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There used to be one of those in Laurel, MD called Galaxy Computing and they had to close their doors due to lack of customers. They had:

• Big-screen TVs (two or three?) with consoles parked in front
• 20 gaming PCs on a LAN
• Deals with game studios to provide games at a much lower rate, and in some cases prelaunch
• Advertising campaigns at local schools and whatnot
• Group rates for things like birthday parties
• lots of launch events - I saw the Baldur's Gate II launch event it was kind of sad
• participation in national tournaments (I watched some guys play Red Alert II in a tournament - crazy!)

They're making a comeback. They're usually called "LAN Centers" or "Gaming Centers" or perhaps throw in a "Cafe" somewhere.

http://www.igames.org/FindCenter.asp

1: If you plan on getting rich, invest your money and time elsewhere.
2: Folks come to socialiaze. Your computers must run well, but do not need to be cutting edge.
3: Keep costs low. Sounds obvious, but you'd be amazed at how many screw this up.
4: If you are not approachable or generally don't get along with people. Stay away.
5: Be prepared to not make a dime for 2 years. Budget accordingly.
6: Your place should look nice. Paint is cheep. Use it.
7: Make your pricing easy to figure out.
8: Locate where people can WALK to you.
9: Near Middle/High School = Good. Near College = Bad. College kids have no money.
10: Watch your employees. They should not be giving perks to friends.
11: Join iGames.org. Great member forums and info, plus some game licenses ONLY available there.
12: No margin in selling new games. Don't add that to your plan.
13: How tolerant is your significant other? This is a long painful trip.
14: If a location seems to expensive, keep looking.
15: Locate far far away from another cafe/center even if they stink on ice.
16: Advertise in every high school paper in your area.
17: At the start, hand out cards to customers where if someone else brings it in, the original customer get free time.

I'd say more, but you really need to join iGames.org (http://www.igames.org/) if you are serious. Also feel free to check us out. We're in the Notre Dame area in a city called Mishawaka. My place is called LanLizards (http://www.lanlizards.com/).

1. Be sure you really want to open a game cafe. If there is any doubt at all, don't do it.
2. Resist the urge to build your own PC's. This is a point of pride to all people like us, but don't do it. You will save time and money by leasing PC's from Dell or your favorite PC dealer and customizing them as needed. We leased with the option to purchase at the end for a good price on our 4 newest additions, but built all our originals.
3. Join iGames. They will help you with everything from tournaments to software purchasing.
4. Get 1-2 House Accounts for your local popular MMOGs and put the passwords in for them when they want to play. We got 3 City of Heroes accounts and they have been consistently played ever since.
5. Don't try to push away your teenage customers. They are the only ones we can get to keep coming back year after year.

• you know the players
• the players know the game and play it well
• the players are better than you so you can learn from them
• there are multiple players who like to talk smack
• an arial view of the game is incorporated into the view or you can watch multiple screens at once
• the game is interesting in the first place

I have dabbled with the idea of opening a gaming center. I have done much research and additionally called many game centers across the country for guidance. You can also become a member of igames for an enormous support system.

These guys are on the right track with 300 systems. You are far more likely to succeed with 100 systems charging $1/hour than with 20 systems charging $5/hour...even with the additional hardware costs.

But the equipment these guys are using is just plain stupid. You'd have to hope to catch lightning in bottle to make this pay off. The projectors are neat, I wanted 42" plasma's. However, the eyes fatigue with a screen size over 19 inches...and 19 inch monitors are cheap. The big screens are selling point at first, but in the end it's the visceral experience of LAN gaming that continues to bring people in.

And Alienware systems? ALIENWARE!? The name will only get you so far, and really just with n00bs. Dollar for dollar, you can custom-build better systems, or save a bunch of $$$ for comparative performance.

The sphere is neat, but at what cost? It would be a novelty seat...something people would do once, maybe twice at what would have to be a premium price. You'd get a line to use for the first few weeks/months...and then the hype would settle and the reality of the wallet would set in. Further, you could give the impression that your gaming center is overpriced.

Finally, and this is just my personal pet peeve with many gaming centers...I don't like the headphones. They keep the noise down, but they also isolate the player in an environment that is supposed to bring gamers together. My design had small rooms with 4-8 machines each. Then you can yell all you want that your teammate sucks for not covering your six.

A pretty good resource for how to and lots of helpful stff available (at a price) from igames.org