Killer Gamers

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Say what you will about gamers, but I have to say from where I was standing I've never seen such a good group of people I didn't know.

 

Last night I decided what the hell, I'll go to Game Stop and pick up my reserved copy of Halo:Reach.  Normally I don't buy into the hype nonsense (be there at midnight for the release!!) but I'd had coffee in the afternoon that day so I was up anyway.

I went expecting to see the Game Stop parking lot full and instead found that Game Stop and the entire stripmall leading into the Hannaford supermarket parking lot was jammed up.  This however wasn't the craziest thing - there was literally a line (and not single file, we're talking a swarm here) wrapped around the building.  Another 50 people and we would have been around the entire perimeter.

Some of these people - I should say, most, were there since 8pm (for a midnight release).  You had all kinds - some were in army fatigues, completely with silk-screened "UNSC" (Marine corp in the game) t-shirts - you had teenagers and you had a lot of parents there either by themselves or with kids a little older than mine.  Imagine a group of 150+ die-hard Halo fans (a rather bloody, violent game) at midnight waiting for the doors to open.  These people were the friendliest, easy-going people you could ever hope to meet.  Everyone was helpful (indicating where you needed to be).

The entire line made it into and out of the store in 10 minutes. 

Yes, the entire line.

Every gamer who left the store, clearly thrilled to have their standard, heroic or Legendary Edition (complete with Halo character bust) game a big smile or a "See you all on Halo Reach in a few!"  I know it sounds kinda "gay" for lack of a better term, but given the amount of violence, lack of tolerence and just social unrest in the world, I felt obligated to share with you these people who spend hours virtually killing each other were in fact, amazing people.