Have you ever camped out or queued up for the launch of a game, console, or other media?
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.
I camped out overnight! Met new people, shared stories, and it was like regular camping but in a parking lot and no fire.
The campout was a lot more fun than the movie.
Another overnight camper here. We brought a long utility extension cord and got permission from the theater to use an external power outlet. We had laptops and set up a LAN. Keep in mind those days laptop screens (passive matrix LCD) couldn't do high motion FPS like games so we were limited to RTS games time Warcraft 2 and Command and Conquer.
Did I mention there were traintracks and a road crossing right next to the theater so that every 3 hours or so a giant long freight train would go by, and wake everyone up?
I had that exact same thoughts on the movie when finally seeing it as @[email protected]. We all talked about how cool the duel was and all pretended not to be disappointed by the senate scenes and JarJar existing.
My thoughts exactly.
I mean the Naboo duel is pretty cool though.
But yeah I'd be highly annoyed if I had to wait three hours in line for that movie.
It was so much worse than that. People had been waiting 16 years to see a proper cinematic continuation of Star Wars. There were some pulp novels, a couple of very weak kids cartoons, a pretty decent tabletop RPG with source materials, a few video games, and that was about it. For a franchise that was still iconic and incredibly popular despite lying fallow like that.
We got a more distilled version of George’s vision, and hoo-boy it just simply wasn’t very good. I still saw that movie six fuckin’ times (the last three at the dollar theater), but while there was plenty to digest and feed my nerdery, the story and acting just never got better.
Surely they were just getting warmed up though, and episode two would be better…
I'm not as much of a SW nerd as my friend, but according to him SW fans are eating good with the massive expansion of the Clone Wars in the past decade.
So the prequel trilogy is really mediocre to be very nice. But seems to me the shows after the Disney acquisition made gold out of that turd.
Far before the Disney acquisition, the Clone Wars tv series was actually really impressive and fleshed out the world SO MUCH. "Rebels" did the same for the original trilogy, but that might have been post-Disney.
The animators used filmmaking prowess with things like animating camera shots as if they were on a real film set, which lent a so-far unseen level of professionalism and production quality for a CG television series.
I felt so stupid avoiding it when it first got big, because I thought it was a kiddie "franchise show." It blew me away and still inspires me as a 3D artist. The visual style definitely grew on me as well. :)
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.
That Naboo duel + podracing makes me think that movie is better than it really is.
Similarly, I feel the updated CGI really elevates The Force Awakens, but it’s just such a safe rehash of Star Wars, that I really hated every moment of it.
Joss WhedonAbram’s really did a number on the series, or maybe I just dislike that mystery box style of writing so much.JJ Abrams, but yes. I will give TPM credit for production design and world building and for a few of the veteran actors’ performances.
TFA gave us a cast of characters you could do something with, and apart from sounding a bit too much like a Joss Whedon movie, performances that were at least not delivered by cardboard cutouts. I didn’t completely mind the plot being a rehash, but the contortions they went through to make the state of the galaxy exactly fit a rehash doomed the entire trilogy.
Totally mixed them up. Thanks!
I felt like TFA was pretty straightforward but THIS, great description btw, "mystery box" style writing got SO BAD after that.
Their whole nonsense about "SuBvErTiNg ExPeCtATiOnS" was like watching perpetually disappointing YouTube unboxing videos. Maybe it's great internet engagement bait, but it sucks for cinematic storytelling. It felt like the writers themselves had no idea where anything was going behind all the random "subversion."
I liked the art direction tho...
BUT...Even if nothing else made much sense:
Turning Luke into a cynical burnout ruined his character. That nonsense was a crime against storytelling.
Finn should have been a Jedi. He got narratively robbed so brazenly after being set up to be an enduring, unexpected hero, and it pisses me off.
I’ll additionally add that Poe and Finn absolutely have insane levels of on screen chemistry.
It was a crime that they didn’t end up together.
I will say the Last Jedi is my favorite of the sequel trilogy. But what is done to Luke is really my only dislike of that section of the film. I’m actually fine with Ben Solo destroying the Jedi academy and stuff, but I don’t think Luke would wallow in despair like that.
Well, not camped but went to a midnight sale of a WoW expansion and there was a bit of a queue.
Did something similar for Doom 4, but never camp out.
Same. The only time I have ever waited in line for a game release was the midnight launch of The Burning Crusade expansion for WoW and I can't say it was worth it. Certainly never did it again if that tells you anything.
Same here. I had been playing World of Warcraft for over a year and still hadn't reached max level with my main character, so I spent a whole day grinding to finish off the last few levels. Then I walked down the street to my local Walmart and went to hang out in the electronics section until midnight.
This was back when Walmart was open 24/7. I asked an employee where they would be releasing the Burning Crusade Collectors Edition and they said they'd bring them to the electronics register exactly at midnight. So I started a queue next to their sole register. By the time midnight struck, there were about a dozen people behind me in the line.
It was the first and last time I showed up for a midnight release of anything. I personally thought it was worth it, but I never did it again. The next WoW expansion released while I was stationed overseas with the US military, so I had to order it online.
Friend and I did this and setup a lan party. Not realizing we’d be spending most of the night updating the game….
This was me as well. Which expansion did you do that for? For me, it was wotlk and it was really fun at the time but looking back, nothing particularly memorable happened. Except that I went home and had to install the game so I didn't get to play till the next day anyways.
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 camped overnight for The Phantom Menace tickets. We were not allowed in theater property until 6am release day, but we were allowed on the sidewalk loading up to their property at 6pm the day before release.
When they let us move up to the door we figured someone would walk over to us and lead us to the door... nope the manager stood at the doors and yelled across the parking lot and beckoned us. It turned into a mad dash.
The sidewalk turned and went up a hill, those of us nearer the end of the line were closer to the entrance than the front of the line. We just ran down the steep hill and moved way up in the queue. I was wearing a kilt, I felt like Mel Gibson in Braveheart as I ran towards the door.
The people that had been near the front were complaining we cheated, but they were the ones that started running first. If they had walked up nice and orderly like we learned in kindergarten they would still have been first.
Anyways, I saw TPM 9 times in the first 48 hours.
My friends thought I was nuts for seeing it six times during its first and dollar-theater runs. There was so much interesting stuff to unpack...
...except the plot or acting (barring Ian McDiarmid and Liam Neeson).
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.
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.
In highschool a few friends of mine waited to get the final Harry Potter book when it was released. We all got a copy and then I think I finished it that night so I talked with one of my friends about it the next day at work. Great fun but a little embarrassing to admit now. Fuck J.K. Rowling
Same! Though I was a bit older. Wanted to finish it right away so that it wasn’t spoiled for me. And these days I feel the same as you do.
Nothing wrong with liking it then because you didn't know. If you never have anything you cringe / regret / embarrassed about when you are younger you either have done nothing or learned nothing.
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
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.
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.
When I was a child my parents took me to a midnight release reading of probably the fourth Harry Potter book. After some woman read aloud the first chapter, at midnight, everyone was allowed to buy the book. It was very fun for little me back then.
These days it's a complicated feeling, tainted by Rowling's behaviour.
We did that for one of the books. We even invited the kid down the street to go with us, for a Tuesday Midnight release on a school night. He told us his Mom said it was all right and off we went.
We had a great night, ate dinner, wandered around the store (the friend had never been in a book store before), and finally bought the book at midnight, and headed home.
We got to his house, and I walked him to the door, and knocked. His Mom answered, and I said, "Here he is, everything went great, he had fun!"
And she said: "Oh! I thought he was in bed. I hadn't heard from him all night, I just assumed that's where he was. Oh, well, thanks!" And shut the door.
She'd never known that her kid was gone all evening long and until about 1 AM, and wasn't even concerned about it.
Yup! Waited in a three hour line at GameStop to pick up my pre-order of Tears of the Kingdom. I was close to the front (10 people back) and they had extras of the Amiibo of Link, and the collectors edition and said they would be selling them first come first serve. I got the last of each, besides my pre-order. Was pretty cool!
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 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
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'm thinking of queueing up for the Steam controller. Does that count?
I can top that.
I queued for steam. the software. over night.
Back in 2003 when steam launched, hosting was still a bit tricky, and serving software to a ton of people at once, was not as easy as it is today.
When steam launched, you could download just the steam client like today, and install stuff via steam. But it was very slow and buggy as hell
So a couple days after launch, they started to release steam bundled with CS 1.6, so you didn't need to install it via steam.
But that was of course a much bigger download. And a TON of people wanted it.
So they published it via a download service that integrated a queue, so they could still provide some reasonable bandwith to the people downloading.
I remember that I joined the queue in the evening before bed, let the family computer run over night, started the download before school, and the download was roughly finished when I came back home.
fun times
I went to the midnight release for Portal 2. My GameStop had more people there for Mortal Kombat though. And by more I mean I was the only one there for Portal 2 and all 7 other guys were there for MK.
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.
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.
We queued, this is, my wife did...
We were hunting for concert tickets, and as the online share was gone within seconds, we had to get tickets from the bands' office. We drove into their area in town rather early, and then we saw a queue. I told my wife: "That must be the ticket queue, you go out and join, I find a place to park, and we meet in the queue or at their office."
Turned out that finding a place to park in that area was basically impossible, and when I finally arrived at the ticket office much later, she had already gotten the tickets. And I had dropped her off just in time - the guys behind her got the very last ones. We did take the bus to get back to the car.
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.
Yeah, went to a midnight release of the Wii and also did a midnight release/smash bros tournament.
We played Melee, and whoever won the tournament got to buy the first Brawl disc. I didn’t win, but my best friend made it to the semi finals. And yes, items were turned on.
Was a good time with a couple of friends.
No. I did do pre-orders and stop by to pick up my game on launch day though, but I haven't done that since the 1990s.
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.
Split screen coop Halo was the bees knees. We did the midnight launch for Halo 2 and played it all night, then had to go to class the next day.
Never.
I was once in the city at night with a friend and it happened to be the midnight release of the xbox 360 and i was like: hey let's go and get one I saw a lot of people waiting there and was lile: huh, turns out this really isn't for me
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.
iPhone 4. First and last time.
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.
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.
My usual MO is getting things when they are discontinued. And cheap. Turbografx, Sega Saturn, Virtual Boy, Game.Com. I have them all. Virtual Boy was $20 at Target.
The only time I got something when it came out was the Gameboy Advance. But I pre-ordered it. No camping, just went in and picked it up.
I got the PS2 for Christmas the year it came out, but it was out for almost 2 months at that point, plus it was a gift, so I didn't have to camp for that either. I still love that thing.
11/11/11
Skyrim, babyyyyy!
Not "camping out" as much as "stalking". My work colleagues and I staked out different stores, looking for a PS2 on release. Then, for the PS5, I followed a Twitter account that monitored availability until I scored one.
Might not count, but I camped out to buy two Blackberry Storms from Verizon when they came out. Existing subscribers could get them for like $300 each. Turned around and sold them for $800 each.
Oh wow. I remember those! Personally, I liked being able to 'click' the screen. Too bad BlackBerry was slowly dying at that point.
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 GTA 4 midnight launch. Only took 2 hours, mild weather.
Nearly did for the PS3 launch but managed to snag one on a digital storefront same day.
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
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.
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!"
2012 I think Diablo 3 midnight launch.
Total disaster of a launch from blizzards server/network teams
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.
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.
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.
During that time when the LOTR movies were first coming to cinemas, people were camping outside to get premiere tickets. While we were all in the target demographic for said movies, having read rhe book and all, we found it a bit laughable considering how important it was to some people to see the movies on the premiere rather than just waiting a day or two...
Well, a couple of friends and I decided to ensure we got premiere tickets as well, so we brought sleeping bags and beer for our overnight adventure.
Except we weren't there for LOTR. We got premiere tickets for Shrek 2, just because why not. We were the only ones there. 10/10, would recommend.
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.
Never camped over night or anything. But I did go to the midnight release of Smash Brawl, Gears of War 3, a few Pokémon games, and most recently the Switch 2. Switch 2 was the most fun, as everyone in line was in the same boat. Everyone missed release day pre-orders so we were all commiserating about the process. Everyone had their Switch with them and people were playing all sorts of things.
Gears 3 was probably a close second. The Gamestop I went to absolutely broke street date with one single copy, and had it set up on a 360 outside the store with 4 controllers, so you could play it before it even came out. As soon as they opened the doors to let people in the store, I went up to that TV, quit out of multiplayer, and played a round of Beast mode for the first time ever, a few hours before official launch. It was great.
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.
My dad took my friends and I out to queue up for the.midnight launch of black ops 1. He had to go in and buy copies for us cause we were to young. But it was super fun, just a bunch of excited kids talking about the new game. I normally dont talk to strangers but we were all just so hyped. I dont think ive ever been more excited about a game than that release it was my entire life at the time.
Closest I ever got was seeing opening night of Tron: Legacy. I went two weeks in advance to pick up midnight showing tickets and they had already been sold out.
I’m not much for FOMO
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.
Context:
In cologne Germany there is a huge carnival culture, historically carnival is sorta anti establishment, but for a variety of reasons in post ww2 cologne carnival is the establishment. So the Karnevalsvereine have shows/plena called Karnevals_Sitzung. Because these events had lost their anti establishment air, at some point a reaction formed called the Stunk_Sitzung (roughly grievance session as opposed to carnival sessions) which re focused on anti establishment satire, both satirizing main stream carnival and broad local to global politics. This event then became the de facto cultural institution in terms of carnival satirical stage show running several shows weekly throughout the entire season (Nov-Feb/March).
Story:
Getting tickets for this show for a weekend close to the end of the carnival season (the season ends with the main parades and festivities)requires ordering tickets in person on the day the tickets go on sale, with the ticket offices opening 9am lining up at 10pm isn't uncommon, and I have been part of such a line. Although it is also common for the spot in line to be transferable, so I did a shift roughly midnight to 5am at which point I went home to bed and someone else did the last 4h shift and bought tickets.
Noup, i have enough patience to go on with my life and wait comfortably in my home for a sale or at least when the bigger rush has passed over. Most of those rushes pass in a few weeks and few weeks are almost no time at all.
Queued up?
Not really. When Skyrim came out years and years ago, I was able to reserve a copy with the Alduin statue, and I put 300 hours into that game. One of the best values ever.
I waited in line, in the cold, for Skyrim on PC. In other words, I waited in line for a CD key and Steam installer disc; the full game had to be downloaded.
I once queued up outside the local Aldi for a PC. Those were the days when they had decent machines at hard to beat prices. There were quite a few people before me when I got there about an hour before the store opened. Luckily, I got my PC because they had plenty of stock. It was a pretty decent machine too. This must have been in the early 2000s. Pretty unspectacular, overall.
Queued for an hour for the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Other than that, not really.
I waited in a midnight pick-up line for Halo 3. And the game wasn't even for me.
When I worked for a company that made after-market 12volt bluetooth car kits, they made us wait in the line to get the OG iPhone for testing.
I used to see some movies on their Friday evening release. Back when theatres still sucked, but slightly less than now. There'd usually be likes. Generally not huge ones with what I was seeing.
I used to work in GAME a couple of decades ago in the UK. Did the Halo 3, WiiFit and one of the assassin's creed midnight launches, all crowds were great vibes.
I'd never do it myself, but it looked like good fun for those involved
Twice. Once for the launch of the GameCube which had a midnight launch. There was essentially no queue for that
Second was in the run up to Christmas. We do one big present for each kid at some point and I had to queue for a very limited number of PS3's in the country from about 3am. We knew there were some coming to a local store but it was very limited.
Nearly got in a fisticuffs with an attempted queue skipper. Prick. He was behind me so it didn't directly affect me and he kept saying as much and telling me to relax but fuck that for a game of soldiers. I wasn't going to let him steal someone else's further back.
Stood in line for like 7 hours for the release of the (I think?) 5th harry potter book, and got it just after midnight
I do it once in a while for stuff I'm excited about. Not really to "get it first," but more to have an experience I can remember and hype myself up about it.
In high school, I worked at Walmart, and I got a pretty nice (I think 10%) employee discount on everything including electronics, so when I heard we were getting a shipment of Xbox 360's that night, I decided to wait for it. Some friends joined me while I waited and everyone else waiting was very friendly. We all talked about what we were excited to play and how cool the features were (at the time). They just told us to hang out around the electronics section, so as people showed up we all kind of knew who had been waiting. Around 11:30 they told us to form up a line and a guy who showed up about 15 minutes earlier tried to get in towards the front. I had never seen a group Walmart customers work together before, but everyone ran the guy off haha.
I did it for the original Switch because the day after I had a flight between the US and Korea, so I figured playing the new Zelda would be a good way to eat through the time. I had a preorder so that kind of killed the excitement around the uncertainty of getting it, but it was still a good time.
I most recently did it for the Switch 2. It was actually pretty difficult to find any local stores selling it without a preorder, and none were doing midnight releases. The only place I could find was Staples that was selling them at opening the day of release. I knew they wouldn't have very many in stock, but I figured I would wake up early, go to the store and if the line looked short enough, I'd camp out until opening. I got to the store at like 3:30 am and there was one guy there... Was cool to get to hang out, talk games, drink coffee, and watch the sun rise.
nope never. not for a game, not for concert tickets, not for some black friday thing. I am very much the type where if there is a line I nope out.
No.
I went to the midnight release for Skyrim and RDR2, decided to quit while I was ahead haha
I remember a Skyrim release party at the local game stop. We all hung out and got our games and the store ended up giving away a bunch of promotional stuff like cardboard stands and the like. It was a good time. I can't imagine wading through a sea of people anymore for a release like that. Digital has changed a lot.
No, beyond a few discount bin games, I have downloaded all my games since the early 2000s, long before I had money to buy new games myself.
Never. Nor will I ever do anything like that.