ok I don't work for EB, living in the UK, but I do work for GAME, a large game company over here. I'm gonna make it clear right now that there are differences (our preorder service is free, or £1.99 if there is a box like with GW) whereas it seems Americans have to basically pay for it up front. I'd also like to state that you indeed are in the right and EB handled this badly.
However, for future reference, from the point of view of a store assistant who has a lot of games to remember and preorder:
1. Whilst the company will try to supply all preorders, if we're not sent the stock its not out fault
2. When preordering a specific package, make sure you state "I want to preorder the guild wars preorder box", not just "can i preorder guild wars". The guys at my store who don't play GW had no clue we had a preorder box; luckily they passed everyone to me who wanted to preorder.
3. If you don't have to, don't pay anything/all the price. E.g. with us at GAME, even on the rare occasions you have to pay the £1.99, at least that way if you get annoyed with us you only lost £2 instead of £30
![Wink](../Img/wink.gif)
4. They were right not to give you the cd key yesterday. The preorder key is used for the head start for a good reason. Whilst some companys will break release date to send it out early, they shouldn't (over here if we were to do that then the game developers could potentially fine the company for ~£10,000 and whoever sold it can be jailed for 6 months). They pay a lot for specific release dates.
5. Finally, don't forget, games companys can be useless with information. No one at GAME knew about the CE shortage, not even head office (they are usually good at emailing us as soon as they know).
Not living in America I don't know what rights you have, but I know if you were over here I'd tell you to keep going in with your receipt and demanding your money back due to severe inconvenience and go elsewhere. Good luck.