So I'm getting my version from Amazon which may not arrive until a day or so later after release. For those of us who may not be receiving our copies that same day is there a pre-download code from the supplier? A digital code to download and play the game so we are not kept waiting until the physical copy arrives in the mail?

Not usually, no.

I'm gonna be bummed that I won't be able to play day 1.

Yeah that is a real problem these days with physical copies. Technically when you buy it on Steam you will be able to pre-load days before release and play on Tuesday 00:01 am. If you bought a physical copy you might get it a day before release as well, or on release and then depending when your delivery guy usually shows up it might be late afternoon already and then you still have to install before you can play. This is even worse with Fallout 4 which only comes with one DVD. So you might even have to wait hours to download the game.

I do not know ehether Amazon sends keys as well with your copy, or if this is possible at all, you might want to enquire.

Meanwhile, I'm getting my physical copy at (gasp!) an actual physical store. So I know exactly when the delivery guy (i.e, me ) will be there - lunchtime, Tuesday.

/sigh

I just preordered it on Steam. It better start downloading 11/10/15 12:00 AM. 30Gs will take forever to download. I took that day off to play it, not to wait for it to download.

I was just about to ask if people forgot that picking it up in store was a thing XD
I can pick mine up as early as 9 pm Monday so I hope I can start playing or at least downloading the patch for ps4 on the 9th..

Each PC retail copy includes a Steam key.

Yeah I mean if they will send you your key via email, so that you can preload.

I feel for ya. And I'm in the same boat more often than I want to be. (we have the smallest eff'n gamestop here!) I had to go through the mail with ESO. Longest day of my life ! To make it worse, I work Wed. - Sun. Got the box at about 6 pm. Just enough time to get it all installed and ready to go as I took my ass to bed where I tried to concoct some reason to call out ! This time, though, I took the entire week off ! Even impressed my boss a lil with "Character Development" on my PTO form

As with the previous 20 threads answer is no

Sounds like you're stuck in the 90's