this post was submitted on 12 Nov 2023
44 points (100.0% liked)

Games

32443 readers
1492 users here now

Welcome to the largest gaming community on Lemmy! Discussion for all kinds of games. Video games, tabletop games, card games etc.

Weekly Threads:

What Are You Playing?

The Weekly Discussion Topic

Rules:

  1. Submissions have to be related to games

  2. No bigotry or harassment, be civil

  3. No excessive self-promotion

  4. Stay on-topic; no memes, funny videos, giveaways, reposts, or low-effort posts

  5. Mark Spoilers and NSFW

  6. No linking to piracy

More information about the community rules can be found here.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
44
What are some video games that had remarkably hectic public reaction at physical stores during release day? (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
12 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

I was reading how Dragon Quest III's release in Japan in 1988 led to almost 300 arrests for truancy among students absent from school to purchase the game.

I also vaguely remember reading about Western games that had very big queues at physical stores during their release. I assume these can only be heavily anticipated old games before online distribution took off. I checked up the wiki articles of Super Mario Bros 3., Super Mario World, Sonic 2, Sonic CD and Mortal Kombat II but saw no direct mention of queues or otherwise remarkable physical activity at stores on release.

What do y'all know about this?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago

Throughout the early 2000s to early 2010s most AAA game releases had midnight launches. I remember going to the midnight launch of the first WoW expansion and the queue at my local EB Games at 11:30pm was wild. Never seen so many people in a shopping centre so late. Some of the best memories were hanging out with my family in the queue for the games and the real liminal space energy the otherwise empty shopping centre gave.

The only thing similar these days are people camping out for a new iPhone.