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!

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. :)

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.

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.

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.