Owner Daniela Caruana has expressed her determination to keep her late husband and ICC Malta Founder Matthew Caruana’s legacy alive by keeping the videogame and record store open.
Mr Caruana unfortunately passed away earlier this year, having fought a “long and hard battle” with terminal illness. The business’ website states that during his “dull days, he always mentioned that his main concerns were leaving his wife [Ms Caruana] behind and closing down ICC”. A few days before his death, Mr Caruana’s health situation prompted him to “take the difficult decision” to close the physical store in Iklin and instead operate as an online-only business.
After a few days of being offline, Ms Caruana decided to relaunch the business through a new website last month.
ICC Malta Founder Matthew Caruana / ICC Malta
Speaking to WhosWho.mt, Ms Caruana explained that the website launch was a “huge success”, to the point where the response was “much more than anticipated”.
The overwhelming reaction even led to what she described as a “small mishap”, as the digital infrastructure could not handle all the simultaneous visitors during the first few hours, and subsequently crashed.
“Following the website launch we continued monitoring the website and carrying out several improvements to the back-end to avoid similar incidents in the future,” she said, before expressing gratitude to ICC Malta’s clients for their “amazing support”.
Asked how she is coping with leading the business on her own, Ms Caruana said it is “rather overwhelming to step in and continue on Matthew’s footsteps”.
“I know all the effort and long hours he dedicated towards ICC, thus I will strive to keep it going so his legacy will live on,” she added.
“I am also lucky that I am surrounded by family and friends that have been very supportive during this transition,” Ms Caruana said.
She confirmed that ICC Malta’s physical store will remain closed and the business will continue to operate on an online basis.
“Thanks to the reputation that Matthew managed to build over the years, I am confident that our esteemed clients will continue to support us going forward,” Ms Caruana concluded.
Mr Caruana founded ICC Malta in 2004, selling videogames, gaming accessories, and vinyl records, as well as figurines and other collectibles. In the process, he did not only create a store, but an environment where “local gamers had the opportunity to share their views on games, debate, and above all discuss between friends”.
