By Rob Crossley
The worldwide launch of Wrath of the Lich King is now responsible for Gamestop card-reader meltdowns across America, a San Fransico resident making an official noise complaint to the police, and the biggest launch event ever seen in London’s HMV Oxford Street.
Such was the excitement surrounding the worldwide launch of Blizzard’s second expansion pack to its sacrosanct World of Warcraft series. Midnight openings were scheduled in numerous cities, from Paris to Mardrid, Taipei to Mexico City. London, however, took the headlines.
A reported 2000 people had lined up at London’s Oxford Street HMV, where Blizzard’s chief operations officer Paul Sams and associate producer Lee Sparks were there to sign copies of the game. Although there was no official headcount, a HMV spokesperson said that the launch event was the biggest that the store had seen.
The Lich King Launch party in San Fransico, however, caused a different kind of stir. Merely two hours into the Gamestop Powell Street launch party, and the local police received a noise complaint from a shaken resident. This was not the case in any of the other official launch parties, which took place in 5th Ave New York, Anaheim California as well as Austin Texas.
Yet queues were building outside stores across America last night as that midnight deadline drew closer in, and when the game was offically up for sale GameStop’s credit card reader system began to creak under the weight. Soon reports came in that a number of fans had to be turned away from GameStop stores in Las Vegas, Kansas City, Madison and Fargo, due to a number of card readers no longer working.
