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Madden Midnight Madness

As you may have already heard, EA SPORTS™ dropped the proverbial bomb on the gaming world with the release of its highly anticipated football game, Madden NFL 07.

To kick things off in style, my local EB Games held a memorable midnight opening that got slightly out of control … actually, I don't even know if the store's still standing. I'm going to go back this week and find it a charred ruin. So long as the Quiznos survived, all will be right with the world.

The crowds began gathering early.

Most stores usually open the doors at the stroke of midnight, but this particular EB began the festivities at 9:00 P.M. No one could actually purchase the game until midnight, but employees rotated small handfuls of people into the store to play the game, and to keep the crowd at bay, a band set up shop outside and played … music … or something. I wouldn't know because I arrived about 30 minutes after someone messed up the power supply.

The fans get excited as the hour draws near.

Without a band (more like a decoy), the crowd didn't have anything else to focus its attention on. Some kids chucked footballs across the parking lot and narrowly missed hitting cars. Some others hung out near their rides and reminisced about the Madden days of old, and some were just downright rowdy.

They wanted their copies as soon as possible and it didn't matter who they had to plow through in order to get them. Their ravenous eyes told grisly tales. Indeed, they had all killed before.

NFL memorabilia set the stage.

My brother and I were just hanging outside. We'd been playing the game for almost two weeks so we weren't nearly as hungry as our peers. I was tempted to start talking about the game, to go over the new features and assure some of these people that it's lots of fun, but I kept quiet for fear of being torn apart.

My brother jokingly remarked that I should've brought along our copy and waved it around. Clearly, he doesn't value my life.

Press Pass
After waiting for about fifteen minutes I managed to gain entry to the store before it opened, using my Xbox.com credentials as press. This further incited the zombies … err, customers, as they wondered why a plain-clothed dude in basketball shorts (hey, I represent this website in style) was allowed to penetrate EB Games airtight security before they could. However, they eventually lost interest and talked amongst themselves.

This bulky Foreman Grill reminded me of some game console …

Inside the store, I spied a used George Foreman Grill (I had missed hot dogs, apparently), two giant tubs of ice-cold soda, and six frazzled employees that busily carried rectangular-shaped boxes back and forth. As they unzipped them with straight razors, out poured copies of Madden NFL 07 for every system, and they were arranged on the floor in neat little piles.

In the Dark
Suddenly, and just because nothing ever goes according to plan, the parking lot lights were cut off, so all I could see were the creepy outlines of the people outside. Was this a Madden launch or Dead Rising™? I briefly flirted with the idea of asking some of them to press against the glass Dawn of the Dead style but thought better of it. Die-hard Madden fans are a rabid bunch. The less they're provoked, the better.

Ready for the hungry hordes.

With the clock ticking down to midnight, the employees held a quick meeting so that they could go over the rules. Two people were to sacrifice their very souls and go outside in an attempt to round up the customers that had paid in full.

Only they would be allowed in at first because they didn't need to be rung up. The clerks would just check off which version they preordered, dump it into a bag, slap them on their ass (not really) and send them home.

The Hour Arrives
Of course, this didn't work out so well, at least not initially. The employees did an excellent job allowing only five customers in at a time, but they hadn't paid in full. This resulted in some angry people complaining about how they'd waited in line for two hours and all they wanted was the game and on and on. They cried, but in the end, they had to go back outside.

Working late for the Madden launch.

After satisfying all of the paid-in-full customers (there weren't that many), the store began to operate as it normally would and things were apparently working out just fine. Then again, I left before the place closed (this particular EB stayed open until 2:00 A.M.), so I'm not sure if anyone's still alive.

What I do know is almost everyone was snatching up the Xbox 360™ copy, at least in the first half hour. It was refreshing to see so many people opting for the next-gen version. Congratulations to Microsoft on the brisk sales!

Also, good job to EB Games! With over 200 hungry people outside, they held their cool and managed to keep things under control. There are a lot of happy customers as a result.

Article by Chris Buffa, GameDAILY Senior Editor