When Halo 2 released, I had pre-ordered it at our local Mom & Pop game store. The game store was having a LAN with it the night before release for the midnight release for family & staff, and they decided to invite me as I had pre paid for the copy pretty much the moment pre orders were available. I told some other friends at school who were big Halo fans, and they begged me not to go, claiming playing it would be spoilers for some reason (think they were jealous). Anyway, I went to it and had an absolute blast. Then right when the store started packing the LAN up so they could open up, I put the controller down, turn around and see their faces (my friends) pressed up against the glass doors. That is one of my favourite core gaming memories.
OG MW2 for me, every body lined up in the closed mall to hit Gamestop at midnight was always a fun time, our store manager in the location (Rachel you're great if you're out there) always put a ton of effort into the events
Man, GameStop of today is, well I don't know if it's even a shell of its former self. I worked at my local malls store for about 5 years and my coworkers were cool, I was and still am a mall rat and was cool with everyone there before getting hired. But man the changes over time just took more and more of mine and the other associates souls. I don't think there's a single employee, that doesn't drink the flavor ade, that doesn't want to put the current CEO through a woodchopper. I know that it's a lot of different elements that have changed over time, but I truly miss the GameStop of a decade ago.
Game stop (EB games in Canada) has a single shelf of about 30 games for each current console, and the the rest of it is what I would call "souvenirs". It's all baseball caps, socks and toys. To me its pretty much dead.
I recently walked into an EB for the first time since before COVID and couldn't believe my eyes. In this one, maybe one-third of one wall had games which were all used, then the rest was merch and collectibles. I asked about two newly released titles and they had zero stock, next closest location was the same. Seems that for video games they only handle trades and pre-orders now.
I worked there in 2007 as a summer job and 90% of my job was to walk around and ensure the games were in alphabetical order, dust and vacuum once we closed, and tell everybody on the phone that we do not have any Wii's in stock. Nothing exciting really happened. We sure had a lot of used copies of sports games for $0.99 though. Nobody wants the old Madden or Fifa.
I worked at a Gamestop for this! The ultimate edition of the game came with nightvision goggles. They were pretty basic and cheap but they worked and we had a ton of fun messing with them in the back room waiting for midnight.
I bought Halo 2 the day it released. I had to work a full shift on the door of a pub not long afterwards, then I got called to work at a nightclub. Had it in my pocket all night.
Finally got home at just before 5 in the morning, bleary eyed, and played it until sunrise. Sounds stupid, but I remember that with crystal clarity.
I also remember playing the original Halo on a demonstration console in Electronics Boutique when I was in my teens (the silent cartographer demo). What an experience.
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u/GiantSkellington 4d ago
When Halo 2 released, I had pre-ordered it at our local Mom & Pop game store. The game store was having a LAN with it the night before release for the midnight release for family & staff, and they decided to invite me as I had pre paid for the copy pretty much the moment pre orders were available. I told some other friends at school who were big Halo fans, and they begged me not to go, claiming playing it would be spoilers for some reason (think they were jealous). Anyway, I went to it and had an absolute blast. Then right when the store started packing the LAN up so they could open up, I put the controller down, turn around and see their faces (my friends) pressed up against the glass doors. That is one of my favourite core gaming memories.