Viewpoint by Marley Malenfant/feature editor
I don’t have a lot of time to play video games.
So when I have some time to myself, I’ll usually watch sports or read.
On Nov. 7, a buddy invited me to the midnight release of the popular video game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 at the mall.
I accepted his invitation. I wanted to see what the hype was about.
When we arrived in the mall, I saw a long line of gamers.
The line included older people, college students and even some mall security guards. It was amusing to me.
I remember asking these two guys dressed like characters from the game why they came to a midnight release for a video game.
They told me each Call of Duty release is like the Super Bowl for gamers.
Not everybody watches football, but every year, millions of people watch the Super Bowl.
And in a lot of ways, they’re right.
It was like going to a Super Bowl party with buffalo wings and soft drinks.
People were firing Nerf dart guns at each other.
Scanning the crowd, I saw the looks of disgruntled girlfriends and wondered why they came to the release party in the first place.
My friend’s girlfriend told me it was worse than the Super Bowl.
After being at the mall since 10 p.m., my feet started to hurt, and I felt like the disgruntled girlfriend.
The line was slow, the food was gone and the dart game stopped being fun after 10 minutes.
Standing up, playing MLB 2K11 demos for two hours can only keep you entertained for so long.
My friend got his copy of the game, and we were out of the mall by 12:30 a.m.
I left the mall feeling cheated, thinking to myself, “That’s it?”
It was fun watching people, but I’ll never understand why anyone would stand in line for three hours to buy a video game.
Next time, I’ll order it online.
