Derek Garrison of Talon Comics and Games in Denton, Texas has been following our coverage of the early release of D&D 3.5 (see 'Gameboard Breaks 'D&D 3.5' Street Date' and 'WotC Reviewing Distribution Policy') and is most concerned about the early release from Amazon and Walmart.com:

 

I've been keeping up with this situation for months now and frankly the main concern for my store and the gaming hobby as a whole is Wal-Mart.com and Amazon releasing the books early.  It's already a problem that both of those companies and others are massively discounting these books but now on top of it they also can send them out before we can.  Because of that, customers are going to continue with their trend of ordering through them because we can't provide the books cheaply or before the street date.  This problem has to stop and it has to stop now if retailers are going to be able to even compete at all.  40% off is one thing but selling the books a week after is the worst. 

 

As Ingram is the distributor for pretty much all of the bookstore chains it's probably safe to assume if Gameboard can get their books from them what's to stop any other retailer from doing the same or even a distributor?  Why should any of us even consider ordering directly from Wizards of the Coast when Ingram is obviously going to disregard any street date given to them anyway?  If WotC can't resolve this issue and make it stick that's pretty much the option I will be forced to look into.