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
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.
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.
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.
In hindsight, it was probably impossible for the studio to satisfy us, but I wish they could have tried just a little bit harder.
Imaging in if in 1999, instead of TPM, we were given Rogue One. I could even see a really cool alternate history where all us saw the releases in reverse order. As in Rogue One, Episode 3, Episode 2, Episode 1. Each time get a little bit further back into the history while the origin remains a mystery until the end.
The two longest and most memorable waits I’ve done were for the Wii and Wii U.
The Wii was great. Was a very social, collaborative experience.
Got to the store probably at 6 or 7 am. Two people were in front of me in line. The first would show up in my circle of friends years later, and I didn’t even realize until going back and looking at the pictures. The other was an older gentleman getting in line for his son, and when his son did show up later it turned out to be a friend of mine. I just hadn’t met his dad before.
At first we were in the lobby, then moved to the garden center, eventually to outside the front entrance before noon. Employees didn’t really know to expect us or what to do with us.
Everyone had their DSes and we spent most of the day playing something or other. Toward the end of the night, when the crowd got bigger, I remember doing 8-person Bomberman battles.
It was a cold November day. By the evening, I was freezing and hungry. My parents and some friends swung by at different times to bring blankets, snacks, etc, and those felt like such exciting moments.
Fast forward to the Wii U. I got a preorder, but they said there weren’t enough preorders to do a midnight launch. Stubbornly wanting to relive the great time I had waiting for the Wii, that was enough to make me drive over to the next big town and wait at a different store.
For a long time, I think I’m the only one in line? Or maybe someone was before me. Idk. But the line didn’t build up until like, an hour before midnight. I talked to people, but didn’t really connect with anyone strongly.
The cold was bitter this time. I was layered up way more, but felt as tho I was barely hanging in by the end of it. Folks in line kept asking if I was alright, offering to hold my place in line if I wanted to go take a break and warm up in the car.
I don’t know that we did any multiplayer sessions, but it was cool at least to get 3DS streetpass hits all day.
After all of it, I could just as easily have walked into a store the next weeks and bought one.
So yeah, the Wii was a moment for me, the U was a failed attempt to revisit that moment (a lot like the systems themsleves, kinda). Then there’s the difference between being in high school, hanging out with friends in your home town, and being in college keeping to yourself.
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.
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!”
I camped out in front of a Blockbuster so I could buy a copy of Modern Warfare 2 on launch. I was one of the first people in the store so I got the special limited edition version that came in the the tin box.
I lined up to get the Wii on it’s release date. I went to Walmart at around 11 am to wait on the midnight launch. We were put in the garden center, and it was pretty chill. The guy at the front kept a list so people could go to the bathroom or to grab food without losing their spot. One guy brought a portable TV with a PlayStation and guitar hero, so we spent a lot of time playing that. I brought my DS, but not many people in line had one. It turned out to be a fun and memorable experience, but I’ve never waited in line like that again.
Husband and I camped out for the Wii when it first came out, at Target, I think it was Black Friday? Somehow everyone in line caught wind of how many were being stocked. So we were like number 16 in line or something and they had something like 20-25. so once everyone knew pretty much where they were, we all just hung out, and occasionally went to our cars for warmth and back in line after a while without any drama. It was a bit hectic once the doors opened but they queued us in kind of separately if I remember right, so it was pretty orderly. Nothing too cutthroat.
11/11/11
Skyrim, babyyyyy!
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.
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.
Never.
Waited for 4 or 5 hours for the launch of the original iPhone in 2007.
Waited in line for a Wii which ended up being totally unnecessary, they had plenty to go around at my Best Buy.
Got up bright and early and had my mom drive me to target for the game cube launch
I’ve done a lot of midnight movie releases, and a couple Harry Potter books releases
It was a bit of a spur of the moment thing, but I worked late at the time anyway, so when Skyrim came out I just swung by game stop after I got off work to get that at midnight
