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
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 🤣
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.
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.
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.
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.
2012 I think Diablo 3 midnight launch.
Total disaster of a launch from blizzards server/network teams
Not for a game, but for Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. Waiting outside in downtown Boston with a bunch of other Star Wars nerds who had waited their entire adult lives for this moment was a better experience than the film itself, by a longshot.
edit - there are a few of us in this thread with the same experience. If you weren’t there, you really can’t imagine what it was like growing up with the original trilogy and the hope that someday maybe there would be more. It’s hard to express how disappointing TPM was. In hindsight, it was probably impossible for the studio to satisfy us, but I wish they could have tried just a little bit harder.
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.
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.
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.
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.
11/11/11
The closest I ever came was Black ops 2, I went to the midnight release and then played with my cousin all night long on it. but it wasnt really camping, it was showing up an hour early and waiting for our pre-order copy.
