Wasn't witnessed, was me. I was at Game a few years back. New Super Mario Bros 2 had been out for a short while, and I was after it. I think it was just after Christmas, and all the kids were here to spend their money, which explains the queue going from the tills all the way to the store door (and it was a large store in a huge shopping centre). So I'm crouched by the 3DS games and I see a little boy (10 at most, probably closer to 8) and his mum alone, walking down here (I say walking, he was dragging her excitedly and she seemed to be taking it as well as she could, I guess she'd be happy when he picked what he wanted and they were back home where it'd keep him quiet and she could relax herself). So the shelves are still full of games despite the queue, but I finally find a copy of the game. Now, players will know the case is gold-yellow and pretty much every other case is a soft white colour, so it shouldn't be too hard to spot, and there's always a massive amount of 3DS games out. Either way, kid is next to me now and I finally scouted over every game and found a copy, when I notice that he's clearly doing the same scanning movements and looking for something, before walking back a meter or so to say they don't have any other copies and that I'd found the only copy they had left. I overheard him and the disappointment in his voice, and decided to stand up and get his attention, just a casual hello and saying I heard he wanted the game, me too, but here, he can have the copy. He was over the moon and she looked so pleased for him and with me. They got in the queue and I picked up Paper Mario Sticker Star. Now from what I hear it's not the best Paper Mario but I loved it, and it was my first of the series, as the others never interested me from what I'd seen of them. I later learned that NSMB2 was good and was fun, but wasn't much different from the first, with short levels meant for playing for example on a short tube ride. Perfect for the kid, and I enjoyed Sticker Star. Now, understand I've never been disappointed by a video game, so I would have been over the moon to play either game, but it got me thinking.

Back in the day as soon as I could move with coordination I've been gaming with my dad. I crashed a lot of cars and planes with the joystick back in the 90's, and I've had my fair share of losses when I couldn't aim in UT99 at the age of 4-5. But games have always brought people together, and even today my SO and I will play games together. We each bought each other stuff in the Steam Summer Sale to play together, making sure we had plenty of stuff to do. Until earlier this year I had more money than when I was a kid, so I could afford to buy NSMB2 some other day, but for all I knew that kid's Christmas present was the game, and he and his family saved all their spare money to make Christmas great. The clothing of the mum and kid suggested they were doing fine, but you never know, and you never know how important it is that someone gets something and what it means to them. I'm practically broke now, but saving scraps for the summer sale felt exactly like saving for a big game as a kid.

Someone on Reddit once posted a story of a guy I believe fixing his car for free because "today you; tomorrow me" and lived by it. As I've aged I've come to think similarly, and that on that day in particular the kid got his wishes granted right when it seems the last copy had been taken before his very eyes, and he went from crushed to elated, and I found a brilliant game series in one of my favourite franchises that I was finally drawn to by going for something different for a change, all because I got to the store 30 seconds before that boy and because I know that the characters we grow to love as children will often grow with us and help us along the way. Video games and my friends within them, both in their amazing stories and just friends I play with online helped me get over my depression in my time of need. Now that kid could well be approaching his teens; life's gonna get strange real quick, but Super Mario Odyssey will be here soon, and I bet he'll be first in line.