The world of gaming and consumer electronics kinda feels like a liminal space right now if you grew up during the ‘00s, ‘90s, or earlier decades. The brick-and-mortar locations that many of us would visit to pick up a new game or simply to wander around and kill some time are increasingly empty, destined for destruction or for uses far removed from what they were before. And as physical media continues to be squeezed out of gaming thanks to the convenience of digital distribution and silly stuff like Nintendo’s Game Key-Cards, it doesn’t look like that’s likely to change anytime soon.
If you’re looking to steep yourself in that strange feeling of seeing a world frozen in a state of abandonment, might I divert your attention to a set of photos from a vacant Fry’s Electronics store in Phoenix Arizona?
This emptied store came up on my radar while browsing Reddit’s r/LiminalSpace (an experience that pairs well with SomaFM’s Dark Zone station, I might add). Vast empty aisles and hanging signs advertising products that are nowhere to be found–it sure is a mood. And though the Aztec-themed stylings of this particular location use some different cultural affectations, its abandoned state reminds me of the Las Vegas section of Horizon: Forbidden West, with notably less water and fewer robot dinosaurs (I hope).
Unfortunately, this location is destined for demolition, so future Aloy will not be battling a Tideripper in here. Check out a walkthrough of this abandoned location here:
Fry’s Electronics started closing all of its stores on February 24, 2021, a victim of the massive shift toward online shopping and the impact of the covid-19 pandemic. Being an East Coaster, I never had the chance to check out one of these stores. We have plenty of MicroCenters here, but as one Redditor commented, MicroCenter “lacks the personality” of what we can see even in the shots of this abandoned Fry’s.
Elsewhere in the comments of the Reddit post highlighting the Phoenix Fry’s location, folks are shouting out the variety of themes Fry’s had across its various locations. A San Fernando Valley one was based on Alice in Wonderland. Another in Austin, Texas had music themes, with a piano-shaped entrance. San Jose’s had a Mayan temple motif.
It feels a bit strange to be basking mournfully in the liminal vibes of an abandoned big box store, since Fry’s was, after all, just another business like any other, a capitalist enterprise concerned only with amassing profit. Now the big chains are the food. Circle of capitalist life. I’m sure there’s an interesting academic article on that somewhere.