Madden 09 draws midnight crowd

Midnight launch parties are a staple of video game retail, but some stores pulled out the stops for this week's much anticipated release of Madden '09.

The game was released at midnight Monday at 4,400 GameStop locations worldwide. At a Louisville, Ky. branch, a full party was the order of the night, complete with buffalo wings, an inflatable obstacle course and a live band.

A crowd of gamers — many of whom had to be up early for school the next morning — waited for the midnight launch of Madden '09 outside a GameStop store.

"A lot of people reserved the game and paid it off before tonight, so all they had to do was come pick it up at 12," said Tim Keeley, district manager for GameStop.

Gamestop's business model allows gamers to trade in their used games and game systems for money or store credit toward buying newer games. With releases like Madden, GameStop allows its customers to reserve the game months in advance and pay it off during that time. On a release night they are guaranteed a copy of the game.

One gamer even waited to the last minute to finance his Madden game, approaching the store at 11:30 P.M. with two duffel bags full of hundreds of games and a used PlayStation 2. GameStop employees spent the ensuing 30 minutes up to the midnight release sorting through his collection before awarding him a voucher for Madden.

The elite, eager crowd

The midnight crowd, though small in numbers as compared to other releases, was nonetheless an eager one.

"Man, hurray up — I've had relationships shorter than this," said a man in the crowd as he pestered store manager Chris Pauline to open the door.

Food, drink, live music and inflatable games — like this sumo contest — were part of the attraction at the GameStop event.

"They want the experience," Pauline said. "It's the same reason that people go to the movie theatres at midnight to see a new release."

"We got to get the edge up," said Mike Hornung, a midnight GameStop customer. "We're gonna be playing this as soon as we get home."

Hornung took advantage of the trade-in program, bringing several of his games back months ago to pay for his copy of Madden.

GameStop and other video game retailers offer to ship new releases such as Madden on their release dates, but the late-night gamers insist on buying it in-store.

"I come to GameStop to get all of my games," said Zack Amato, a teenage shopper who most likely had to go to school several hours after buying Madden. "I like shopping here. The workers seem to know everything there is to know about each game you want to buy."

Bill Yackey is editor of Digital Signage Today.