I did once.
It was Black Friday of 2006, a week after the release of the Wii. My friend had to work at a store in the mall in the wee hours of the morning, and he dropped me off to wait at GameStop so I could test my luck. Nintendo has always been infamous for engineered scarcity, and the Wii was no exception, so I was fully prepared to leave with nothing but an interesting story to tell. I had never seen the horrors of Black Friday, and was morbidly curious to experience it for myself at least once.
The experience was pretty tame. At first I waited outside the mall. I had my guide dog with me, and I allowed other people in line to give her pets and scritches as we waited. Not gonna lie, me bringing her was a bit of social engineering. Who’s gonna hit a blind guy? We got to chatting about what the line was for, and I discovered it was for an unrelated promotion. I asked if I could be let in to wait in front of the GameStop in the food court out of the cold, and they let me enter.
I can’t remember if others in the same line came in with me, or if they had already been there, but I ended up behind a dad and his two kids, and they were both getting a Wii. There were only three in stock, so I ended up getting lucky. I even got a copy of Twilight Princess, as well as FF XII on the PS2 as a Christmas gift for my sister.
tl;dr: veni vidi wiici
I remember a Skyrim release party at the local game stop. We all hung out and got our games and the store ended up giving away a bunch of promotional stuff like cardboard stands and the like. It was a good time. I can’t imagine wading through a sea of people anymore for a release like that. Digital has changed a lot.
Just once, for GTAV.
They released just after midnight. There was a decent line as I recall, probably less than 50 people. People cracked jokes about the series, and quoted favorite dialogue. The first guy in line strode victoriously to his car, his copy held high, then burned rubber when he hit asphalt. Immediately a cop tore after him out of the darkness. The rest of us went “ooooooo”. Somebody said, “No that’s just one star. He can do this!”
Nah.
It’s always seemed really desperate. Very Cult of Capitalism. I can wait. Life is full of other things I can occupy my time with.
I can see doing it as like a social thing. Camp out with friends. Meet likeminded people. But it’s still supporting over-the-top capitalism.
During that time when the LOTR movies were first coming to cinemas, people were camping outside to get premiere tickets. While we were all in the target demographic for said movies, having read rhe book and all, we found it a bit laughable considering how important it was to some people to see the movies on the premiere rather than just waiting a day or two…
Well, a couple of friends and I decided to ensure we got premiere tickets as well, so we brought sleeping bags and beer for our overnight adventure.
Except we weren’t there for LOTR. We got premiere tickets for Shrek 2, just because why not. We were the only ones there. 10/10, would recommend.
When I was a child my parents took me to a midnight release reading of probably the fourth Harry Potter book. After some woman read aloud the first chapter, at midnight, everyone was allowed to buy the book. It was very fun for little me back then.
These days it’s a complicated feeling, tainted by Rowling’s behaviour.
I’ll keep this brief, but me and my buddies are down in Philly just smoking a lot of weed and having some beers, as we tended to do. Our friend who’s going to school at John Jay in the city (which is New York where we’re from) tells us they’re going to be giving out PS3s on TRL. So this is sometime around November 2006. So me and my friends drive to Trenton and hop on a train to Manhattan, get in around 5am, stumble out into Times Square with all the degenerates on a Friday morning, get to the MTV building, meet our friends, and do this thing. There’s a decent enough line but nothing crazy.
Hours go by, and we just wait. We hang out til showtime, which is like 2 or 3pm, I can’t remember. Needless to say, they eventually come out and say it was all a rumor and there are no PS3s. Depressed, we hop back on a train back to Trenton, because we are seeing Brand New open for Dashboard Confessional in Camden that night. We are exhausted. We meet a friend in Ewing, smoke some blunts, get uncomfortably high, but head to the show anyway. On the way in we watch this girl trip on a sidewalk and land on her face. Her friends help her up. I want to help, but I am too high and so we ask if she’s okay, get nods, and we continue in.
Brand New is already on. We hear one song. Dashboard comes on. Lead singer starts crying almost immediately. A woman who’s at least 10-15 years older than us (we are 19-20) keeps hitting on my one friend, and eventually says “This guy’s a bigger pussy than me, and I’ve got one!” We go home.
It was one failure after another for us. That was my one and only.
My usual MO is getting things when they are discontinued. And cheap. Turbografx, Sega Saturn, Virtual Boy, Game.Com. I have them all. Virtual Boy was $20 at Target.
The only time I got something when it came out was the Gameboy Advance. But I pre-ordered it. No camping, just went in and picked it up.
I got the PS2 for Christmas the year it came out, but it was out for almost 2 months at that point, plus it was a gift, so I didn’t have to camp for that either. I still love that thing.
Went for the midnight release of Death Stranding. I wasn’t really interested in the game, but Hideo Kojima was there signing games, so I went and got his signature and a picture.
It’s not really my type of game and I never finished it, but I love Kojima and I’m happy I got the signature.
PS2 release day when I was 16 at best buy. I’m 42 and still have it, works great. Just tried it last month with some Twisted Metal, sat hiding as Spectre just doing my special like a bitch. Actually it’s under my TV, a bit dusty but all the og cords and controllers.
I worked the midnight release of the PSP. nobody came. like…nobody.
so I bought one after my shift ended. played it for a week and returned it.
it really was a trash system at first launch, though playing twisted metal online was pretty fun, until the Japanese players came on (if there be gaming gods, the Japanese are it).
last Sony system I ever bought.
edit: I just remembered staying in line for a Wii. I was the first person in line. then some other folks showed up and put up a tent since it was winter.
they were totally banging in that tent…it was fun 🤣
Context:
In cologne Germany there is a huge carnival culture, historically carnival is sorta anti establishment, but for a variety of reasons in post ww2 cologne carnival is the establishment. So the Karnevalsvereine have shows/plena called Karnevals_Sitzung. Because these events had lost their anti establishment air, at some point a reaction formed called the Stunk_Sitzung (roughly grievance session as opposed to carnival sessions) which re focused on anti establishment satire, both satirizing main stream carnival and broad local to global politics. This event then became the de facto cultural institution in terms of carnival satirical stage show running several shows weekly throughout the entire season (Nov-Feb/March).
Story:
Getting tickets for this show for a weekend close to the end of the carnival season (the season ends with the main parades and festivities)requires ordering tickets in person on the day the tickets go on sale, with the ticket offices opening 9am lining up at 10pm isn’t uncommon, and I have been part of such a line. Although it is also common for the spot in line to be transferable, so I did a shift roughly midnight to 5am at which point I went home to bed and someone else did the last 4h shift and bought tickets.
Waited in a three-hour-ish line for The Phantom Menace. 100 minutes of “I’m sure it will get better” followed by the Naboo duel tricking my fanboy brain into thinking it was a good movie.
I camped out overnight! Met new people, shared stories, and it was like regular camping but in a parking lot and no fire.
The campout was a lot more fun than the movie.
I mean the Naboo duel is pretty cool though.
But yeah I’d be highly annoyed if I had to wait three hours in line for that movie.
It was so much worse than that. People had been waiting 16 years to see a proper cinematic continuation of Star Wars. There were some pulp novels, a couple of very weak kids cartoons, a pretty decent tabletop RPG with source materials, a few video games, and that was about it. For a franchise that was still iconic and incredibly popular despite lying fallow like that.
We got a more distilled version of George’s vision, and hoo-boy it just simply wasn’t very good. I still saw that movie six fuckin’ times (the last three at the dollar theater), but while there was plenty to digest and feed my nerdery, the story and acting just never got better.
Surely they were just getting warmed up though, and episode two would be better…
I’m not as much of a SW nerd as my friend, but according to him SW fans are eating good with the massive expansion of the Clone Wars in the past decade.
So the prequel trilogy is really mediocre to be very nice. But seems to me the shows after the Disney acquisition made gold out of that turd.
Far before the Disney acquisition, the Clone Wars tv series was actually really impressive and fleshed out the world SO MUCH. “Rebels” did the same for the original trilogy, but that might have been post-Disney.
The animators used filmmaking prowess with things like animating camera shots as if they were on a real film set, which lent a so-far unseen level of professionalism and production quality for a CG television series.
I felt so stupid avoiding it when it first got big, because I thought it was a kiddie “franchise show.” It blew me away and still inspires me as a 3D artist. The visual style definitely grew on me as well. :)
One of my first memories of being disillusioned with media, having my hopes up and being let down was TPM. I went and saw it, kinda convinced myself it was cool…
Then a couple days later, someone was asking me about, and they asked what happened. I took a moment to think and finally had to come back and say ‘idk, I guess nothing really’.
I tried so hard, but poor Jake Lloyd was never given anything to work with, and Natalie Portman and Samuel L Jackson and any other actors who were hoping for some competent direction were hung out to dry too. Some of the worst line readings I’ve ever heard from professional actors.
Then there was JarJar… and watto… and the neimoidians… oh, and the utter lack of a compelling story…
Like you, though, I convinced myself that the bones were good, and then also that they were just getting warmed up and episode two would be a banger. Spoiler alert: it was not, though it had a few isolated moments as well.
That Naboo duel + podracing makes me think that movie is better than it really is.
Similarly, I feel the updated CGI really elevates The Force Awakens, but it’s just such a safe rehash of Star Wars, that I really hated every moment of it.
Joss WhedonAbram’s really did a number on the series, or maybe I just dislike that mystery box style of writing so much.maybe I just dislike that mystery box style of writing so much.
I felt like TFA was pretty straightforward but THIS, great description btw, “mystery box” style writing got SO BAD after that.
Their whole nonsense about “SuBvErTiNg ExPeCtATiOnS” was like watching perpetually disappointing YouTube unboxing videos. Maybe it’s great internet engagement bait, but it sucks for cinematic storytelling. It felt like the writers themselves had no idea where anything was going behind all the random “subversion.”
I liked the art direction tho…
BUT…Even if nothing else made much sense:
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Turning Luke into a cynical burnout ruined his character. That nonsense was a crime against storytelling.
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Finn should have been a Jedi. He got narratively robbed so brazenly after being set up to be an enduring, unexpected hero, and it pisses me off.
I’ll additionally add that Poe and Finn absolutely have insane levels of on screen chemistry.
It was a crime that they didn’t end up together.
I will say the Last Jedi is my favorite of the sequel trilogy. But what is done to Luke is really my only dislike of that section of the film. I’m actually fine with Ben Solo destroying the Jedi academy and stuff, but I don’t think Luke would wallow in despair like that.
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JJ Abrams, but yes. I will give TPM credit for production design and world building and for a few of the veteran actors’ performances.
TFA gave us a cast of characters you could do something with, and apart from sounding a bit too much like a Joss Whedon movie, performances that were at least not delivered by cardboard cutouts. I didn’t completely mind the plot being a rehash, but the contortions they went through to make the state of the galaxy exactly fit a rehash doomed the entire trilogy.
Totally mixed them up. Thanks!
Well, not camped but went to a midnight sale of a WoW expansion and there was a bit of a queue.
Did something similar for Doom 4, but never camp out.
Same. The only time I have ever waited in line for a game release was the midnight launch of The Burning Crusade expansion for WoW and I can’t say it was worth it. Certainly never did it again if that tells you anything.
Same here. I had been playing World of Warcraft for over a year and still hadn’t reached max level with my main character, so I spent a whole day grinding to finish off the last few levels. Then I walked down the street to my local Walmart and went to hang out in the electronics section until midnight.
This was back when Walmart was open 24/7. I asked an employee where they would be releasing the Burning Crusade Collectors Edition and they said they’d bring them to the electronics register exactly at midnight. So I started a queue next to their sole register. By the time midnight struck, there were about a dozen people behind me in the line.
It was the first and last time I showed up for a midnight release of anything. I personally thought it was worth it, but I never did it again. The next WoW expansion released while I was stationed overseas with the US military, so I had to order it online.
Friend and I did this and setup a lan party. Not realizing we’d be spending most of the night updating the game….
This was me as well. Which expansion did you do that for? For me, it was wotlk and it was really fun at the time but looking back, nothing particularly memorable happened. Except that I went home and had to install the game so I didn’t get to play till the next day anyways.
Just once for GTA 4 midnight launch. Only took 2 hours, mild weather.
Nearly did for the PS3 launch but managed to snag one on a digital storefront same day.
I did not camp out myself, but I did work a register when some early World of Warcraft expansions came out. People went crazy for them.
I remember one evening we had some Wrath of the Lich King collector’s editions available for the release event and there was a huge rush to get in when they opened the doors. I had this sweet old lady come through my line with one of the big boxes. She was very excited because she bought it for her grandson and she wanted to give him a special gift. She was all smiles.
A few minutes later, I had a guy come through my line. He looked a little flustered and had a regular edition in his hand. He said some old lady ran up, pushed him out of the way, hit him with her purse, then grabbed the last collector’s edition and ran to the front.
Pretty sure my sweet old lady customer was the same one that hit him with her purse lol. It was a weird night.
