeping us posted.

I guess that means pre-purchase of the Collector's Edition is out of the question then since those don't come in digital form. Oh well, I guess the standard edition is better than nothing.

[Kyle-BBY Retired: Senior Social Media Specialist]

UPDATE

In order to ensure we have the digital version all set up, we have to take down the physical version pre-orders and the timing of when they will be available again is changing.  That means it is possible that the Collector's Edition may not be available for pre-order on Friday and, as I'm sure some of you have noticed, the standard edition pre-order is already off of BestBuy.com.  

The good news in this though is that we are pursuing attaching pre-order offers to the physical versions.

Also, I am told we could have the pre-orders for the digital versions on BestBuy.com as soon as today so keep an eye out!

Thanks again for those of you sticking with us here and I will continue to keep you informed as I hear more.