The second was the smell: old cardboard, microwave popcorn, and the particular musk of a basement where dreams went to respawn.

Video game store and record store, plus posters and comic books in a mall.

Inside, a man named Gary sat on a milk crate behind the counter. He wore a faded Chrono Trigger shirt and wasn’t playing a game—he was reading a used copy of Infinite Jest with a bookmark made from a Blockbuster card.

In a world where you can order a console with one click and have it delivered to your doorstep by dawn, you might wonder: Do we still need local game stores?