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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?"
If you want to run a business, you need turnover. Let people hang out, and they will take advantage by bringing in starbucks and filling your ashtrays. There is a reason that the only places that you know about charge by the hour.
duh.
Having a wide selection of game systems sounds great, but don't forget you'll need space to put all those computers. Every console you add is another PC you can't have. Same with Mac. It's better to focus on one area, and do it right, than get too spread out.
To that end, forget about Mac and Linux. There just aren't enough games on those platforms. If you go with a console, pick one, or at most two, but don't have more than 25% consoles. PCs will be your bread and butter, because you can rent time on them for more than just playing games. You'd be surprised how many people come in just to use a fast internet connection to chat with their friends.
Food and drinks are a must. If anything, lose money on the hourly rental fees and make it up in snacks. Starbucks has proven that people will gladly pay $5 for coffee and $7 for a small brownie. If you charge some nominal amount for computer rental ($2 an hour), you'll be surprised how many people stay there the whole day. Sure, you'll only make $30 on someone on a Saturday, but you'll make another $50 on the food they eat. Also, don't allow any outside drinks or snacks, period. If someone wants to eat while playing, have them pay you, not the Mickie Dee's down the street.
And don't worry about selling games. Maintaining retail inventory is a bitch, and requires all kinds of controls you won't need for a cafe.
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You can tailor your place to attract a certain group, but that does not guarantee that you will get that clientele, since gaming has become so popular (10 years ago, if you said gaming in a public forum, people would have thought you were talking about gambling, now people ask which kind). For example, you are targetting true geeks, but instead, get blockhead gamer/jocks and dopeheads. So you have a less friendly, less geek-chic place. You still may make money, but the place does not have the dynamics you were looking for.
The questions are: are you willing to accept that to turn a profit, and is there anything you can do to prevent that if that is not what you want?
Dogma - "let's just say we'd like to avoid any empirical entanglements."
Since this is the most correct post so far, I'd just like to add some stuff to this post.
First, off, have adequate lighting in the computer room. The only places I'd seen that run LAN gaming always turn the damn lights off. Remember that you're not only trying to get geeks in the building, you're trying to get the common man in there too (operating a business trying to specficially target a niche is like trying to run a marathon after shooting yourself in the foot. You can do it, it's just gotten a lot less likely now.) as well as help change the overall perception of geekiness.
While I'll game with the lights low at home, that's not generally what we'd consider a "friendly" environment for younger gamers, or non-gamers. Plus, even gamers don't really want to be in dimly lit surroundings that aren't their own. You can save on the electric bills by getting some of the low-energy, longer lasting bulbs, while keeping the place nicely lit.
I'd combine your snack area and the break area. In Japan the internet/gaming cafes I went to brought food to you, but considering they, as a society tend to keep businesses and such fetishistically clean, I'd concur with the above post and keep food and CPUs in seperate areas.
Stock all the consoles. Offer buybacks for games for store credit. Sell the buyback games you don't need on Ebay for a profit.
You probably want to staff a short-order cook. (Not a fancy-shmancy guy...someone who can be trusted to make smoothies, burgers, breakfast burritos, and nachos.) TV screens with a tethered remote (VERY important. If I'm the guy with the screen showing the CS action, and I'm the Average Joe trying to watch the Lakers game, I'm going to be less-than-thrilled...the tether keeps the remote from accidentally wandering off.) make the place friendly. Stock some magazines.
Also, hire janitors. Janitors do a much better job of cleaning stuff than the standard apathetic high-school student forced to wear the cashier hat and the janitor hat. Cleanliness makes your place much more conducive to return visits.
While we're on the topic of hiring, hire some women. Don't go all out trying to hire really good looking ones, just some decent looking women who have a knowledge of things geek. If they main adequate decorum, they can be a boost to return rates, without you having to be exploitative..just get a good mix of people in there. People who like your business idea, but aren't misanthropes. Simpsons Comic Book Guy is just going to get jumped in under a week.
On the other side of the coin, the people who don't know anything about games and don't care to learn are going to get chided out of the building. Have the right people on board is going to be key. You don't want EB syndrome, either.
Have people smoke outside, and make sure there's adequate ventilation. Computers + tons of bodies in seats = lots of hot air.
Most importantly...calculate out the numbers beforehand. Figure out what you're going to need to break even after determining exact operational costs and make sure you're charging enough. Have a promotional thing with a nearby school, or community college that has a draconian computer lab, and get people in to "beta" the store for you. That'll spread word of mouth, and you're set after that.
Good luck. Fight the good fight.
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Having worked at a few arcades, and played in quite a few tournaments, I would recommend the following....
tournament stuff
1. Run tournaments bi-weekly, either charge a fee to join, or charge per hour. Use this money to hand out prize money every week. It doesn't have to be a lot, $50-$100 will do. Break up the prize between 1st, 2nd and 3rd place. Keep detail stats of all the tournaments, overall leaders per game, and overall leaders in all games. Break the year up into seasons, and offer a prize for points leader per season. Put all the results on your website, including pictures.
2. Have a "wow" factor thing in the place, a big screen TV hooked up to a computer will do it. Make it a prize to be able to use it, or rotate people getting to use it during tournaments that way everyone else can watch them. Arcade tournaments used to do this with big-screen arcade machines, they would put the higher seeded players on the big screen machines so everyone could see them.
3. Hire security when you know the place will be crowded. I'm serious, even if it's only 1 guy (an off duty cop will run you about $100 a night). You may think geeks are cool people and all, but I've seen fights break out a tournaments, players intimidated, etc. I recall a recent slashdot article about someone pulling a gun at a counter strike tournament. No one wants to go to a place like that.
4. If you are playing FPS games, See if you can arrange matches between a team made up of the best players from your place with another cyber cafe
5. Setting up consoles and such would be nice, but I'm not sure what fees are involved. You will need a licence in most states if you want to put in arcade games. Personally, as an old Mortal Kombat/Street Fighter player, a place where I could go play Fighting games and FPS games would rock. It might not be practical though.
6. Never let a player leave feeling ripped off by a tournament for any reason, they wont come back.
atmosphere
1. Keep the bathrooms, and the place in general clean. Someone else mentioned this, but it is very important.
2. Music is good, as long as it doesn't interfere with the games. Techno type music goes well with games but anything will do.
3. Have a snack bar with the standard junk food (burgers, cheesesteaks, pizza, etc) try to stock some exotic stuff too, (deep fried oreos, strange sodas, etc)
4. Cool lighting effects (dim, blacklight, etc) can be fun.
5. A lounge where people can just hang out, maybe with a small bookshelf and some board games (chess, checkers, etc).
6. Strange Animals can be cool also, one place I went to used to keep pirahana's in a pool up front. I have no idea why, but it was fun to throw popcorn to/at them.
There's a local arcade around here, that does most of the things right...
I suppose, first of all, it provides a very comfortable atmosphere. Couches, lounge chairs, and carpeting are pretty much necessary. Also, it is very well lit.
I don't quite understand what the hell people are thinking when they say, "Give it atmosphere, make it a little on the dark side." Or whatever. That's crap. It's horrible when you're trying to play a PC game for the first time and you can't see shit because the place has "atmosphere." You want to be able to see if people are jacking your stuff and whatever else is going on in the place anyway.
The kind of atmosphere that a hang out really needs is one of like a room at home. Living room, your room, whatever. Give it lots of comfortable sofas and lounge chairs, ones that can be moved around at will. Keep the lights ON and up high so that you can see everything in the place. The music should stay down low enough so that you can hear other people, and what is going on in game.
Games that would be necessary... I'd say... go with DDR first of all. Give DDR an area and a couches for sweaty people to hang out on after doing all that work on the machine, or for people who just like to watch the asians go crazy on it. It's a fun social game, so give it what it needs.
As for the PC side, I suppose there's really no wrong way to set it up, as long as the games are easily accessible, and it's clear what you can do and what you can't do just by looking at the desktop on screen. Headphones would be good.
Consoles are also great fun, chain a few xboxes or ps2s together.. a lot of this stuff is probably easy for you to come up with. Pay by the hour, whatever.
Hey, it's my OPINION that dogs have eight legs and make a sound like a car horn every time they take a piss.
Eh...that's sounds very sketchy. Beyond cheaters, there are virus/trojan/worm issues, on top of the usuall technical issues of added a machine to the network.
I would reserve this for private parties where one group has the whole room, and you have a damage deposit. I would also have a boot disk with virus scan that runs on every machine before it touches the network.
The age limit solves two problems: it weeds out the people without any money, and it automatically legitimizes the customer. They are no longer embarrassed to be seen there or to recommend the place to a friend. As a side note, it also reduces the amount of vandalism and theft that goes on with a younger crowd.
Because we all know that a) everyone over 18 has money and b) only people under 18 vandalize things
...and that's all there is to it.
I know this may just be filler, but the little game center in town just opened three or four months ago, and it seems pretty good. I haven't gone in, but that is simply because I can't spend $5 an hour playing Battlefield 1942.
First off, the name of the place is F.R.A.G (obvious reference to LAn parties, but they also turned it into an acronym, but i don't remember what it stands for). They have about 10 PCs in very stylish cases with large monitors. Walking through the place, you can tell they loaded every machine to really perform. They have them all lined up on one wall, along the other wall are three consoles (one PS2 and 2 Xboxes which are linked).
On top of all that they also sell some hardware as well as offering PC repairs. There are two or three Imacs just for people who want to surf the web (which makes sense in this town, since we have no internet cafes). Of course they also sell snacks (mostly chips and that sort, obviously nothing too sticky). They also stock some high quality drinks (no alcohol, but Bawls and other "boutique" drinks like that).
Overall the place is clean and well-lit. I've never seen the place packed, but I think this may be because most kids in a college town like this are either already playing these games in the dorms or they are just on their way to shop at Urban Outfitters or go drink. The one thing they need to do is have some sort of event to really get people's attention. It might also help if they lowered their prices or had a "first hit's free kind of deal (first hour or hour and a half is free, maybe coupons or something). Anyway, just giving you an idea of whats out there and how successful it is.
I work at a gamecenter that has free play for females all day Sunday, and we never get more than 4 in a time. And another thing to consider, the average age of them is like 16. :(
Maybe need to make it free for 18+
Heavily caffinated beverages
Free Wi-Fi network (maybe a discount for those that bring their own boxen?)
Have the gaming area and a separate lounge-y area (kind of like bowling alleys)
Keep the Yakuza at bay... Im afraid to go to the gaming centers in my area because they're all asian gang run and folks keep getting shot...
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