How far will you go to buy a new PC graphics card? Edward Arciga was desperate enough to camp outside the Best Buy in West Los Angeles to try and secure one.
“You gotta make that sacrifice,” he said after spending a cold night outside the store’s entrance, trying to sleep in a foldable chair.
Arciga wasn’t alone. Dozens of other people also camped through the night at the same Best Buy in the hopes of snagging Nvidia’s RTX 3080 Ti on launch day.
It sounds ridiculous, but the GPU shortage is so bad that PC users like Arciga say it's the only way to buy a new GPU. Unlike previous graphics card launches, which focused on online sales, Best Buy decided to exclusively sell the Founders Edition for Nvidia’s latest GPU in stores only. So when Arciga heard the news, he immediately pounced. This time, he wouldn’t need to contend with online scalpers snatching up all the goods; he would stake out a spot in-person.
“Everything is going online. It makes it harder for people to get a graphics card,” said Arciga, who’s spent months trying to buy a new graphics card. “So when the sale is in-person, it’s like your only real chance to get one."
He drove over an hour to get to the West LA Best Buy store, and began his wait at 9:22 a.m. on Wednesday morning—nearly 24 hours before sales began. "If there was a long line, I wasn't going to stay. Then we got here at 9:22 and I was like, 'There's nobody here. Perfect,'" he said.
Others soon joined him. By around 3:30 p.m. on Wednesday afternoon, 64 people were lined up outside the store. Best Buy employees would later disclose that they would likely only have 64 RTX 3080 Ti units on hand during Thursday’s launch. Hence, newcomers to the line had a slim chance of obtaining a card.
The limited supplies caused at least a few customers to get desperate. “People offered to buy our seats. They said, ‘We’ll give you whatever you want. $2,500 for a seat,’” Arciga recalled.
The Founder Edition for the RTX 3080 Ti itself costs $1,199. However, Arciga refused the offer. He’s hoping to use the GPU to play Call of Duty: Warzone.
Other customers continued to line up through the night and into the morning, despite the 64-unit cut-off. By 7 a.m. on Thursday, the Best Buy in West Los Angeles had attracted over 200 consumers, creating a massive line that wrapped around the store.
“I knew there was almost no chance to get a (GPU) online. There are too many people using bots to buy them. This is the most reliable way to get one,” said a customer named Joseph, who began waiting in line at 9 p.m. on Wednesday night.
Joseph, who preferred to keep his last name private, even brought a sleeping bag to help him get through the night. Still, he described the experience as “torture.” “As you can see, there’s not a lot of social distancing going on in the line,” he said. “There are no trash cans.”
Others, like Everette Fuqua, began waiting in line at about 3:30 a.m. on Thursday morning. He’s been trying to buy a new graphics card for months to build a PC gaming rig for his son. “They (the graphics card) have been impossible to get since they came out,” he said.
Fuqua also refuses to pay the inflated prices scalpers on eBay have been charging for PC graphics card. So with few alternatives, he decided to wait in line, despite the limited supply. GPU makers "should plan better,” he said. “It’s not like they didn’t see this was coming.”
Unfortunately, most of those in line came away empty-handed. The line began to disperse around 7 a.m. as Best Buy employees notified everyone that the store did indeed only have 64 units in stock.
“This is bullshit,” said one customer, who narrowly missed out on receiving the GPU after waiting since 3:40 p.m. Wednesday afternoon. He declined to be interviewed.
A separate customer named Dave was the 67th person in line, and waited for 14 hours. He’s a 3D artist and game developer, and desperately needs to upgrade from his GTX 1080 GPU.
“It’s super important that I get one,” he said. However, he’s hopeful future GPU sales will occur exclusively in stores, which could help consumers buy the products at normal retail pricing. “This is like the only way you can get one because bots are way too good. Unless you are playing that game, you cannot get a card," Dave said.
In the meantime, others are willing to pay big bucks for the GPU. One person who identified himself as a cryptocurrency miner was offering to pay $2,000 or more for the RTX 3080 Ti as customers waited in line on Thursday.