It’s National Video Game Day in the U.S., apparently, and people around the country are “celebrating” the “holiday” (if you can really call it that) on Twitter and in person. Brands like Pokemon and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles tweeted out the expected video game-related questions for their fans, but others had a little more fun with things.
T-Mobile, for instance, asked followers about their first video game crush, and Middle-Earth: Shadow of War‘s developers expressed their shame at (much like us) not knowing today was National Video Game Day.
Arrived to work not knowing it was #NationalVideoGameDay pic.twitter.com/BNZ08qObtA
— Shadow of War (@shadowofwargame) July 8, 2019
Fortnite streamer Ninja celebrated the day with what else but… McDonald’s? And Uber Eats? Getting fast food delivered to you is pretty “gamer,” huh?
Got my McD order thru @UberEats with $0 delivery fee today. To celebrate #NationalVideoGameDay McD & Uber Eats are giving someone my gaming setup! Share the meal youd want w/ #McDelivery #sweepstakes +tag me @McDonalds & @UberEats to enter for a chance to win #ad Rules in replies pic.twitter.com/86cmNGOISt
— Ninja (@Ninja) July 8, 2019
Predator Gaming, Acer’s gaming-focused PC equipment manufacturer, seemed to agree, encouraging players to acquire some greasy “gaming fuel.”
Us today. And maybe every day. #NationalVideoGameDay pic.twitter.com/QKWcI08HGS
— Predator Gaming USA (@Predator_USA) July 8, 2019
The Philadelphia Flyers hockey team tweeted a parody of Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire that shows the team’s infamously creepy charming mascot, Gritty, facing the Pittsburgh Penguins’ mascot, Iceburgh, in battle. Despite the accompanying “Gotta catch ’em all” caption, Gritty makes Iceburgh faint, so Gritty probably wouldn’t make a very good Pokemon (er, mascot?) trainer.
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Twitter Gaming asked followers how they were celebrating, which led to a GIF face-off with Xbox.
ALL the games pic.twitter.com/xEgWxrnYey
— Gaming (@xGaming) July 8, 2019
It wasn’t just big names that celebrated, though. Smaller brands even found ways to “celebrate,” to varying degrees of success. California-based cannabis company Island seems to have confused Super Mario Odyssey with Super Mario 64 or Super Mario Sunshine (or some other game that released more than a year and a half ago), and CastIronCrusaders encouraged Twitter users to “level up” with their vintage cast iron cookware, which is just barely related enough to video games to warrant the hashtag.
Treat life like a video game and level up with vintage cast iron cookware. #NationalVideoGameDayhttps://t.co/kcFZsIlhG8
— CastIronCrusaders (@CastIron_Ken) July 8, 2019
Clearly, National Video Game Day has been a day for us gamers to get the nationally-recognized holiday we’ve always wanted — and, uh, also, the McDonalds and skillet ads we… needed?
There was, however, some heart among all the promotion. Fans took the opportunity to tweet out love for their favorite games, the National Video Game Museum gave fans extra chances to play games from gaming’s history, and The Williamsburg Regional Library in Williamsburg, Virginia hosted a Nintendo Labo-building event for kids to try out Nintendo‘s carboard “Toy-Cons,” resulting in genuine smiles.
WRL Makers celebrated #NationalVideoGameDay a day early at yesterday's Year of Making activity. We used Nintendo Labo (and a lot of ingenuity) to build cardboard objects that interact with the Nintendo Switch! pic.twitter.com/jAaYwABHK0
— WmbgRegionalLibrary (@WRLibrary) July 8, 2019
