JagBytes

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You didn't need a watch to know when the clock struck midnight last Tuesday amid the frenzied and much anticipated release of Halo 3.

It was reminiscent of a New Year's celebration. There were games, prizes, live music, bored security personnel and, of course, the final countdown, courtesy of the hundreds of fans that had lined up outside GameStop's Castleton Square Mall store as early as noon that day.

One of the eager gamers was Jared Tilco, who'd been camping outside GameStop since 5 p.m.

"I preordered the game a few months ago, and I was planning on just picking it up tomorrow, but the store called and told me if I didn't come tonight then I might lose my copy."

He's not alone. The worldwide midnight release included more than 10,000 retailers in the United States and, according to a report on GameSpot.com, an anonymous Microsoft representative estimated first-day sales of $170 million, which sets a record for initial 24-hour sales for American entertainment products.

Halo 3 is the third and final installment of the Halo trilogy that began with Halo Combat Evolved and Halo 2 for the Xbox, both of which expanded the range for graphics and game play as well as set records for initial 24-hour sales. Halo 3 continues the fight between Master Chief and the rest of humanity against an alien race called the Covenant.

IUPUI celebrated the game's release Thursday with the Computer Science Club playing host to its own Halo 3 launch. The club, which is now partnered with Microsoft, exists to promote involvement on campus from computer science and other related majors..

"We want to help bring computer science majors together," said Cory Hill president of the CS club. "However, we have a pretty wide variety of students, it's a good mix".

The free event was held in University College and offered three different terminals where students could play the game against one another. Prizes-including a copy of Halo 3-were raffled throughout the day.

Information about joining the CS club or future events can be found online at csclub.cs.iupui.edu.

Krishna Kumar is the Midwest Microsoft representative who oversaw the CS club's event. He, in conjunction with similar organizations on other college campuses, is promoting Halo 3's launch throughout universities in Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and Kentucky.

"This is the beginning of the academic year and we want to come in and have some fun and sort of set the pace for some of the things we want to have follow," he said.
Last year US sales of video game hardware, software and accessories totaled $12.5 billion according to a report from NPD Group Inc, a provider of global consumer and retail market information. The sales figures for video games exceeded the motion picture box office sales by $3.5 billion.
According to a 2006 report by the Entertainment Software Association, the average age of a gamer is 33, and the typical price for developing a video game is usually $20 million to $40 million.

Kumar was reluctant to give any specific sales figures from the Halo 3 launch but did make an observation that seems to reflect the mass hysteria: "Halo 3 is the absolute largest event in the history of entertainment media."

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