The Midnight Launch

I’ve been gaming since the tender age of three, when I picked up a Master System pad and showed remarkable skill at R-Type. Since then I’ve owned more consoles than I care to remember, spending absurd amounts on my hobby even into my current debt-ridden student state. I’ve been writing about games now for going on seven years, spent a couple of years podcasting about the topic and now I bore Twitter about the topic at great length. Yet despite all this experience, my past intertwined with the coming of console generations, one part of gaming still baffles me: the midnight launch.midnight_Full

Picture the scene if you will, a new game is coming out… and a pretty highly anticipated one at that. There is a chill in the November air in Glasgow, the stars litter the sky as most people are tucked in bed awaiting the next working day. Not our intrepid gamers though, who emerge from their dwelling of choice, heading with excitement to the game store of their choosing. They queue, chatter and chitter with equal measure before piling into the artificially lit shop of dreams. Pre-order receipt handed over with £45 and a shiny new game handed back in return. Scurrying back home with the game of the day they presumably play until morning, safe in the knowledge that they got the game first.

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Now that looks fun.

Why on earth would I want to do that? Let’s put aside the obvious issue of a group of gamers heading out for a new game or console at midnight being a mugger’s wet dream for the moment and focus on the realities. All this will serve to do is aggravate me, as I head out at mightnight to shop and still have to queue. I’ve seen footage of those massive queues and wonder what the people there think of when in the cold and dark. Do they ever think about what it could have been like ordering online? That time they could be in the arms of their partner; watching the best of cinema, playing a fun game or making passionate love. They could be excitedly looking at news of the game of their desires, or tracking the package online as it wings its way to their house for launch day. They could be checking online banking, smug at the amount they saved by buying online… even looking at budget games they can pick up with the money saved. Then the day comes after a good night’s sleep,  a hearty breakfast and dashing out on that crisp winter morning to college, university or work. Making plans with friends to meet up on XBL or PSN in the evening, bright and breezily heading home for a night of fun and games. Opening the door to your warm house the game sits on the floor, all ready for you to play.

Now, isn’t that a much better sounding plan than standing in the cold to get your game at a higher price for the sake of 8-9 sleepy extra hours of gaming?


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6 responses to “The Midnight Launch”

  1. van-fu avatar
    van-fu

    A gamer…, dissing other gamers? When did gaming become a class system, where certain gamers look down their noses at the antics of other gamers? I suppose one thing to remember is that if it is not for you, don’t diss the people who enjoy being part of an ‘event’.

    It’s not for me. On so many different levels. But my attitude is, do what you like, safe in the knowledge that I won’t judge you. I remember years ago talking to this guy who had set up tent in the middle of Oxford Circus, to be the first person to buy the Turok game on N64. If I remember rightly, he eventually changed his name to Turok by deed poll, and camped out again for Turok 3. Mad as a hatter. But camping was an extension of his videogaming hobby, that brought him so much joy. Joy I couldn’t understand. But he loved being part of the experience. And in the intervening years, many more people have come around to his way of thinking.

    If he read your piece, you would have probably broken his little heart.

  2. John.B avatar

    “If he read your piece, you would have probably broken his little heart.”

    He’s already swinging from a noose given how godawful Turok 3 and subsequent versions were.

    I’m not dissing the people who go there, I’m baffled by them. I cannot understand their way of thinking in any way shape or form and their insistence on queuing outside Gamestation more often than not in winter at midnight to get a game a whole 9 hours early is just so far outside my way of thinking that I cannot even put myself in their shoes.

  3. van-fu avatar
    van-fu

    Sorry to be pedantic John, but if you are not dissing them, what do you call your alternatives that you are spelling out for them? Shagging, buying cheaper online, having a good nights sleep instead. That to me sounds as if you think that they are wasting their time. Time that could be better spent doing more constructive things than attending a midnight launch. I might be out of touch, but that sounds like a diss to me. It might not be overt, like “Your mama is so fat, she has a weight problem. She can’t wait to eat”. But it still sounds like a diss.
    🙂

  4. Ramsden avatar
    Ramsden

    I once wound up at a midnight launch by pure accident. I shop at the 24-hour Tesco in the middle of the night because I’m antisocial and insomniac and like to avoid doing anything as already stressful as grocery shopping when I’ll be jostled by several hundred other people. This being a fairly small town at the bottom of Cornwall, I don’t even know why we have a 24-hour Tesco in Helston at all. I’m the only person in there that time of night who doesn’t work there.

    Anyway, I went out for a frozen pizza a few years ago, went into Tesco just after midnight, somewhat earlier than I normally would, and on a whim decided to go down the entertainment isle. I thought I’d look to see what DVDs and CDs were in the bargain section, I hardly ever get games in Tesco because they’re always more expensive than online. When I got down there, there was a small table set up with two bored-out-of-their-minds Tesco employees sitting behind it, with a massive stack of DVD cases next to them, and a cardboard cut-out of Yoda.

    They were there for the brand new release of the first Star Wars Battlefront. And nobody else. Small town, middle of the night, and most of the gamers here all congregate in the one small independent games/comic shop we have just off the main road in the middle of town. But management further up had convinced our Tesco to try and do a midnight launch because they were told Battlefront was going to be big. They were so happy to see me there in my jacket with the Star Trek logo on it that they assumed I was there for the game, and I wound up buying the PC version at full price out of pity for the poor bastards.

    I wish I hadn’t. That game was terrible. I’ve noticed that they don’t try and do midnight launches here anymore either, not even when Halo 3 came out. I guess Tesco learnt their lesson.

  5. Duncan avatar
    Duncan

    I love midnight launches!

    The excitement, the cold, the band of brothers knowing we’re all these for the same hype. It’s great!

    Impractical granted, but still strangely enjoyable. 🙂

  6. MarkuzR avatar
    MarkuzR

    I have two very different feelings towards this… the first being that I queued overnight outside Edinburgh Playhouse in 1985 to buy tickets to the upcoming Iron Maiden tour. I must add that I was thirteen at the time and, although it’s shameful enough to say that KISS were my favourite band at the time, it still had to be said so you didn’t think I was a mad Iron Maiden fan 🙂 It was actually quite an exhilirating experience – hundreds of people all excited about the same thing, all making friends and chatting to everyone in massive enthusiastic huddles… so it’s NOT the kind of thing your typical antisocial person enjoys. I also queued outside the London Astoria from 9am until the doors opened at 7am just so I could get the perfect vantage point for the Dream Theater gig as they had an open door policy on cameras that evening I wanted to make sure I filled my memory card with nothing less than spectacular shots. The point is, I’ve done it, so I can’t really slag anyone off for doing it.

    However… I would never do it again. I wouldn’t do it for a movie, I wouldn’t do it for a game and I wouldn’t do it for a band. I’m not sure I’d do it for anything, if I’m perfectly honest. I created a few scenarios in my head to see what would be important enough to make me queue outside… getting to touch Stoya’s buttocks in a thong… nope… get within bricking distance of Jamie Oliver… nope… be the first to own a 200″ SuperHD Samsung TV… nope… well… maybe. I’m happy enough to just wait until things are available without additional hassle, but I can see why others do it.

    Need to head off now, I heard Stoya comes into town in a few days and I want to get a head start!

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