Illogical Camping…and pizza.
It’s something of a mystery, midnight launches. They do strange things to nerds and gamers (please excuse the word, I know It’s blasphemy). In any other industry (other than grand opening of ikea where three people died from being trampled ), it creates mass panic. Where is the logic? Logic. OK lets use Vulcan logic:
Vulcan Logic says that if you wait patiently you will be served. It also dictates that if you wait till morning to purchase the product (if you preordered it) you will get yours and that you will have had enough sleep to enjoy the console gaming experience.
Right. Logical, on the surface.
The real world truth is that OTHER people do not obey logic. OTHER people do. If loads of OTHER people go to a midnight launch then they will be sold out or all the good games will be anyway, OTHER people will already be further than me, in this game or will already be higher on the leaderboards online. Which is BS. So LOGICALLY I’m FORCED to camp out at my local game.
This is deep logic based on chaos theroy and basic maths. Kind of.
I’ve camped out a few times, sometimes it’s gone horribly wrong, but sometimes it’s worked out ok.
When I camped out for the gamecube I waited outside dixsons from 5am, with my best friend at the time, Nick, it was REALLY cold the shop said they ‘might’ open early but didn’t open till 9.23 - 23 minutes late. To add insult to injury WHSmiths across the road opened at 8.30 and were selling the console. But I had preordered at dixsons, so I was screwed. –this was a bad experience, I had no entertainment other than banter (which only lasted 2 hours before the cold slowed the brain down).
Moving forward….
The last campout I went to was the PSP, which was handled in a much better fashion. I was first in line and started camping oout at 9.45 for a midnight launch My fellow attendees kept the line we talked lightly about accessories and cool upcoming games and of course we speculated about the PS3. Which was fun. Near to midnight we were all asigned a number (i got number one) and were sold psp’ in that order (which was a brilliant system). This is how it should be done I was in and out by 12.29 and home by 12.45. It was like a hot knife through butter, smooth and tasty.
Ok so that is a little silly, but seriously why do we camp out?
It’s cold. it usualy rains. the staff are rude and someone always tries to cut in (something which is possibly worse than insulting my mother). Plus everyone always thinks they know more information than you and someone always starts the most stupid rumor imaginable.
But, when it all boils down, we love it don’t we? It’s the excitement the adrenaline hum as the minuets count down. The manager with his jangling keys, the random DS games we play. It’s such a good feeling, it’s an experience that has to be experienced.
So how do we make the experience better, faster, stonger? Simple.
1. First come first serve. -This does not mean all rush in! 
The staff at the store assign people a number and serve them in that order at the till!. 
2. Security! Someone to clear arguments (smash rumors to pulp) and break up fights.
3. Promt opening of the store 15 mins before midnight.
4. Outside storage heater. It’s cold get a clue.
5. Free water. -you get thirsty
6. To add to the last point the ability to stay in line while you go to the loo, water makes you pee.
7. Someone should get pizza. They deliver to launches if you ask nicely.
So Camping out needs to be researched carefully; it can work, it just needs a little Vulcan Logic and a little common sense.
I’m crossing my fingers that the future launches will be as good as the PSP on at the same store, please cross your fingers. And send me a blanket.
Plus pizza, you can never have enough pizza.
Paris