Ray Luck moved to Invercargill from the United Kingdom when he was 5 years old.
He described himself as a "nerd kid", who always loved everything about computers.
While he really enjoyed growing up in Southland, he sometimes felt isolated as it was difficult to get access to games and computer parts at the time.
"I’ve been pulling apart computers and messing around with tech since I was a child — much to my parents’ anguish — and I’ve always wished that we had some kind of PC shop down here, because it was so frustrating.
"If I needed something, like a part, I had to order from overseas and at the time, shipping wasn’t as quick, either. I had to wait a long time before I could even get something in.
"I also didn’t really get out to meet many other people who liked that stuff, other than like my two friends from high school."
He also felt there was a lack of opportunities for youngsters like him to do around town.
His suspicions were confirmed after his experience working in retail for the past 10 years.
"All I saw [during this time] was teenagers hanging out around town and most of the time they just get a bad rap just for being around ...
"I’ve even been talking with a couple of guys in management over there [the mall] about having a space for them because the security guys are always rolling around and they often chat to the kids. Just having somewhere they can go and hang out.
"I think it would just be the coolest thing ever."
Mr Luck decided to take a leap of faith and follow his dream to open Orion PCs in the Connections Arcade [the former SIT arcade], between Esk and Don Sts.
He described the venture as a safe space for people of all ages to play games, connect with others and also have their PCs fixed.
"I wanted to create somewhere that they could come where they would be respected — we’re not going to judge them. They can come in, they can hang out, play some games with their friends ... They can bring their own devices and connect in as well.
"And, of course, we’ll also then start bringing in those parts we wanted to originally start out as — like the computer shop."
Mr Luck said they would be hosting games competitions and in the long term he also wanted to offer classes for people to learn how to build a PC.
"The idea is almost to be a PC tech hub."
The business opened last week and will operate from Wednesday to Sunday, 11am-7pm.
