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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?"
You're going to want some sort of pricing range that keeps things profitable for you, but doesn't keep gamers away that might not be able to afford games at home. You will probably want to go for more customers at a lower price, because the social "LAN-party" atmosphere is what makes such places fun. You probably won't want to do it on a hourly basis (who wants a time limit playing games?), and maybe have a monthly or yearly pass option available to those that want it. Really, your main profit should come from extras like snacks, just like movie theaters do.
Also, if you aren't setting this up in a town big enough, you can pretty much bet that it's going to fail relatively quickly.
Good luck,
--Stephen
Did you ever notice that *nix doesn't even cover Linux?
You know, I had been thinking about this for a very long time. I think that it would have to have a small cafe area where people can socialize freely and watch current games on monitors (almost like a sports bar). Maybe having it multileveled, gamers downstairs and public viewing/cafe upstairs (almost like an ice skating rink near where I live). Then have several different areas for gaming. A general area with individual gaming units. Some small 4-6 player rooms where teams can play in private. Perhaps another quiet room catering to business travelers and/or students doing research and in need of printers/scanners/fax etc. Have another area set aside to sell software(games, productivity, etc.) and older used computer systems. You may be able to use usb flash drives to store user information (profiles, scores, configuration files) which they can just plug into a computer if they are a frequent user. All nice and dandy but it's quite a bit for just a gaming center. In any case, I wish you the best of luck and perhaps one day, I'll show up ready to frag.
Geeks need a place that embraces all the major echelons of geekery.
Do not go all PC or all Mac or all Unix or all Linux.
Have a variety of games availiable on the computers, from FPS to MMORPGs.
Have consoles!
Charge when they leave, have memberships, give the first hour free.
Allow them to have bottled drinks. (have cupholders, away from the keyboard).
You may gain extra income by selling video games too, and if you name it right, merchandise will sell.
Good luck!
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
Be wary that the licenses for most games don't allow you to just install them on the computers and char people to play. You will need to make special deals with the software publishers, or else just keep quiet and hope they don't sue you. =)
Also remember that many geeks genuinely prefer the oz curtain of sitting behind a terminal with nobody else around.
Their benefits? They're cheap and still loads of fun. And you could make the older consoles cheaper to play, if you so desired. In any case, it wouldn't take too long to get a return on your investment.
At the very least, I'd suggest getting an N64 and a Dreamcast, each with some of the best multiplayer games available. The N64 has a ton of awesome games, but the four required titles are Super Smash Brothers, Goldeneye, Mario Kart 64, and Perfect Dark. Those four alone have given millions of hours of entertainment to gamers worldwide.
I don't have very much Dreamcast experience, but having a console running the old Capcom fighters (I particularly like the Marvel Vs. Capcom and Street Fighter Alpha series for the DC) would be a great thing.
Heck, if you really wanted to, get a Genesis with all of the old sports games. Get an NES with all of the classic games - Mario, Ice Climbers, Excitebike, Tetris...Go wild! No matter what, older consoles will STILL be cheaper for you than the newer ones, even if the supply of new games is nonexistent.
Go retro...it's cheap, and there are still plenty of gamers who love older consoles. Besides...a game never loses its fun as it ages. :)
Goo goo g'joob.
You should run Counterstrike, etc tournaments every once in a while. Helps bring in the people. And people are going to be hard on equipment, so standardize. Select a good gaming system, and buy a lot of them. When you do this, call around. If Dell, Gateway, HP know that you're standardizing on their equipment, they might give you a discount, because their name is going to be all over the place. Take one computer, install what you want on the hard drive, then Ghost the installation to all the other computers. If a computer happens to get a virus or something, just reGhost it.
/. article a while back about a failed tourny, learn from it's failures. Numero uno, cache server. If you're running Steam or something and it needs updates, download the update to a local cache server, then have the client machines "pull" it from the cache server. Two, huge pipeline to the Net. Games like CS can take up a LOT of bandwidth.
There was a
You probably won't make too much money off the computer and game usage; make the most money off refreshments, etc. In the hours that gamers are gone (school) perhaps turn it into a Net Cafe. And atmosphere is key. A little on the dark side, toned down colors, flashy lights, etc. And remember, sell Bawls. This stuff is so full of caffeine I know gamers who live off it, and think nothing of drinking 6-7 of them in one sitting.
Wow, you really did think about this. I'm impressed.
On the #2, restrooms a definite selling point. I'm not a hypochondriac but I do get turned off by really bad restrooms. I like my restrooms bright and sterile looking.
On #3, I agree that special Events are pretty much mandatory in a place like this. The cost of slow days can be alleviated by closing for the day and just opening in the evening (most kids are out of school and workers are off from their jobs by then). Unless of course it's summer or winter break.
I totally agree on the joysticks. They are bound to be a big waste and easy to break. However, you may want one or two machines set aside with realistic joysticks for things like Flight Sim and/or Mech Warrior (a la BattleTech Centers).
Changing out games can be done by using a server software distribution system but you'll have to find a way to get around cd checks and such. Also, you'll want to keep your most popular games loaded to avoid bogging down the network with users downloading new games. Something else that may become an issue are things like Steam. If you have 100 people playing on Steam and all of a sudden there is a patch release, all I can say is ouch.
Thats all I got for now.
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
As much as many geeks like to claim form follows function, a lot of us are closet artists. Sure, that extra fan keeps your machine cooler, but admit it, the window was just for show!
The first gaming center I ever visited was Dig' Ops in Ann Arbor, Michigan. They're located downstairs in one of those little hole-in-the-wall spaces you find in an old city. It was less than brightly lit inside, which seems camp now, but it honestly added to the atmosphere then. You see, the dim lighting made it just a bit hard to discern the strange shapes of the black metal cube that dominated the center of the room.
The cube had people sitting in it. Four on the bottom, and four mostly on top. The design supported stairs, monitors, keyboards, mouse shelves, and the most interesting seats I've ever experienced. Down the central column were the computers and all the wiring for the audio comm system. The whole thing was made of black iron pipe, and it just exuded an intense feel of industrial tech.
I've never been much of a gamer, but I'd go there just because it had such an amazingly cool atmosphere. I ended up playing more than my share of Action Quake because of it. The midnight-to-whenever time block, which had to be specially reserved, was my usual excuse to indulge in way too much caffeine.
At some point, D. Ops decided to dismantle the cube and replace it with much more mundane seating arrangements based on aluminum channel frames. The games were still fun but I couldn't find an excuse just to show up and play. I haven't been back in a year or two so I don't know what they've been up to lately.
Lately, I've been visiting LanLords in Howell, Michigan. They've also got an odd sort of interior design, with the seating "cubicles" made of ribbed steel sheet material. The machines are well equipped, and Sennheiser headsets make for an immensely comfortable gaming experience. I'm mostly there for the people rather than the games, though. The geek running the show picks the muzak, which is quiet enough that it's not distracting once you have the headphones on, but it keeps things interesting if you're just hanging out.
Digital Ops started out with an isolated network, but they added an internet connection before too long. Lanlords has had a fast pipe from day one, but some games still run locally to keep the pings absurdly low. Once in a while, the two centers will hold us-vs-them games across the internet, and the sense of local comradery is intense. If you're in the area, I highly encourage you to stop in.
Both places do a number of things right: Keep a fridge well stocked with various caffeinated and unleaded beverages. Let newcomers wander around for a while and watch before trying to turn them into customers. Wait for a break in the action before trying to organize a collective pizza order. Strictly enforce the no nose-picking rule.
The biggest factor that will keep people coming back to your center is the hardest one to control: If the "regular" gang is friendly, or if it's hostile to newbies, how do you encourage or change that behavior?
Good luck!
There are also 2 projectors which can either have PCs connected to them for movies or one on one comps, or for the inhouse PS2's.
People do hang out there occassionally who aren't playing, but there's no lounging space set aside.
Cameras are operated in all corners of the room for security and the images are available on the website so people who aren't there can see what's going on.
I won't give the URL in case it gets slashdotted. But if you're in wellington, you already know about it.
The reason girls and Windows users don't understand UNIX is because all the documentation is in Man files.
You'll want to make sure that you can find a way to keep lots of people interested, not just the FPS/RTS crowd.
Social games such as Dance Dance Revolution are good to increase clients of both genders, and across many ages. This also works well with some kind of snack bar since it will work up a good appitite.
You will never be a replacement for people who do their own home gaming. Be free with advice and information regading system upgrades and maintenance.
~D
This sig has been enciphered with a one-time pad. It could say almost anything.
I would do it this way today, if I were to do it again. Back then, CD emulation tools were primative. Some games we were able to get to run via NOCD mods or the existing CD tools, but it was just a major pain overall.
Additionally, tools for locking the desktops down are much more powerful, but so is the complexity of the game install. Most of the games we ran were DOS (which meant a custom menu loaded and selected most games directly - nice). Windows XP's Kiosk mode would be something to investigate (especially the ability to prevent most desktop interactions).
Sig under construction since 1998.
I'm not 100% sure this is feasable, but i just thought of it when reading a comment about stolen games... rather than giving out CDs and hoping to get them back, i would just keep all the images of the games on the HDDs of the computers (or a server) and use daemon tools or something to allow access. yeah it's a HDD hog, but it would mean less lost/scratches cds. alternately, burn copies to give to customers rather than giving out the originals. ;)
obviously you need to have the proper licenses to use the games, but that should be obvious
Right now, Foo is in trouble. The only people comfortable hanging out there are teenaged males tired of thrashing in the parking lot. As a result, the place is packed Friday and Saturday nights, and virtually abandoned the rest of the week. This despite Foo being two doors down from a fairly major movie theatre. The straw that's breaking Foo's back is that these mall-rats really don't have a lot of money to spend, so they buy an hour of game time, then sit around and talk and scare off potential customers.
In contrast, there's another place a few dozen miles away that has taken many of Slashdot's suggestions to heart. Blah (again, names changed), is a fairly large place with cream colored walls, potted plants, windows at the front of the store, a variety of seating arrangements, and the owners have even gone as far as to reward students with good report cards with free time on the computers. Right now, it's maybe 70% occupied every day with a nice mix of kids, adults and seniors, male and female. The only reason Blah isn't doing better is because Blah is tucked away in a strip mall in the midst of surbania.
I'm sure if you reversed Foo's and Blah's locales, both places would be doing a hell of a lot better than they are now.
Make sure to have some tables that have ethernet jacks and nothing more. Many gamers are a lot more comfortable using their home rigs (esp those who specifically design LAN ones) than locked down store-owned ones. Wireless can also come in handy. Keep plenty of network cable (little 6 foot ones) in stock. Get some of those USB network adapters (both wired and wireless) and rent them out for $5 or so for the duration of your stay.
Some sort of electronic membership card (w/ a mag stripe) could make time allotment easier.
If you go hourly, let people put as much money as they want on a card and use a punch in/punch out system to deduct. have the puncher at the door to help stop people from defrauding you and not punching in. you could also just lock out the PCs (or network ports) unless you swipe your card.
cards could also be used as gift cards, either to be sold (the perfect gift for the geek in your life) or as prizes from tournaments.
...and that's all there is to it.
I'd suggest using a membership model, like a YMCA, for several reasons.
1) People hate paying money. If you only ask them to do it once a month, they'll be happier.
2) If people make an investment for one month, they will keep coming back, making friends and getting attached to the place. Suddenly you have a returning customer base.
3) This gives you membership promotion models, like bring in a friend and get a month free.
4) You have a much better grasp of your financial status because you can say pretty much what your income is for each month.
5) You know who's coming in and out of the building - theft becomes harder.
6) If you want, you can let people charge drinks and snacks against their accounts, bring guests for $5 bucks a visit, and all of this convenience makes your customers happy.
Remember, most geeks have to have plenty of money to support their geekery, so they'll be happy to pay you reasonable fees for services and convenience. I believe there was another thread recently where someone cast the slashdot community as valuing their time much more than their money - I would posit that this is true of your target audience in general.
Yvan Eht Nioj!
Okay, a lot of the suggestions so far are completely worthless. First and foremost, you'll need to create an environment that people will not be embarassed to admit that they go to or to be seen going to. Like they say, sell the sizzle up front and the steak in the back. Your target audience is people with money, not gamers. Gamers most likely already have their own setup that they have spent hundreds of hours customizing and tweaking to their liking, and the mere thought of using an imaged machine makes their skin crawl. Second, take a look at the successful models that are out there. Arcades are okay, but they don't really generate much revenue. Dave & Busters, on the other hand, is a money making machine that is, at it's heart, an arcade. Why is this? D&B is adults only. You're not even allowed in the door if you're not 18, and then you have to be 21 to be allowed in without an adult supervisor. This may seem harsh and it may seem like you're abandoning your target demographic, but remember that your target demographic is people with money. Besides, D&B was successfull precisely because it didn't cater to kids. Honestly, how many adult 'closet gamers' are out there simply because they do not want to be associated with a 'childish' hobby? 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. That said, lets think about the actual setup of the place. Remember, sizzle up front, steak in the back. You want to show something that's easily accessible and universally appealing. PC's are generally not that. The average joe still doesn't know how to do much more than check e-mail and surf the internet, so don't worry about impressing people with advertisments of Gigahertz and frame rates. What you want to do is make it appealing to the average joe. Put some consoles up there where people can see them. Sell liquor. Have a projector or big screen showing the action that's going on right now, that the person walking by can come in, sit down, and join right away (of course, 'tis not always possible but make them think it is). Have comfortable, clean seating. Don't do dark. But not bright flourescent lighting, either. Starbucks is a good example. Soft light provides atmosphere without the dungeon-esque feel (which, really, everyone but a few people hate). Have some nice techinical areas in the back. Loaded PC's that are intuitively obvious. No one wants to spend 45 minutes just trying to figure out how to make the game run. Leave space for people to hook up their own PC and make sure to have a wireless network. DO NOT CHARGE BY THE HOUR. That is the simplest way to make people not come back, ever. I know it worked on me at a few places. Decide on either a credit/card system like Dave & Busters or an entrance fee. The entrance fee works well because you can then sell monthly or yearly passes as while not discriminating against the average 2 or 3 times per month customer. That's my advice. Skip the 'gamer' demographic becasue they're just too picky anyways. Stick to making gaming a cultural institution.
The ultimate gaming machine: Yoshi's Boxx - which includes, all in one box:
# Atari 2600
# Nintendo Entertainment System (8-bit)
# Microsoft Xbox
# Nintendo GameCube
# Sony PlayStation 2
# A custom PC
Allow people to run custom games. Hold workshops. Have fun.