Best Buy Store to Hold Zombie Party for Resident Evil 5 Launch
Kotaku reports that a Best Buy store in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania will be turned into a haunted house for the launch of the Resident Evil 5 video game. Employees will even dress up as zombies.
On March 13, the Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania Best Buy will convert part of their store into a haunted house. They will be dressing up employees as zombies, turning their bank of televisions to eerie no-signal snow and even putting a person in a potato-sack mask and giving them a chainsaw, all to celebrate the launch of Resident Evil 5... and maybe sell a few copies of the game.
"You want to get away from midnight releases, that's stale, that's old," said Dave Partenio, supervisor of gaming and media at the store. "We want to have a premiere game party for this game."
And Best Buy corporate offices are keeping a close eye on the event. If they go over well, and the store's sales reflect that, than we may be seeing more theme release nights for games in the future. The idea would turn a long night of waiting in the dark with other gamers into a sort of party.
"It's all about the experience," Partenio said.
There were lots of parties at bookstores when Harry Potter novels were released that generated a lot of book sales. There's no reason it shouldn't work just as well for video games. It's a fun idea that could help get consumers into stores.
Kotaku 
