Cybercafes - A Dying Trend?

A not-so-anonymous Anonymous Coward asks: "I've been considering opening up a CyberCafe for a while now, and I've been searching the web for cyber cafe websites. I've found several cybercafe databases, but was disappointed to find that a majority of the sites I found were either taken over by register-this-domain pages or hadn't been updated for a couple of years. Another Cyber/Gaming Cafe I found online announced today that they were closing. So are Cyber/Internet/Gaming cafes just another bubble the net will burst, or are they actually worth investing in? Any cafe owners with experience to point one way or the other? Where are the success stories?"

Comments

Just like arcades?

[mnjames]

I have never been to one, but I know people who do. I guess more people prefer to game at home on their PC/console. I don't blame them.

try something that makes sense

[xutopia]

like a laundromat with two rooms. On for cleaning and one for surfing. And don't fuck up the OS. Install whatever you want, Windows, Linux(preferably if you want to save money) but by all means do not cripple your users with a totally locked down system.

My worst nightmare was having to send a resume and not having a net connection at home yet (moved the day before). I had my resume on my palm but couldn't install the software to grab it on Windows nor was I allowed to boot using Gnoppix (wouldn't boot from CD). I had to go across town to a friend's house to send the damn resume.

burst

[poindextrose]

The net's not exactly bursting this bubble, it's computing that is.

I used to go to the gaming cafes to play games my modest rig couldn't handle... at the time that was Tribes. Now, it seems just about any computer can do the basic things those cafes provide... a lot of people have DSL at home, and a decent chunk of bandwidth at work. And low-end computers and graphic cards keep getting less and less low-end. Personally, where I live, there are a few left, but they're all basically dedicated computers for CS now.

Diversification

[Smartcowboy]

I know a couple of cybercafes that are ISP at the same time.

I know one who do web-hosting, PC repair, furniture selling, english/french/spanish translation, web-page and business card conception, typing job, ect.

One I kwow has pool tables and become a bar with a DJ at night. They also have shows and movies and exhibitions.

The cybercafe is only one of their activities. Diversification let them survive.

Can you make a profit

[wrenkin]

There are a lot of cybercafe's in Toronto, and it seems most are run by Koreans (I imagine because they're so popular there. The billing software at the Persian owned cafe near my house is entirely in Korean, not to mention that before they upgraded to XP they were running Korean copies of Win98!).

I go there for lan gaming with my friends, sometimes after hanging out at the bar next door. We did a 2-session overnight Diablo 2 run. It's often packed, with kids, even at 4am (along with the occasional drifter viewing porn). The ones in Chinatown near the University are also busiest at night. The successful ones are all open 24 hours.

There are limits to their 'success', however. Even packed all day, the places are usually pretty dingy, and after a new one opens will all new computers the hardware isn't upgraded all that often (if ever... other than headphones. One I went to apparently bought a batch of Canada 3000 in-flight phones after the airline went bankrupt). I don't see how they can afford to. The rate for students downtown is C$2/hour, with uptown rates around C$3/h after a one time C$5-10 membership (the downtown ones don't try to pull that). I guess they make money on the junk food and Jolt, but still. I once applied for work at one, and they tried to offer me below minimum... for an overnight shift. Maybe it's different in the States. In Washington I went to one that charged US$10 to check my mail!

I remember when the first high-concept cafe (long since gone) opened in the area it was $10/h, had magnetic user cards, per-second billing, Macs.... now competition has reduced things to basements full of eMachines with Geforce2MXs.

Re:Not in America

[alphaseven]

In America, most people can easily afford a computer and an Internet connection, so Internet cafe's are really an answer lacking a question.

I think the question is a little more complicated than that, like Toronto (as mentioned in this thread) has a ridiculous amount of 24hr internet places and also has some of the cheapest broadband and high penetration of home internet use in North America. Perhaps widespread home use spurs more use outside of home.

Re:Not cyber cafe - LAN gaming arena

[miyako]

A couple of my friends who are really heavy into counterstrike used to LAN at a couple of places like that around here, as well my friend used to work at a local BattleZone, and one thing I noticed on the occasional outings with them is that the purely computer gaming places didn't do so well.
What I saw instead was that a lot of the places we went that seemed to be busy and nicer places in general offered a place for people to get together and play D&D or Magic or for the younger kids to get together and play Pokemon or YuGiOh.
From talking to my friend who worked at battlezone which did this, Basically what tended to happen was that people would come in for a game of $Tabletop_RPG or $Cardgame_Dejure and would buy a lot of stuff for the game durning or before the game. When a player died they would buy an hour of time on the computers and play counterstrike or whatever untill they were revived.
The owners basically let anyone come in and have their games in there for free as long as it was set up in advance, because they tended to make enough money from the people just being in the store.
Another place that we used to regular also had a nice big screen tv with an Xbox, PS2 and a Gamecube that people could hang out and play for free or occasionally someone would bring in a DVD and people could watch it (I'm pretty sure this was legal since anyone could come in and sit down to watch the movie without having to buy anything). Since the most you could ever have going on was a four player game, it lead to a lot of people switching off from paying for computer time and playing free on the consoles, but it also gives the impression of the place being cool, and about the games, instead of just a business that wants to make money.
As far as food and drinks go, I agree that you should forgoe the tea and crumpets or whatever, but consider putting in a couple of vending machines so people can get their requisite injection of caffeine and junk food whilest playing.
Both places my friends and I used to regular did this, and both were next to a couple of fast food joints, so people could walk over and get "real" food if they wanted it, and come back to play some more.
Atmosphere and Attitude are a couple of important things to remember too, of the places i've been around here, the "good" ones all have a casual atmosphere, and have the "fun over money" attitude, or at least they seem that way.
As a final note, be sure to keep the place kid friendly, about half or maybe more of the people i've noticed at places like that were kids maybe 12 to 14 whos parents would drop them off for a few hours like they might do at the arcade. These kids tend to spend a good chunck of money and will keep comming back if they parents feel like it is a good place to bring their kids. This generally means having people not screaming thing like "I raped your mother with a badger on a stick" or other such nonsence during a game of CS, as well as having at least one or two machines running "nonviolent" games like maybe The Sims or something.

Cyber-bar concept with a twist

[RobertB-DC]

I had toyed with the idea of a cyber cafe, until I ran the numbers through a spreadsheet and realized there was no way I could come anywhere near my current salary workin' for the man. Harder work, longer hours, and less pay makes RobertB a dead boy.

But one idea that came to mind was to set up in Dallas' pseudo-punk Deep Ellum strip, where the preppies dress goth and gawk at each other. There would be booths with Internet terminals, a nominal quarter-hour fee, and overpriced drinks.

Here's the twist: the bartender controls several large-screen TVs, which he/she can connect to whichever surfer is most interesting at the time. Like a DJ, the barkeep would be able to adjust the "mix" -- maybe some softcore porn on one screen, a CNN ticker on the other, and someone's hacking session over in the geek corner.

For added enjoyment of the crowd, add picture-in-picture: the surfer, and what they're checking out at the moment. Why is the guy looking at porn so bored, and why is the hot chick reading Reuters so...

Of course, not everyone would want to surf with the world looking over their shoulder. No problem -- for a small additional fee, the bartender would be blocked from showing your mug... a little more to block your surfing altogether.

Just a crazy idea! I'll stick with the steady paycheck, for now.

Location, Location, Location

[returnoftheyeti]

I live in a heavily traveled tourist area fetauring mostly shopping that caters to youn families and seniors. We are a very small town with an amazing amount of hotels. I think that there are 5 in less than a mile and at leaste 10 within 10 square miles. The first 5 I mentioned are directly off the expressway. During the weekends all these hotles will sell out and during the week we do a good trade in buisness travelers because we are located halfway between Saginaw and Flint MI. Only one of these hotels have High Speed Net access. The buisness travelers are usually horrified because on the phone lines they can only pull 28.8. On the weekends the board husbands are looking for anything to do while their wives shop for 10 hours straight. We do have a Starbucks in town and their $10 an hour Wi-Fi is not up and running yet. If I had the money to start my own shop I think I could make a mint off these people. I would set it up as a coffee shop/snack bar. I would offer free 802.11b wifi access to anyone with a laptop. I would have several (~800mhz) terminals running Knoppix with a hard drive for SWAP and file storage. Rent out the useage of my terminals on a half hour rate. For the buisness guys a laser printer at .05 a page (I have heard many times, "What no Kinkos around here"). I could even possibley get into some (emergancy road)repairs, or create a second half to the store that sells hardware and does repairs. The point to all this is that in this location it would work. There is no Library, no Kinkos, no 80211.b hotspots, no net at all.