GameStop Cancels Animal Crossing and Doom Midnight Launches

GameStop has announced plans to cancel the midnight launch for Animal Crossing: New Horizons and Doom Eternal this Friday due to the outbreak of COVID-19.

In a statement from GameStop senior vice president of store operations Gary Riding, the company announced several procedures for GameStop locations meant to curb close contact, including canceling midnight launches. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=every-ign-animal-crossing-game-review&captions=true"] “Like many businesses, we are taking action to institute multiple social distancing practices in our stores such as only allowing 10 customers in our stores at any given time, canceling all gaming events and midnight launch activities until further notice, disabling temporarily all interactive gaming stations in our stores, introducing in-store line management practices that creates a 1-meter parameter between customers in checkout lines, and encouraging customers to several our online ecommerce capabilities and direct deliveries to their homes from our warehouses or stores,” says Riding. Riding also says that GameStop stores have “implemented heightened cleaning practices on all high-touchpoint surfaces within our stores. And like other retailers, we are taking aggressive actions, in an admittedly difficult environment, to quickly obtain the necessary cleaning supplies needed.” The last part of that statement may be a response to ongoing concerns by GameStop employees who claim that stores are not being properly outfitted with cleaning materials. The r/GameStop subreddit is filled with numerous complaints from people who claim to be employees at GameStop who worry that stores aren’t being properly cleaned to handle COVID-19. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/03/12/doom-eternal-launch-trailer"] IGN reached out to GameStop to ask what the most up-to-date policies for employees’ health and safety are, but have not heard back from the company by the time of publication. In response to the growing outbreak of COVID-19 in the United States, retailers and movie theater chains are closing down locations to prevent unnecessary contact between people. While GameStop hasn’t announced store closures in cities that don’t require them to, it will be difficult for the retailer as there’s a recent initiative to make GameStop more public, event spaces. For more, check out IGN’s COVID-19 safety guidelines for more info on how we’re handling the outbreak. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Matt Kim is a reporter for IGN. If you're an employee at GameStop you can reach him at Twitter or at mkim@ign.com

source https://www.ign.com/articles/gamestop-cancels-animal-crossing-and-doom-midnight-launches