The 12 Days of Drop Disasters: 2025's Most Spectacular Launch Failures
The 12 Days of Drop Disasters: 2025's Most Spectacular Launch Failures
Forget partridges and pear trees. This year, the only thing dropping was consumer confidence.
2025 was supposed to be the year retail figured it out. Instead, we got crashed websites, dynamic pricing scandals, and government investigations. Tens of millions of fans burned. Billions in revenue fumbled. And enough salt on social media to season every holiday meal from here to 2030.
Consider this our gift to you: a countdown of the 12 most spectacular ways brands turned hype into heartbreak this year. Grab some eggnog. You're going to need it.
On the first day of drops, the chaos gave to me: Nintendo crashing every major retailer simultaneously
April 24, 2025. Midnight. The Switch 2 goes live. Every single retailer buckles.
Target required users to re-enter payment info up to 100 times -then cancelled successful orders hours later. Best Buy launched 29 minutes late and kicked people from queues after hour-long waits. Walmart deployed an "invisible queue" with zero position info while anti-bot verification trapped users in infinite loops.
The damage: 2.2 million people registered for Japan's lottery alone. Within an hour, scalper listings appeared at $700-$1,000+ vs. the $449 retail price.
The lesson: When Vice calls your launch an "absolute shitshow and all-out war," you've achieved a new low in retail excellence.
On the second day of drops, the algorithms gave to me: Oasis tickets and a government investigation
The August 2024 reunion ticket sale wasn't just a failure -it was a regulatory event.
10 million+ fans from 158 countries tried to buy 1.4 million tickets. Queues hit 600,000 people with wait times exceeding 10 hours. But the real scandal? Dynamic pricing that jacked £135 standing tickets to £355+ at checkout with zero warning.
The damage: The UK Competition and Markets Authority launched an investigation. Four parliamentary debates followed. 50,000 tickets appeared on resale sites at prices up to £6,200 each -then got cancelled.
The lesson: When the Prime Minister calls your ticket sale "depressing," you've transcended commerce into politics.
On the third day of drops, the servers gave to me: Best Buy's Black Friday morning implosion
November 28, 2025. Peak Black Friday traffic. Best Buy's website simply... stopped.
Outages began around 6:30 AM PT and persisted for 2-3 hours during the most valuable shopping window of the year. Users experienced complete crashes, cart failures, and password resets that went nowhere. The damage concentrated on the East Coast -right where the money is.
The damage: At industry rates of $9,000-$14,000 per minute of enterprise downtime, a 2-3 hour outage during peak traffic represents an estimated $1-2.5 million in lost revenue.
The lesson: Your busiest day should not be your most broken day.
On the fourth day of drops, the backend gave to me: Shopify locking out thousands of merchants
Cyber Monday. The single biggest online shopping day of the year. And Shopify -the infrastructure powering Reebok, Mattel, Barnes & Noble, and countless others -had a full backend meltdown.
The outage began around 10:26 AM ET. Degraded service persisted until approximately 7:00 PM -8 hours of dysfunction. Merchants were locked out of their own dashboards, unable to update products, manage orders, or process anything.
The damage: Downdetector recorded 4,048 peak reports in the US alone. Approximately 50% of stores managed by one major agency were affected.
The lesson: When your merchants can't access their own stores on Cyber Monday, "degraded performance" is underselling it.
On the fifth day of drops, the bots gave to me: 4.4 million raffle entries for Travis Scott sneakers
The November 15, 2025 release of the Travis Scott x Fragment x Air Jordan 1 Low OG "Military Blue" wasn't a drop. It was a statistical impossibility.
Bloomberg reported 4.4 million valid entries -for what was likely only a few thousand pairs. The release was limited to travisscott.com only, no SNKRS app, effectively excluding most of the planet.
The damage: F5 Labs found 99.8% of traffic during major shoe drops is automated. One bot attempted 44 million "add to cart" transactions in a few hours. Real fans never had a chance.
The lesson: When your odds are worse than winning the actual lottery, it's not a drop -it's a marketing stunt disguised as commerce.
On the sixth day of drops, the scalpers gave to me: Pokémon cards and actual safety concerns
January 17, 2025. Pokémon TCG's Prismatic Evolutions release. Things got physical.
Singapore's Pokémon Center announced they would NOT sell in-store just 30 minutes before opening due to safety concerns -with 1,000 people already waiting outside. Stores received less than 15% of requested stock. Scalper bots reportedly swiped 42,000 items during one launch.
The damage: Elite Trainer Boxes with a $49.99 MSRP immediately resold for $400 -a 700% markup. Costco locations experienced actual physical brawls.
The lesson: When retailers are cutting boxes open at point of sale to devalue products for scalpers, the system is beyond broken.
On the seventh day of drops, the supply chain gave to me: 10 graphics cards per major retailer
NVIDIA's RTX 5000 series launch on January 30, 2025 was a masterclass in artificial scarcity.
One major US retailer reported receiving fewer than 10 units of the RTX 5070 Ti on launch day. UK retailers estimated up to six weeks for restocking. The $2,000 RTX 5090 immediately commanded $2,200-$2,800 from third-party sellers.
The damage: By April 2025, one major retailer had received "about 10 times as many cards as usual" -but still no RTX 5090s. Supply chain issues may cut production by 30-40% in H1 2026.
The lesson: "Verified Priority Access" means nothing when there's nothing to access.
On the eighth day of drops, the platforms gave to me: Coldplay crashing India's ticketing monopoly
September 22, 2024. Coldplay's first India performance in 9 years. BookMyShow crashed at 11:59 AM -one minute before the sale officially began.
Millions of simultaneous users overwhelmed the platform. Virtual queues formed and died. Error messages multiplied. Many who fought through the chaos still couldn't complete transactions.
The damage: Social media documented the carnage in real-time. BookMyShow issued an apology. A third concert date was added due to overwhelming demand.
The lesson: Nine years of anticipation deserves better than "site down" screenshots.
On the ninth day of drops, the scarcity gave to me: 12,300 PS5 Pros for the entire planet
Sony's PlayStation 5 Pro 30th Anniversary Edition was priced at $999.99. Only 12,300 units were produced worldwide. Each one individually numbered. Do the math.
Restocks sold out "within seconds to minutes" at every retailer. Elaborate restock strategies emerged -PlayStation Direct windows, Best Buy's 1 AM inventory shuffles, Walmart's tri-daily releases. None of it mattered.
The damage: Sony explicitly excluded the PS5 Pro 30th Anniversary from any UK restock plans. It now commands significant premiums on secondary markets.
The lesson: When you produce 12,300 units for a global fanbase, you're not launching a product -you're running a lottery.
On the tenth day of drops, the merch gave to me: a $30 bear cup reselling for $400
November 6, 2025. Starbucks releases the Bearista Cup -a $29.95 bear-shaped glass with a beanie lid. Chaos ensues.
Some stores received only 2-3 cups total. People camped overnight. The cup sold out "lightning fast" everywhere. Reddit baristas documented customers calling three times in two hours, then showing up at opening.
The damage: eBay resale prices immediately hit $400+ -a 1,233% markup. Starbucks issued a formal apology.
The lesson: When your $30 cup is funding someone's rent payment, you've lost control of the narrative.
On the eleventh day of drops, the tariffs gave to me: Steam Decks vanishing from North America
By June 2025, Steam Deck OLED models were completely out of stock in the US and Canada. Not from overwhelming demand -from tariff impacts on Chinese imports.
Valve issued a rare statement promising restocks "by end of summer." Users reported having items in cart three times before out-of-stock errors killed the transaction. Forum posts captured the frustration of "seconds to pay" before inventory evaporated.
The damage: The broader handheld gaming market was affected -MSI, Legion, and ASUS all raised prices or saw units vanish from listings.
The lesson: Sometimes the disaster isn't demand or technology. Sometimes it's geopolitics.
On the twelfth day of drops, the festival gave to me: Glastonbury selling out in 35 minutes
Glastonbury's November 2024 general admission sale for the 2025 festival tested a new random queue system. Tickets (£373.50 + £5 booking fee) sold out in 35 minutes. The April 2025 resale was even faster -19 minutes.
Despite the new system, users still reported "access denied" errors. The "two green bars" progress indicator frustrated many. And 2026? A fallow year with no festival at all.
The damage: Over 50% of resale tickets gone within the first 10 minutes. Multi-year tent investments remain unused.
The lesson: Even purpose-built queue systems can't fix demand that outstrips supply by orders of magnitude.
The Pattern: Same Chaos, Different Logo
Strip away the products and platforms, and every disaster shares the same DNA:
- Infrastructure built for Tuesday traffic handling a stadium-sized stampede
- Bot traffic representing 51%+ of all internet traffic -surpassing humans for the first time in a decade
- Brands creating artificial scarcity, then acting surprised when systems can't handle the demand they manufactured
- Real fans bearing the cost in time, frustration, and inflated resale prices
Global 2000 companies lose $400 billion annually from downtime. That's 9% of total profits evaporating because systems can't handle the moments that matter most. And 15-25% of customers who switch during downtime never come back.
The Path Forward
The frenzy will always be a feature. The chaos? That's a choice.
The brands that win in 2026 won't be the ones with the biggest servers. They'll be the ones who treat launch day infrastructure as seriously as they treat launch day marketing. Fair queues. Bot defense. Transparent communication. Fans first.
The technology exists. The question is whether brands will use it -or keep giving us content for next year's disaster countdown.
Here's to fewer crash reports and more successful checkouts in the new year.
Want to make your next drop the one people talk about for the right reasons? Let's chat.
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