Blog: The hottest game launch of the year

By Hitesh Uchil on July 27, 2010

StarCraft II is finally here and it’s glorious.

Tags: Dubai, Emax, Midnight Launch, Mirdif City Centre, StarCraft II, United Arab Emirates

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First Impressions

My reaction is

Over 400 gamers thronged to the midnight launch of StarCraft II for what will easily go down as one of the most memorable gaming moments in Dubai.

Possibly the biggest game launch since World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King (and in many ways better), the 26th July launch at Emax had gamers drooling at the chops to get a hold of one of the hottest games of this year.

We loved what Emax has done to prepare for the event. Not only was the Mirdif City Centre outlet cascaded with StarCraft II artwork, there were also plenty of activities to keep the fans busy — A LAN setup in the middle of the Emax store with the original game on display to drive a sense of nostalgia, a cutout of Jim Raynor where you can stick your head in and get a picture to take home with you, free cupcakes and coffee for registered fans plus lots of seats around for those who wanted to sit down and have a chat.

We loved that they didn’t go for the conventional ‘stand in a queue for hours’ gimmick but rather gave fans a chance to interact with each other.

If you were present at the launch, check out our ace reporter Nick Rego’s coverage of the event here.

Here are a few pics:

Hundreds of fans eager to buy the game

Liana Khalaf from Emax who helped put together this fantastic launch

The Lochal Archade crew were at the Midnight launch

Nitin Mathew, Marketing Manager at RED Distribution with Mohammed Al Khan from Gulf News

The StarCraft II registration desk

A StarCraft fan.

About Hitesh Uchil

Hitesh is a tech/games journalist and Business Development Manager for the Tbreak Network.

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Comments

Mohamed

i dont think this was the best launch ever….there were more people to pass their time than actual buyers…they simply wasted people's time…we had come to buy the game and not to have cookies, the cookies they offered was attracting crowd more than starcraft 2…total disrespect to the game

http://intensedebate.com/people/tbreaknet Abbas Jaffar Ali

Not the best launch ever but certainly the best so far of the year in Dubai. There were no cookies though, just cupcakes and they were delicious.

Mufaddal Fakhruddin

Oh, the cupcakes. So near, yet were so far.

http://www.megamers.com Nick Rego

There were COOKIES? :-O

I think there was a fair amount of of people there who had come to buy the game, and very few observers. After all, who's going to stick around until midnight for something they're not going to buy? Considering that we don't have too many game-related launches every day, this one was pulled off quite well – kudos to emax and RED!
Vishal

I had been over there it didnt seem over 400 people were present at the launch and dint make any sense of giving out Cookies i had attended the Midnight launch of the world of warcarft Lich King actually there were more than 600 people present at that time .The people who were attracted by only Blue Lights i really agree with Mohammed is a Disrespect of the Game.

http://www.megamers.com Hitesh

Since when is free food disrespectful to anything? The Lich King launch definitely had more people there (World of Warcraft has an unbeatable fan following) but I didn't like the idea of standing in a queue that long.

http://www.facebook.com/feroz.riaz Feroz Riaz

It was a good event. There is no need to whine (:P, or joke) about cupcakes and food! Just be glad that atleast we got a launch event.

It was nice meeting Hitesh and Nixter, unfortunately I didn't get the chance to meet Abbas :*(.

BTW anyone here who in the slightest interested in multiplayer should join this facebook group. You will meet me and fellow other players who are RTS fanatics or Starcraft junkies
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=12684045736…
http://www.facebook.com/feroz.riaz Feroz Riaz

"A LAN setup in the middle of the Emax store with the original game on display to drive a sense of nostalgia"

Actually the PCs weren't hooked at all. My friend and I wanted to play against each other but we couldn't as there was no router/Ethernet cables, I then checked control panel and saw there was no connection present!

Everyone who played on the PC where playing against computer, really a shame as they could arrange for 10pcs but not a routher!

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