The Saturday Mall Gaming Run: Gone But Not Forgotten
This was especially during the PS3 and Xbox 360 era, the Wii era, the PSP and DS era. One of those windows in gaming history where the retail experience felt genuinely exciting. New releases all over the place, demo stations set up to play around with, shelf after shelf of cases you could pick up and read the back of. Online shopping wasn’t really much of a thing yet, and that meant the only way to see what was out there was to go and look for yourself.
So I went, usually on a Saturday. Tygervalley Mall was my destination, and I had a route.
The route always started at CNA.
There was something about walking into CNA that just felt right. Soft carpets underfoot, the smell of books and stationery hanging in the air, a quieter atmosphere than most of the other shops. It wasn’t purely a gaming destination, but that was part of the charm. You’d browse the magazines, maybe pick up a gaming publication, and just ease into the day before things got more serious.
The gaming magazines were a big part of the ritual. Many of them came with demo discs, which were their own kind of treasure. One disc that really sticks with me had an extended gameplay demo of the Witch Doctor class in Diablo 3. I remember watching it and genuinely not being able to believe how insane it looked. That’s the kind of thing a demo disc could do; it could take a game you were vaguely aware of and turn it into something you absolutely had to have.
Some magazines were stuffed with HD trailers instead. That sounds ordinary now, but at the time, having a disc full of high definition game trailers to watch on your television at home felt like a proper event. Especially for people like me who had poopy Internet with low data caps.
From CNA the route continued. Musica was always a highlight, and not just for games. They sold DVDs, Blurays, and music CDs, and the thing that made it special was that you could walk up to the counter, hand over any CD from the shelf, and ask to listen to it on the in-store players through the headphones they had set up. Just like that. No obligation to buy. You’d stand there listening to a full album before deciding. That kind of experience just doesn’t exist anymore, and I genuinely miss it.
Most of the stores also had demo stations. The consoles were usually loaded with a disc containing multiple demos, so you’d get a menu and pick what you wanted to try. Some options were trailers only, which was a little disappointing, but most were actual playable demos. It wasn’t unusual to lose a good chunk of time at one of those stations without even meaning to.
The run was always a solo mission. I wouldn’t have been able to take my time and carefully go through everything with someone along. This was methodical browsing, done at my own pace, on my own terms.
Most of the stores I visited sent out weekly promotional booklets: BT Games, Incredible Connection, Musica, and others, usually tucked into the Tyger Burger community newspaper that came through the post. I’d go through them carefully, marking anything worth investigating. They were a proper way of knowing in advance where the bargains might be hiding.
The best find I ever made on one of those runs was a sealed copy of Dead Space at BT Games for R99, which works out to roughly six dollars. This was not long after the game had released. They were running a clearance sale and only had a few copies left on the shelf. I didn’t do the rest of the run first. I bought it immediately. Some deals you couldn’t risk leaving behind.
Not every run ended that well. There were dry spells where the deals just weren’t that great. The bargains came in waves, and some Saturdays you walked the full route and came home with nothing. Those days were quieter. But even then, the walking and browsing had its own value.
Midway through the route, or sometimes at the end depending on how the morning had gone, there was the food court.
The food court at Tygervalley had an arcade, which was reason enough to spend time there. Some of my favourites were Daytona USA, Marvel Super Heroes vs Street Fighter, Spinmaster, and Mortal Kombat 2. They also had pool tables and those coin drop machines where you fed coins in hoping to nudge a pile over the edge and collect tickets. Getting enough tickets for anything worth having required a truly unreasonable amount of patience and coins, but that never really stopped anyone from trying.
Opposite the arcade was a bar, right next to the tenpin bowling lanes. The arcade entrance sat directly next to one of the mall entrances, which back when I still smoked cigarettes made it conveniently placed for stepping outside. It was a strange area of the mall, bowling and a bar and an arcade all in the same space, but it worked somehow.
The food court routine was simple. Get something to eat, sit down, and go through the options. Budget was always tight, so I had to decide carefully. If I’d picked up a few booklets and had a shortlist of things to consider, this was the moment to think it through properly. Unless something had already grabbed me earlier in the run, in which case the decision was already made and lunch was just lunch.
Not every mall run was about games and shopping though. Sometimes it was just about being there.
I still remember one particular sunny walk down to the mall to buy a Nintendo DS Lite. I brought headphones and listened to the radio from my cellphone. The DS Lite box was small, so I didn’t have to carry a big, heavy console back home.
At the time, I was dealing with a lot. Health issues, depression, IBS, anxiety, all of which unfortunately persist to this day. The mall run was a break from all of that. Gaming has always been a coping mechanism of sorts for me, a way of stepping out of whatever is heavy and into something manageable. Those Saturdays gave the week something to look forward to, and that mattered more than I probably let on at the time.
I knew that era was special. I just didn’t know how completely it would disappear.
Gaming is mostly digital now, subscription based, downloaded and streamed. I don’t think there’s a single store in my mall that still stocks physical games. Musica, CNA and most others are gone. The magazines are gone. The demo discs, the kiosks, the weekly booklets, the whole physical ritual of it, all of it has quietly stopped existing.
The arcade is gone too. The bowling. The bar. That whole area of the mall that used to feel like its own little world has been replaced by something else, something colder and more practical. I go to the mall now for food and the cinema, and that’s about it.
I understand that technology moves on and convenience wins in the end. But there is a real sadness that comes with it. Not a crippling one, just a quiet awareness that something genuine has been lost, and that most people probably didn’t notice it going.
Some rituals leave a mark even after they’re done.
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