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PC Baangs In America

Posted by michael on from the bang-bang dept.

VonGuard writes "Ahoy hoy! I've written a new article for the East Bay Express about the rise of the PC Baang in the Northern California Bay Area. While in Korea, Starcraft is still the most popular Baang game, here in the US, Counter-Strike reigns supreme. Are these to be the malt shops and arcades of our time?"

14 of 231 comments (clear)

  1. Orthography by kahei · · Score: 3, Interesting


    Does anyone know why the korean word is being transliterated 'baang' with two 'A's? I don't remember it being anything other than a regular A sound in Korean.

    --
    Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
    1. Re:Orthography by DrPascal · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Yeah ... and it's "ok" to call a bookstore a "chack bahng" or a "chack ka-gay", (I believe ka-gay is 'store'), but you couldn't say "pizza bahng", because supposedly it sounds really stupid to Korean people. At least the exchange students I know.

      --
      DrPascal: Not the language, the mathematician.
  2. Starcraft still R0x0rs! by gerf · · Score: 2, Interesting

    *craft takes strategy, which is probably why c-strikers don't play as much. yes, i played c-strike, beta 3 - v1.1, and i must say that i now like to play starcraft broodwars a LOT more than cs.

    of course, i also wonder if those koreans have hella old machines that won't play cs, but will play starcraft. you know, that whole i-want-to-eat-so-i'll-delay-upgrading-my-computer deal. (i'm late for class, so, no, i didn't read the article.)

    1. Re:Starcraft still R0x0rs! by Emperor+Shaddam+IV · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Yeah, for the software. But the hardware there is real. There is a lot of stuff in Taiwan, Japan, Korea. Neat Stuff made there, that never makes it to the US.

  3. Playing D and D in high school by joelwest · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I find this reminiscent of when I was a kid playing D and D for hours and hours and hours in high school. Seems like ages ago -- okay it WAS ages ago. But for me at least, that was the time that I found that there were geeks like me in the world. Good memories!

  4. We are behind the rest of the world on this one by Arethan · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The US is behind the rest of the world when it comes to businesses making money off the LAN Party concept. They've been doing it in Japan, Korea, the Phillipenes, etc, for quite a while now. You'll find a few in the US that do alright. Mainly in large cities like New York. Still, it is nothing like the number of them in other countries.

    I was thinking of starting one around my area, but the upfront investment is more than I can afford at the moment. I need to wait for better locations to open up anyways. You need to find someplace fairly large (but not too large), with really low rent.

    Location is key, at least with my idea it is. I didn't read the article (typical Slashdot :), so I don't know if they let you take your own PCs in, but I would. Because of this, you need to be in a nice enough location that people don't mind too much about tearing down their own PCs to set them up on the LAN. I would, of course, also rent PCs out to people that don't want to use their own.

    The potential for theft shouldn't be too much of a problem. Just make sure the business PCs are clearly marked, and take a collateral upon renting that you give back when they return it. Drivers licenses would probably be good. Wouldn't hurt to require a social security card or credit card upon first rental either. *shrug*

    Well, someday I'll start it up. Maybe in another couple years.

    1. Re:We are behind the rest of the world on this one by Arethan · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Well, that would be the advantage to bringing your own PC. The business plan doesn't have an admission fee. Just rentals and food. So if you bring your own PC, then you don't pay to play. If I had to charge admission, I'd charge less to people that bring their own equipment. The fact that they are bringing a PC in means that they are likely to stay longer, since it is such a bitch to set up and tear down all the time.

      I'd also have adjusted hours to make it worth while. Open all night on fridays and saturdays, that sort of thing. Having a nearby motel would be helpful, as it would give people a place to sleep if they got desperate.

      I'd also enforce a headphones rule. No external speakers allowed, as it makes it too easy for people to blast their m4d @ss syst3mz and ruin the fun for others. I'd have ambient music playing, with a web-based jukebox interface for requests. If you don't have any headphones, I'd have plenty to sell you. Some cheap, some not.

      Monitor size I could care less about. All the systems available for rent would have either 17 or 19 inch monitors. If you want to bring your badass 21", be my guest. The spacing of the stations would allow enough room for it.

      I'd also have events probably every month or so. Winners get stuff like free rentals, new video cards, new headphones, new mice, new PCs, cash, etc. All depending on how big the event was supposed to be.

      The place would, of course, have broadband access to the internet, and would have a few game servers running that were public to the net as well as internally. I'd also provide a few dialup points for access to the building for people that want to game with good ping times at home. (For a fee of course).

      Eventually, I'd like to open up additional locations, and get dedicated connections between them, so that people on the LAN can play others from across the state, country, etc. I'd probably strike a deal with an ISP to provide low ping game servers to their clients as well, in exchange for discounted monthly fees on the dedicated lines.

      But, I can go on all day about my nifty little dream. The hard part is making it a reality. :)

  5. This article is pretty twisted... by kahei · · Score: 4, Interesting

    But the hordes of young men -- and a few female hangers-on -- who pack this place probably seldom muster the nerve to go out dancing. This is the refuge of the young and the unpopular, the boys and girls who don't fit into the gangster-rap chic so popular at their high schools. Here, there's no bullying, no catcalls, no thumping SUV subwoofers.


    I don't actually do any of this 'online gaming' stuff, so I'm unbiased. Now...

    Was this article written by a football hero or something? It seems to be obsessed with portraying PCBang culture as stereotypical asocial loser nerd pervert stuff, when in fact it's pretty much normal social life in Korea (where these things come from).

    It spends whole sentences whining on about scantily clad cyber babes. It never once allows the possibility that playing Starcraft might just be a common pasttime for this particular generation in that particular area. It doesn't really describe PCBang culture so much as provide a handy toolkit for forcing it into that old Jocks-vs-Nerds idiom, the one some people don't quite grow out of.

    I read this article because the spread of Korean culture (such as it is :)) interests me. What I got was eight full pages of a guy going 'THESE PEOPLE ARE NERDS! THEY ARE PATHETIC! I AM NOT LIKE THEM! OH NO! AT LEAST NOT ANY MORE!'

    The writer aparrently has a few issues with self-image. That's fine. Some people get bullied, some people feel inadequate (in this case quite rightly), and that's normal. But he should have called the article 'My own psychological issues and how I work them out by randomly insulting groups of Asian teenagers', and then I would have known not to read it.

    Well, okay, it wasn't *quite* that bad.

    But lord, it sure wasn't good.

    --
    Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
  6. Stacks here in Melbourne, Australia by grantdh · · Score: 3, Interesting

    We have quite a number of PC-Baang sites setting up here in Melbourne (been around in the inner city for a few years). Sure, Cyber Cafes have been around for yonks and we used them while travelling, etc. For the PC-Baangs, it was the concept of the netbash that got our attention. We occasionally would go down to one for a mega-bash when we had more people than would fit in one of our lounge rooms :)

    For some, it's their life (no PC at home due to space, money, travel, etc) and for others it's just a fun excursion. Judging by the number of them springing up, there's a market for them all right :)

    --

    I left my body to science, but I'm afraid they've turned it down...
  7. I really hate these types of stories by mrpuffypants · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Every few months a journalist thinks that he is 'hip and cool' and writes a story about online games. Truth is, it just comes off as highly superficial and makes the people involved look rather shallow.

  8. Re:CStrike Rulez by Gropo · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Now THERE is a F$ck!ng thought!

    Intorduce Matrix 'Agents' in to a server that sense a hacker and ghost through walls at 400% speed to knife/chainsaw/razoredge their ass in the heart every time they respawn.

    So much more frustrating to the hacker than being kickbanned.

    --
    I hate Grammar Nazi's
  9. Re:Ca is behind the times by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Even in 2000, game clubs were nothing new.

    Back in the Famicom days, Manila had game clubs full of Famicoms hooked up to small monitors, with a pay-per-hour rate. Reason? Game arcades with coin-op machines are illegal there, but playing the same games that can be played at home isn't (yay for circumventing lame laws).

    I visited family there a long time ago, when I was 8. As an American-born kid, the idea of playing ZELDA, in JAPANESE, on a FLOPPY, on this strange tiny red NES in an ARCADE blew my mind. These were pre-Nintendo Power days, before American gaming press ever started providing any insight at all into Japanese games culture, or even how powerful the Japanese gaming industry was becoming. The cousin who was showing me around wasted a good few hours waiting for me while I beat Zelda on the trip to the mall when I first discovered these places.

  10. PC bangs, succecssors to Nora Bang, and BiDio Bang by psplay · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Norabang = Karaoke Room
    Bidio Bang = Video room (rent a DVD and watch it there and then)

    Bidio-bang Never caught on overseas. And while Karaoke came and died in the west, it remains an oriental sensation (I can only talk for Japan and Korea).

    Similarily, I dont think the PC Bangs (somebody change that name plEase) won't last long in the US.

    Three steps to failure.

    1, Their profit margin is too low, cut maintenance costs.
    2, They will start to look run down and become scary places,
    3, Kids won't want to go there.

    Lifespan = 28months.

  11. Errors, Cheating, Good Investment, and Old Age by Kong99 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The article was rife with errors, "Valve created Counter-Strike", wrong, it bought Counter-Strike a Mod created mostly by two guys. I would give the creation date at the earliest as '99, it really began to take off in 2000. Ricky did not create the term "Deagle" for the Desert Eagle, commonly used in the community for years. I could go on. I stopped playing CS long ago due to the rampant cheating. I know steps have been taken to help stop some of it but I am sure it still exists. The Cybercafe/PC Baang (which btw is nothing new in the US) would be good to make sure that your opponents are not cheating, which is impossible to truly verify playing online. That $50 I spent on Half-Life is the best money I ever spent. HL was a great game and well worth the $ all by itself, then throw in Team Fortress Classis, Counter-Strike, Day of Defeat, Front Line Force, to name but just a few. It is difficult to keep with the young 'ins though. I am 34 and I just don't have the reflexes anymore. I can no longer keep up in UT2003, however I find America's Army to be a game for me as it is more realistic, therefore it moves at a slower speed, and rewards patience and stealth well.