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Building The Ideal Geek Gaming Center?
MongooseCN writes "After seeing the popularity of multiplayer gaming and the desire for fellow geeks to find better means of socializing, I've decided to open up a geek gaming center. It would allow people to play games together in the same building, and to talk and hang out too. I know there are a few of these places already, but few of them have taken into consideration what people want to see in these centers. Most of them open with only the owner's opinion of what would make the place fun. Some don't even allow people to hang out, since they charge by the hour. So what I want to know is what the /. community would like to see in a place like this. I want to start a gathering place for other like minded, techno-savvy geeks. What games, gaming systems/hardware, etc should it have? What would make it a fun place to hang out and meet other people?"
As a younger geek businessman I ran the numbers on such a place and tried to operate one back in the days of 386/486s. It may seem easy on the surface to run such a center, but make sure you factor in administration (some automated method to reload the machines from images in particular), hardware replacement costs (these centers are *hard* on equipment, due to the "it isn't mine attitude") and general manpower requirement to supervise sales and usage.
If you have already considered these things, there are some things you can do that increase your revenue and customer retention:
#1 - Snack bar/coffee shop (depending on your demographic). This should be a separate space adjacent to the computers (allowing drinks and electronics to coexist is not for the weak). You will need a different license to serve food.
#2 - Adequate space for people to chill out. Atmosphere is key here to retain people and bring them back. Consider TVs like you see in sports bars, except maybe some can be showing the action in the game area. Remember the restrooms: don't make them some pit of dispair... people will avoid coming back.
#3 - Special events. People will filter in and out, but on those slow days (Monday through Thursday, normally) having special events like tournaments is key to keeping an adequate number of paying customers.
As far as hardware, you need to run games well, but not to bleeding edge. Since you will replace hardware every year (although the old hardware can then be tasked with server duty or older games), buy something in the mid range. Don't skimp on monitors though: large displays are a good investment, as they will last 3-5 years. Optical mice (no cleaning required, more precision) and throwaway keyboards (they take tons of abuse). Forget about joysticks, they are mostly obsolete, and were a huge expense back in the day.
You can also consider consoles to augment the PCs: many have great multiplayer support, and on a LAN they rock. Just remember that console or PC, it has to be in a locked cabnets and thus is a pain to change out games), or you can kiss your investment goodbye. (Even with locked cabnets we lost games all the time, usually to brute force attacks, but sometimes to "could you switch this game/distraction created" events).
As far as layout of the game area, I personally prefer semi private quarter cubicles (obscures line of site to the monitor, but not the people) arranged in circles. Remember good office chairs if you want people to remain for long periods of time.
Sig under construction since 1998.
A favorite place for me and my fellow IT'ers to hang out at after work is a place called GameTime Nation. What they offer are lots of comfy couches and flat screen (not panel) displays to play the games on. The hardware is a choice of X-Box and PS2 on each machine. With soda/candy for sale and booming hip hop music plus eps of Red Vs Blue projected on the wall the place is a great geek hangout. It has apparently developed a large-ish social network of young hip-hopsters who play (what seems to be) mostly Halo and cheer and jeer each other on voiciferously. It'd be nice to find a correlate that had networked PC hardware, but thus far this place is the best I've found of this type. The one I go to (I think it's a chain) is on 13th (12th? don't go there that often) street between 3rd and 4th Aves in the best city in the world. Close to the Astor Place subway, walkable from Union Square.
Quod scripsi, scripsi.
Don't forget console games! A great idea for a place like you describe would be to have an area for console gaming, with some couches, big TVs and several game systems and games to choose from. This would also be good for tournaments and the like.
I know I would like to go to a place where I could place Super Smash Bros or Soul Caliber with a bunch of people. Consider a liquor liscence as well. It would be great to go to a place where you could have a few beers and play some games (a la Dave & Busters).
We had one place near us that was run by some college students. They rented a two-story auto center that had empty for about two years. The owner was willing to get anybody in there at that point.
They put folding tables in rows in what was the showroom area. Half of these tables were filled with gaming PCs. The other half of the tables had networking run to them and were left empty for BYOC gaming.
They turned the counter into a snack/coffee bar and sold geeks drinks like Jolt Cola. They put a couple racks in to sell gamer crack, oops, I mean Magic cards, and gaming books (D&D, Vampire, etc.). They also put more folding tables downstairs in the autobays and put used partitions up between the bays.
They charged three different hourly rates:
1) you could rent a place for your PC at one of the open tables.
2) You could rent one of their PCs.
3) You could rent one of the gaming rooms downstairs for role-playing or collectible card games. You got a discount if you paid a month at a time.
They also had monthly membership where you got unlimited play on one of their PCs for one monthly price.
They did very well for a year and the owner seriously jacked up the rent. About six months later, they graduated and closed shop.
I can't remember their pricing for the gaming (I went for RPG downstairs, not computer gaming), but I seem to remember $6 an hour? The gaming tables downstairs were $15-25 for a four hour block depending on the size of the area. The $25 area was usually used by the Warhammer guys.
Hope that gives you some ideas.
Be sure to check well in advance with the city where you build this. The few acts of violence related to these places have caused a lot of cities to adopt regulations that apply to them. You might need additional parking (for example, city planners assume parking spaces turn over every 40 minutes in a retail center, and you want people there for hours, so you might need three times as many spaces available compared to a retail store in that space), additional security requirements, certain electrical and fire code requirements due to heavy electric demand and assembly of people, and so on. Other cities don't care so much, but you won't know until you go down to City Hall and ask. If you need a discretionary permit, that process usually takes at least a few months.
Dance Dance Revolution machines. Great fun, and some actual excerise for geeks. You should keep it in another room though, so it dos'nt annoy non-fans.
This means you have to appeal to more people than just the slashdot crowd. Have a bar/lounge area with unobtrusively placed consoles. GET A LIQUOR LICENSE. Sure, keep it accessible to the kiddies as much as possible. But don't be afraid to go 21+ at 10 or 11 on a friday night. I don't think it's likely that you will make your money on the games -- try to cover costs with them, but make your profit on drinks, food and coffee.
Get a few TVs to show sports on. Run a madden tournament on monday nights during the football season (and other appropriate games during other sports seasons, although the MNF tie-in is probably more likely to be lucrative). Anything to get non- or casual gamers in the door.
Cause sure, I'd go there. But could I convince my girlfriend and friends to come along? Friends who don't even know what an LPB is? If it's a big room filled with beige boxes playing counterstrike and a Jolt machine in the corner, the answer is going to be no, and you're going to be stuck with a much smaller clientele.