8 Coolest Things Gaming Doesn’t Do Anymore

There is perhaps no better display of nerdy passion for a franchise than not just rocking up day one but hour one. For a certain pocket of time, midnight launches were gathering points for gamers of the local area to stand around in the cold outside their local store waiting for the clock to strike and for their pre-orders to be fulfilled.

And whilst these were low-key gatherings of nerds, there were also large scale events. The countdown to Halo 2, for example, could've been deemed silly in it's grandiosity if not for the fact it was instantly justified by the game becoming the "biggest 24 hours in entertainment retail history".

But then the changes began to occur in the next decade. As the industry began to supply every game via a single button push on their respective console storefronts, there was literally no need to journey from the comfort of your own home.

Video game launches feel bigger than ever because of social media, but it was remarkable to seeing the trending growth of full-blown publisher-paid-for party launch events suddenly be scaled back because of digital distribution.

Then again, whilst waiting in a queue and having to then get home to play doesn't sound glamorous, you still might get to grips with the game quicker than the time it takes to download most major release these days.