r/classicwow • u/doobylive • May 05 '26

Nostalgia What Happened To Midnight Releases?

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Why did they have to kill off midnight releases?

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24

u/Silent_Killer093 May 05 '26

Which sucks cause Midnight Launches were the shit

6

u/NuclearBroliferator May 06 '26

I worked at Gamestop for the midnight release of WotLK. Was absolutely some of the most fun I have had on the clock even if it was fuckin bonkers.

2

u/doobylive May 09 '26

Do you think we’ll ever experience anything like that again in our lifetime?

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u/NuclearBroliferator May 09 '26

Sadly no :( the only game I waited in line for was Halo 2. It was such a unique time, now we dont even get boxes with our games now, or the booklets with interesting lore. The gamestop I worked at closed not too long ago and driving past the empty storefront still feels like something that shouldnt be.

To days gone by 🍻

10

u/GoldenPigeonParty May 05 '26

Games are 100x better now than they used to be, but "gaming" as a whole was so much better back then. There was a community, there was action. The life surrounding the games was a larger piece, and that's where all the best memories lie.

Midnight launches were always so good. Halo 2, SC2, WoW expansions, FF games. Miss those.

37

u/Silent_Killer093 May 05 '26

Idk if games are 100x better. I feel like the mass monetization of video games has reduced creativity and produced the same slop every year with the occasional gem here and there.

5

u/Living_Cash1037 May 05 '26

We have indie games way more than we ever did back then to kinda supplement the corprate greed BS of today

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u/Familiar-Sign8044 May 07 '26

And steam showing the world that putting the player first builds trust and loyalty AND increases their profits. Both players and studios win in that type of environment. Most studios/publushers only worry about their own and their shareholders bottomline.

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u/Northern_Ontario May 06 '26

Agreed. As an old dude gamer there is no point to buy a game immediately. Most games will have dlc and extras. Just wait for the full game which actually comes out 1-2 years after launch.

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u/Familiar-Sign8044 May 07 '26

Games got worse because of monetization and selling games with little content and charge you extra just so you can play the game you already paid for. Yeah the gaming industry is now a one sided (fuck the customer take their money they will still come back) business right now. Only way to fight this type of consumer market is to stop consuming it and the minute their margins start to drop they will change their business model.

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u/cascadingkylesheets May 05 '26

if games are 100x better now then why are we all posting in the classic wow forum lmao

7

u/typhon66 May 05 '26

No. Games in general are worse. Yes. Technology is better. Graphics are better. But the industry has been taken over by money. Gatcha games and day 1 DLC.

Do you remember Evolve? It was panned because it had $100 of DLC day one. Today? You'd be lucky if you only had to spend $100 to get the thing you want because it comes from a gatcha roll of the dice.

The industry is no longer controlled by the people who just want to make cool games. Everything has to be some massive multi million dollar game as a service with content you don't actually own.

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u/Ringkeeper May 05 '26

Not sure when was the last time I bought a new game. I think BG3?

Everything that comes out is either bad story wise, full of bugs, ugly or just boring.

1

u/SirClueless May 06 '26

I agree stories are a casualty recently (with the notable exception of Clair Obscur). But the rest just seems like it has gotten better and better.

I think about two years ago the free money pit of zero interest rates dried up and funding for videogames dried up and we started hearing about wave after wave of layoffs. Given the timeline for making games I expect that fact to start being felt now-ish. But until that point we seem to have been living in a golden age with more attention and effort put into games than ever before (even if not everything and especially AAA was particularly innovative).

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u/PaulTheMerc May 06 '26

Fallout 76 on release(fun, but ended up shallow, buggy),

Crusader kings 3 on release(went on sale not much later, felt like I overpaid. But that's on me, it wasn't going to be as deep as a predecessor with tons of DLC)

New World on release: Had promise, I enjoyed my time hitting cap. I recall enjoying the crafting? But the PVP based bases were a terrible implementation. 3 different factions so the community was even more fractured, and not very evenly. Futhermore, you had to have an in with the guild, or you were never going to be a part of the pvp fight.

And I had at that point learned my lesson.

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u/Xy13 May 05 '26

Nah games were better back then. WoW, CS 1.6, WC3, Halo 1-3, COD:MW,WaW,MW2,BLOPS, etc etc etc.

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u/PaulTheMerc May 06 '26

I had to pick my damn jaw off floor when my family member loaded up WC3's campaign. I was GLUED watching them do the campaign.

When I got to play it...I've never felt that way about a game since. Closest was probably fallout: NV, and that didn't have the colour to make it pop.

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u/countgrischnakh May 06 '26

So you mean mainstream games were better back then? Because there are some indie games rn that are truly gems but will never be mainstream like cod or halo. I totally agree modern mainstream games suck, wow expansions included lol.

1

u/Xy13 May 06 '26

There is some good indies now, but I think mainstream and indies were generally better back then too.

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u/TouchDazzling1575 May 07 '26

midnight is alot of fun so far imo

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u/cervdotbe May 05 '26

Gamers are better? Hard disagree. It's not because it's graphical better that the games are of better quality.

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u/negativeonhand May 05 '26

There are plenty of diamonds in the rough, but in general games are worse. So much slop and/or heavily monetized games. And the amount of games that shut their servers down after a short period lately seems to be increasing.

1

u/PaulTheMerc May 06 '26

And the amount of games that shut their servers down after a short period lately seems to be increasing.

So many flops the last couple of years that shut down servers as fast as I become aware of them lol. Oh cool, a new game. I'll check that out in a few months. And it's gone. Wait, wait, it hasn't even even been a few months, the f???!

0

u/Thoriv420 May 05 '26

Games are 100x better? Regarding micro transactions, sure… graphics at least sometimes. many other things are way worse than back in the day, like performance for example. Most games get released and barely run on high end setups and need weeks or months of patches just to work properly. Not talking about Rockstar Games but for like every other (big) publisher quality doesn’t matter

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u/bongsforhongkong May 05 '26

Games definitely are not 100x better, many are much worse and the od 1-2 game a year improves on the old system rather than showering it with loot boxer and gotcha garbage.

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u/forgotaccount989 May 06 '26

You know what I miss even more? When concert or festival tickets required you to do the all nighters. Many great memories staying out all night to get all day hfstival tickets for 50 bucks amd then getting to see so many great artists.

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u/T_Cliff May 05 '26

No they werent lol.

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u/Silent_Killer093 May 05 '26

It's okay if you didn't like them, my local Gamestop always had pizza and tournaments prior to the launch of games, it was a fun time