The Death of the Midnight Release
I’ve been standing outside this mall for almost four hours. It’s one in the morning. The line I’m in snaked around the building, filled with eager high school students, who prayed to whatever god would listen that nobody would ask for their ID.
The rain was crashing down, a typically cold Winnipeg night, and we huddled under whatever could save us from the downpour. We all were wearing thin t-shirts and slick jackets because we care more about looking cool then hypothermia. It was stupid and dangerous.
But it was fun. We were waiting in line for Grand Theft Auto 4.
It didn’t matter if you were a geek, a jock, or a kid from a rival school, we were all united in a common goal: Get GTA 4 and spend as much time playing it as possible before school started. Everyone standing in that line instantly became friends, banding together against the evil cabal of teachers, mean parents, and minimum wage game store employees.
Yesterday, I bought Resident Evil 7 online, downloaded it while I was at work, then played it when I got home.
No waiting in line, no freezing my pasty white ass off, no wishing I had more facial hair so I looked like an adult. I am an adult. The midnight release is dead. I can’t tell if this is a good thing.
I’ve bought Destiny, Far Cry 4, Transistor, and many other games online. The only physical copy of a game I bought this year was Overwatch, and I regretted it. I’ve been uprooting my life a lot this year, and when you do that, a game case is just another thing you have to try and cram in your tiny sedan.
Discs are fragile, they wear down with time, and once they are gone, then you’ve lost your game forever. That’s why I love buying games online: No matter where I go, as long as I have a computer with Steam installed on it, I can download and play my games whenever I want.
No fumbling around looking for a disc, no more rooting around in boxes, no accidentally crushing a copy of Watch Dogs 2 with a slow cooker (ok that last one is totally my fault.)
And yet, I still remember that cold, rainy day in 2008.
Buying a game just isn’t as exciting for me anymore. With GTA 4, I felt like I was driving home with the game of the century in my hands. I remember dashing up to my room, ripping off the cheap plastic wrapping, and practically slamming it into the Xbox disc tray.
I played it till 7 in the morning, I left for school, slept through all my classes, then went right back to shooting gangsters with Niko Bellic. Some students didn’t even bother going to school.
I realize that technology is moving away from physical media. I also realize the pitfalls of trusting your games to a service that could take them away at a moment’s notice. I have so many things that take up my time: School, work, parties, and quiet nights watching old Star Trek episodes with my partner.
Driving to a store to buy a disc is just a few steps too many. I just want to play video games, and downloading them is the easiest way to do that.
But I still miss the excitement of the midnight release. Call me old fashioned, but I think everybody should wait in pouring rain for a video game at least once in your life.
But I won’t be freezing my ass off for Red Dead Redemption 2.
I suppose it’s just something you grow out of.
