Growing Up a Gamer in 80s and 90s South Africa

The world felt bigger then. Or maybe it was just harder to reach. Growing up in South Africa in the 80s and 90s, gaming was not as easy as walking into a shop and picking up the latest release. It was a world of grey imports, borrowed cartridges, and bootleg copies passed around like treasure.

The Early Days – Arcades and 8-Bit Wonders

The first taste of video games came in smoky arcades, tucked away in shopping malls or corner cafes. For many of us in Cape Town, that meant Wonderland at N1 City or the Wonderland in Tygervalley. These places were more than arcades. They were temples of flashing lights and digital dreams. The hum of machines, the clatter of tokens, the unmistakable sounds of Street Fighter combos and Mortal Kombat fatalities filled the air. Older kids ruled the best machines, pulling off impossible moves while the rest of us watched, waiting for a chance to prove ourselves. The hum of machines, the flashing lights, the clatter of tokens falling into metal trays. Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, and Metal Slug ruled these dens, where older kids hogged the best machines while the younger ones watched in awe, waiting for a turn that might never come.

At home, if you were lucky, you had a Golden China console or the aptly named Family Computer Famicom clone. Cartridges came with names in broken English, sometimes crammed with 999-in-1 promises that rarely delivered. Yet, these machines sparked something, a love for the pixelated worlds hidden within their plastic shells.

The Console Wars Reach Our Shores

By the 90s, the Sega vs. Nintendo battle was raging overseas, but in South Africa, it was a different fight. The SNES was something we only read about in EGM and other backdated magazines we found in Paperweight stores. Consoles were expensive, and not every game even made it to our shores. Some kids had a Mega Drive, but many stuck with a well-worn family PC. DOS games like Doom, Duke Nukem 3D, Monkey Island, and Quest for Glory were the real kings, passed around on copied 3.5-inch floppy disks with handwritten labels. Consoles were expensive, and not every game even made it to our shores. Some kids had a Mega Drive, others a SNES, but many stuck with a well-worn family PC. DOS games like Doom, Duke Nukem 3D, and Monkey Island were the real kings, passed around on copied 3.5-inch floppy disks with handwritten labels.

PlayStation changed everything. Official games were expensive, and many relied on renting or swapping discs with friends. Another way to enjoy games was renting them from Mr Video or corner video shops. Walking into one of those dimly lit stores, scanning the shelves filled with plastic cases, and picking out a weekend’s entertainment was an experience in itself.

One of my most imprinted memories is from holidays in Port Elizabeth. My parents took me to Mr Video and rented a PlayStation along with Gran Turismo, Silent Hill, and Resident Evil for a week. It was the time of my life. Days blurred into nights as I raced through circuits, braved the fog-filled streets of Silent Hill, and jumped at every creak in Spencer Mansion. That rental PlayStation became more than just a console, it was a gateway into entire worlds, ones I never wanted to leave. Because of the cost of original games, many relied on renting or swapping discs with friends. The real wave of bootlegged gaming came with the PlayStation 2. Modded PS2s were everywhere. Before many of us even saw an official copy of a PS2 game, we had stacks of burned discs with handwritten titles. Swap Magic, mod chips, and sketchy installation guides were part of the experience. If you knew someone who could mod a PS2, they were a hero. Dodgy electronics shops had entire walls lined with copied games, some with barely readable labels. We took the risk, hoping each disc would boot up without the dreaded red screen of failure. It was gaming at its most rebellious, and it made every successful boot feel like a victory.

LAN Parties and Dial-Up Dreams

PC gaming exploded in the late 90s. Counter-Strike, Quake, and StarCraft turned living rooms into battlegrounds. Friends hauled their chunky CRT monitors and beige towers to each other's houses for all-night LAN parties. Cables snaked across floors, energy drinks kept the exhaustion at bay, and the glow of screens was the only light source.

But it did not stop there. As we got older, so did our ambitions. What started as a few mates crowding into a small room evolved into full-scale events. We pooled money together to rent conference rooms in hotels, dragging our rigs into spaces meant for business meetings and turning them into digital warzones. We booked hotel rooms too, because by then we had realised that sleeping on floors was not the badge of honour it once was.

The setups became grander. 100mb switches replaced dusty hubs. Office chairs replaced kitchen stools. The snacks got better, though the energy drinks remained the same, and beer got added later. Nights turned into weekends, weekends blurred into memories. There was something special about those marathons of gaming, surrounded by friends, locked in competition and camaraderie, knowing that once the weekend ended, reality would return. But for those few days, nothing else mattered. Just the next match, the next round, the next game.

Dial-up internet brought a new kind of suffering. The screech of a modem connecting, the fear of a phone call kicking you offline mid-match. Playing online was a privilege, one that came with the risk of a parent shouting about the phone bill.

Gaming Wasn't Just a Hobby, It Was Survival

Gaming in South Africa during the 80s and 90s meant adapting. It meant making do. You learned to fix scratched discs with toothpaste. You figured out how to clean cartridges by blowing into them even though it probably did nothing. You swapped games like currency, lending your best ones only to those you trusted.

Looking back, it was rough. But it was ours. And somehow, in the struggle, in the waiting, in the endless swapping and modding and fixing, it made the games feel even more special.

More than pixels and polygons, it was a way of life.