We moved the lines online

 

In 2004 (yes we’ve been around a long-ass time), I wrote Bah, Humbug & Digital Distribution, talking about the tensions between getting physical and virtual gifts. I’m yet to see a break down of the stats from Star Wars The Old Republic (SWTOR) but I’m guessing the physical : virtual is going to break new ground. 

Back on ’04 I was musing about the impact of virtual gifts on xmas – I still do, how many of you bought someone a dead-tree-book rather than a kindle edition so you could give someone an object (do they sell some kind of token you can give, like a card with a code on it, if not why not?)? 

The ritual I’d either forgotten about or something that was not such an ‘event’ in ’04 was the midnight launch. As the guys (and they all seem to be guys) on pod casts such as Mos Eisley Radio were lamenting many game stores did not have a midnight release event for SWTOR, which as the people are starting to note is a gamer ritual that some of the hard-core are starting to miss. 

There are multiple reason for why midnight release was not a big thing in the case of SWTOR: Digital Download / Amazon et al pre-ordering; but possible most of all the phased early entry process that was used. There are god management reasons for having phased entry, though for those of us that sat in popcap queue for a long time last week load balancing did not go perfectly (though possibly as well as it could). But, there did seem to be a lack of an event, a communal moment for many players – though as podcasters have noted some people shifted from standing in line to waiting in server queues on vent with their buddies – we always find a way to be together I guess. 

May the force be with you^TM….

Comments

[Dave Rickey]

1.

What was more annoying was finding that the Gamestop website claimed it *was* having a midnight launch party event, where you would arrive at 11pm to pay and receive your box at midnight, only to find out on arrival that in between we'd be run back out into the rainy December night "for security reasons". Meaning that the manager didn't want to pay anyone overtime to come in to help watch the store.

Since me and my stepson were perusing the used game racks with the intent of buying another $50-60 worth of merchandise when we were informed of this, you can see how this was not only incredibly rude, but a genuine lost opportunity to make extra sales. There were a couple of dozen people lined up at midnight (more than a fiew of which were sheepishly clutching light-sabers and/or wearing Star Wars outfits) so I doubt we were the only lost sales that night.

In fact, the only reason we were there at midnight at all was for the fun of a launch event, since my wife could easily have picked up the box the next day on her way to work, and I'm sure that everyone else there had similar motivations. Had we merely wanted the code before the grace period ran out, we could just have easily skipped the brick and mortar store completely and ordered from the Gamestop website, Amazon, or from EA directly. Gamestop is undercutting their own business model.

--Dave

[MardyCat]

2.

Yeah, kindle do gift card thing. You fan either send a code virtually to someone or print out a 'card' with teh code number to physically hand over
 (a very digitally immersed colleague still chose to personally hand me a printed dead-tree kindle gift card on my leaving day. There was something very sweet about the gesture that a virtual- hand over wouldn't have achieved. Maybe just because we were physically located that day, so virtual wasn't appropriate?)

Does sound like a huge missed opportunity though, the lack of physicsl midnight sales for swotr. Ppl queuing in SW getups would have been nicely TV newsworthy, especially for this time of year. 

[Ren Reynolds]

3.

Dave,
Yeh the guys on the podcast were saying they would have gone anyway - and I guess if you have gone all the way to a GameStop you may as well pick up something. Though if the numbers of people are right down I can see why it would not work not to pay the overtime, but not telling anyone till the last moment, that's just dumb.

[Ren Reynolds]

4.

Ahh, I thought there might have been some dead-tree involvement somewhere, makes sense.

[SuperEliteGames]

5.

I was never one for midnight launches.
I'm mostly one for first day patches.

[pre order games]

6.

There were a couple of dozen people lined up at midnight more than a fiew of which were sheepishly clutching light-sabers..There are god management reasons for having phased entry..