Memo to companies, in re: A foolproof formula to get free publicity from American journalists. Prepare a new product, or new version of your product. Spread the word to your quirky, obsessive fans. Get stores to open up at odd hours to sell the new product. And then stand back and watch the uncritical coverage. (Krispy Kreme rode this formula to uncritical media coverage and stock-market riches, as the American Journalism Review noted.) Following that formula, some company introduced an NFL videogame whose name we forget (something to do with a sportscaster's name, maybe). And ESPN.com sent two reporters to two cities' videogame stores to tell its readers what a special day it was for the fans queued up.

"Better than Christmas," read the headline on Patrick Hruby's article. Hruby tries to play his story both ways, noting the absurdity of videogame obsessives while also catering to them:

When the Founding Fathers gave us the right to peaceful assembly, they probably didn't have this in mind. Then again, Jefferson and Co. probably didn't envision dudes in Stormtrooper armor camping out for "Star Wars," either. The price of freedom is what freedom brings—in this case, about three dozen guys (and they're almost all guys) camped around an Electronics Boutique, counting down the seconds till midnight, itching to snag the latest installment of a game that will deluge the nation's retailers in about eight hours. But never mind that. It's [name of a football videogame]. It's football. Why wait?

Hruby was in Arlington, Darren Rovell in New York. Rovell tells us that Reggie Primus was pleased to get his copy of the game at 12:01 a.m., "even though he started the line by plopping down in his folding chair a little after 2:30 p.m. on Monday. Nine and a half hours later, 87 more people had joined the queue behind Primus, all of them forced to wait until the stroke of midnight to get their copies of this year's version of the sporting world's most popular video game."

These stories are so formulaic because everyone waiting on line for [anonymous videogame] is obviously psyched about [anonymous videogame]. (Kudos, then, to the New York Times for quoting a guy who won't be lining up to buy [anonymous videogame].) The ESPN.com reporters didn't interview me because I wasn't at the stores last night. I was in bed, dreaming of hot, fresh donuts.