In Austria it is already common. And it is really cool, because a lot of games like Mass Effect get spoiled after the release pretty soon, so if you don´t stay away from the internet. So if you can play 3-4 days ealier you can see most parts of the game if you are really into it.

For example if you watch some of the Gamespot review, you don´t even need to play the game anymore because they show the final boss fight, or the coolest boss fight or like in MK some fatalities. And this is really annoying imo.

The Tales of Dunwall? No but I suppose it's a walkthrough video and I have avoided those. I have avoided lots of info about Dishonored because I want a totally fresh experience.

no its not. It is somekind of prequel.

Thanks, those were pretty cool. Poor boy. I didn't understand the last episode, although that might have been on purpose and gets cleared up once you play the game.

well technically the retailer selling it early is breaking the rules so don't blame the guy who follows them.

kinda an obvious bit of information but good for you ^.^

And I ppraised THQ for not restricting it to the local release date and instead unlocking it at the same time as the US release, it was an exception. And even if you got the PC version early at reatail you would have still had to wait as it's a steamworks game so wouldn't unlock until the official release date anyway. Most PC games are like that now to prevent 0 day piracy they don't release the decription keys until release day. 

Also on steam you get a discount for preordering, and if you use GreenManGaming you get an even bigger discount. Plus pre-order bonuses. Where I live retail games are obscenely expensive. For example if I walked into a store to buy dishonored it would be $90 on PC (€56.91, $73USD) on green man gaming that would be $50USD and with the discount code I could get 25% off that for preorder.

The whole reason for official release dates is so that one retailer that gets their shipment in earlier (since this is not a perfect world in which all retail outlets get their shipments instantaneously, simultaneously and magically transported into their store rooms at once) doesn't get to sell their stock before another retailer has theirs on hand, stealing sales from those follow the release dates.

Publishers used to punish retailers for this practice by delaying future shipments of major titles (or at least putting them at the end of the shipping queues).

Why would anyone preorder anything from a dd-service..?

SWTOR was an Origin game, and Guild Wars 2... I don't think it uses any third party clients. It's just ArenaNet's stuff.