GAME Over for Highly Anticipated Mass Effect 3!

Calm Down!  I didn't mean to imply that anything with the game is canceled.  Thank God it isn't.  Mass Effect 3 is the most anticipated game of 2012.  Releasing on March 6th in the US and a few days later (March 9th in Europe) everywhere else, Mass Effect has garnered incredible pre-sale numbers.  Several retailers have sold out of the 'Collector's Edition' copies of the game, and most of the retailers have been sold out since the game went on pre-sale months ago.

UK equivalent of GameStop and retailer, GAME, has announced today that they are no longer carrying new titles from video game publisher EA.

The whole mess of a situation some say is attributed to the recent economic difficulties and the switch to digital distribution of online stores like Amazon.com.  GAME is refunding the mass of preorders and also issuing £5 worth of credit towards customers.  This has many fans of the Mass Effect franchise in an outrage!

The news of this undoing came from a leaked internal memo:

"We committed to only stocking products on which we could get the right credit terms, regardless of the title or the supplier.  We will not stock products if the terms are not right for our business - a position we believe is critical to our long term health as a business - we have taken the very difficult decision to not stock EA's March releases, including Mass Effect 3."

 (Quote from Kotaku)

Will this move hurt the ever loved Mass Effect title?  Well it already has.  Reports on several social sites have fans and purchasers of the 'Collector's Edition' in an uproar.  Their reserved copies of the extremely rare copies of the 'Collector's Edition' have been voided.  The copies of the game have been redistributed to other retailers and now they are being reserved on a first come first served basis.  Many dedicated fans to the franchise have lost out on the opportunity to own the 'Collector's Edition' of the final title in the BioWare space trilogy.

This however has also, in favor of BioWare and EA, created huge buzz and an extremely large demand for the 'Collector's Edition' title in the European Market.  Avid gamers who missed out on the chance to reserve their limited edition copies are now rushing to reserve the newly freed copies.  This will ultimately help the sales of Mass Effect 3, proving that any publicity is good publicity.

Read More @ Kotaku
Read More @ EuroGamer