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
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I went to the midnight releases of Call of Duty Black Ops, MW3 and Pokemon Black and White 2. I was in college at the time so had a lot more time to play video games on release back then.
At 11:30PM, I remembered that Borderlands 2 would be releasing in half an hour, and I had a little time and money to spare, so I headed down to GameStop.
I didn’t really camp out, but I got there a little early and waited in line for a bit.
I remember this being quite common before digital music was a thing. There’d be a line at the music store for whatever new album would be out for a popular artist. It was great because you got to meet like-minded people that were excited enough about something to line up and wait for it, giving this sense of community that’s lost with streaming online. While I appreciate being able to summon any song from any era at an instant on my phone, I do miss those encounters with strangers that otherwise I never would have met.
That sounds pretty great, what a sad loss to society
No, but I worked at the Apple 5th Avenue store for the launches of both the iPhone 3G and the iPhone 3GS, where people camped out, and there were lines around the block both times
What an absolute nightmare that was
Went to a midnight release of Halo 3. Then it was a 2.5 hour walk home because no buses. So much excitement on such a tedious walk. Cant be good for the nervous system.
The only ones that come to mind are a midnight release for Super Smash Bros. Brawl in 2008 and one for Skyrim in 2011. I was working the graveyard shift in 2011 and went to work late to pick up the game so my wife could play it.
iPhone 4. First and last time.
I waited in line for 3 hours to get tickets to The Phantom Menace. I’d like those 3 hours back.
Actually it was with a group of friends so it was actually kinda fun.
I was going to comment this was my first one, too. But I got to go with my big sister and her friends, so it was really cool for me. Hanging in line in retrospect was way cooler of an experience than seeing the movie.
No, not really. The closest I’d have gotten to that is waiting in line for a movie, for which I had a reservation already. Anything you might want to camp out for will likely be available like, a week or a month later.
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.
My friend and I camped out for the original Xbox launch (I was only going to pick up Metal Gear Solid 2 which launched the same night). he had saved up his money from his job to buy the system, 2 controllers and 1 game. Now you’re assuming it’s Halo…no…he wanted Cel Damage. The game was a cel shaded twisted metal style game. That’s all he wanted. I convinced him to also pick up Halo because I had read good things about it in some gaming mag. I said I would go halves on it with him and call it an early birthday present.
We go back to his place and we play like one round of Cel Damage and then stay up the entire night playing Halo.
2012 I think Diablo 3 midnight launch.
Total disaster of a launch from blizzards server/network teams
I did go to the midnight release of Black Ops II, at the insistence of my friend who was very excited about it. I remember seeing the huge line and thinking “Really? For this?” They had about 1000 extra copies.
Pretty decent game. I’m a sucker for anything co-op.
Never. Nor will I ever do anything like that.
I haven’t personally done it, but I was working nights in HMV on the restocking crew when Skyrim launched. We had a midnight opening and laid on a bunch of extra staff to cover the heaving masses desperate to lay their hands on Bethesda’s latest masterpiece.
Six people turned up.
