Slashdot Mirror
Massive Multiplayer Gaming Warehouses On The Way
hephaist0s writes "A company called Holo-Dek Gaming has opened a gaming center in New Hampshire where $5/hour buys gamers a 73-inch high definition projection screen and a networked Alienware PC or or Xbox. More impressive, though, are the prototypes for their 180-degree gaming theater... and their game sphere. Yes, sphere. This is just a pilot program--the Baltimore facility planned for 2005 would have 300 networked gaming stations. Story and pictures here, company website here."
possibly see everything on the screen at once? I don't know if my field of view is that wide.
This sig is intentionally blank
Didn't arcades die because you could finally play the same games with the same quality at home?
I think the makers of DDR machines would disagree with you.
I wonder what the return would be at $5 an hour for such hardware. Surely they'd go bankrupt.
If only i knew where New Hampshire was, i would be on my way right now. (forget that i have classes tomorrow...) Thats a nice deal!
So.. can I live there? I can make my money selling items on eBay. I wonder how much the rent is?
Cool how much to buy a porno sphere for home use? And how do I write it off as a business expense?
I don't know about you, but when I want a LAN party with my friends but don't actually want to have to coordinate and set up a LAN party, I go to "cyberstores", where you pay maybe $3/hour for a pretty decent computer all hooked up and ready to play games.
Well, hell- if you can get an Alienware all LANned up (don't even get me started on the crazy screens) for only $5/hour, these little LAN businesses will surely die.
Not that I don't support these warehouses, where I will surely blow hundreds of dollars.
- dshaw
...make the sphere 3D
Until I see a gaming Dyson sphere!
Bored? Visit my exciting counter page!
If you've ever looked at a clock while gaming, you'd see that the hands move much faster. 1 hour goes by in a snap. More importantly, it's more expensive than a movie, and movies are designed for the time period, pack more into them, and are generally more interesting.
I have a feeling that the type of person who would do this aready owns an alienware and a hdtv...
Quid festinatio swallonis est aetherfuga inonusti?
Africus aut Europaeus?
$5 might not seen like a lot to you and me but what about the fact that most of the people using this will be broke teenagers??
Dashboard Widgets
Been done.
And don't forget to use a towel.
-S
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
If the projector bulb lasts 1000 hours, you would need to sell 100 hours alone just to cover the bulb cost.
Southeastern Virginia REPRESENT!
Here's the Google cache before we break the poor guys' server. http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:xoBRapmuom0J: www.holo-dek.com/+holo-dek&hl=en
"A truly wise man realizes he knows nothing."
Does the $5 dollar rate include some deodorant or soap kit for the unwashed masses?
Yes! I listen to NYC Speedcore and do math at 3AM. I suggest you try it too.
Are you crazy? Like everyone who wants an Alienware computer and a huge TV have one?! Lets say I'm willing to drop 20 hours into one of these bad boys ($100) Does than mean i would come close to buying both of them?! What does an alienware compy & one of these TVs cost. Sure you get to keep them when you buy them (duh) but i can't afford it. There are many people who would like to use this system at the advertised price but wouldn't/can't afford to buy it.
How much you want to bet the Citizen's Decency Brigade will be howling to shut these down, or at the very least to require a minimum age of 18 for admittance?
Lost: Sig, white with black letters. No collar. Reward if found!
Tinkering with a fresnel lens to get a larger virtual display with depth. (Haven't tried this, don't know how well it works.)
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
...NOW.
To fight the war on terror, stop being afraid.
Man, Private porn sphere title game: "Cumming from all directions."
http://www.commaecho.com
time to press some of those boxes into temporary webservers. here comes slashdot.
Is Fahrenheit 451 going to come true? Are we going to enter a society where every wall is a tele-screen, and we're constantly watching TV/playing games/etc?
What happened to normal life? Does that not exist anymore?
How much are they gonna charge to play that 180 degree monster. No way that's a $5/hr setup
"Plans are for fools! Oglethorpe, the plutonian (Aqua Teen Hunger Force)
Did anyone else read that headline as "Massive Multiplayer Gaming Whorehouses On The Way"?
$5/hour just seemed wrong for that.
The Okama GameSphere!
It's got 128 GHz DRAM. I don't know what that is, but it kicks ass...
If I could do it in that Dome, holy shit.
here
got sig?
I wish I could get one of thoughs for Christmas!
Arcades are dead and PC Baangs (it's the korean name for those cybercafes where you can play games onLAN/online) are nowhere near as popular as arcades were back in the day.
Now I can see how these warehouses with their alienware pcs and nice screens (most of them are "only" 73 inches) would appeal to the same crowd that plays FPS and Strategy games and goes to LAN parties but that crowd is very very small compared to the overall gamer's market. Heck, the whole PC game market represents less than 20% so you can imagine the actual percentage of people who are fond of those games.
The idea just doesn't seem to have enough appeal to snowball into the next big trend. I know it doesn't appeal to me. For the cost of a handful of gaming sessions, I can buy a new $200 graphic card and play the same games on a respectable 20" monitor (ok, so I already own that) for as long as I want, in the comfort of my home.
This is not to say his isn't a valid business plan. The center can be profitable if the location is good and the marketing is done right. But that's only in the short term. Once the newness evaporates and those alienware rigs aren't so hot anymore (replacing 300 alienware rigs will cost you a cool $100,000) , I predict a steady decline into oblivion.
This sounds pretty cool, but I think there is also a big risk. As others have alluded to, old school arcades have all but died off. Yeah there are Gameworks and Dave and Busters, but not that many of them across the country. The problem is that while video and computer games have become a $7B+ industry, gamers are still a niche market. There may not be enough of them willing to bring the repeat business that the gaming warehouse would need to stay afloat. They'd have to market it like crazy and try to draw in a more mainstream crowd. But again, there's that problem, Halo 2, Half Life 2, and Unreal Tournament are not mainstream! If these are the main dishes on the menu for multiplayer, we have something analogous to the indoor paintball centers here in Chicagoland, another tiny niche.
Still, with things that even the most hardcore gamer would be hard pressed to duplicate at home, this is pretty cool. But like Disney's failed Chicago Disney Quest Virtual Amusement Park (now a furniture store), getting repeat business is the biggest trick of all. I say good luck to them!
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
Sometimes a group of people just want to go out and do a simple group activity. You don't need to be a great bowler to have fun playing a few games with your friends. This is the same thing. You don't need to be some super gamer to enjoy a good multi-player game. Plus, more and more people are becoming gamers every year. The original Nintendo Generation are are in their 20's and 30's now. There's going to be a market for this.
Alienware PC or or Xbox Santa, I want a new slashdot editor and a speelcheck for christmas :D
Who else thought of the matrix when they read:
Take a minute to think about that-300 73-inch rectangles floating in rows in a dim warehouse, all lit with the light of games. They are all linked together, and then linked to others around the country, and all around the gaming world.
It's a huge idea, and it feels like the future
liqbase
Bah, ISU has had a "sphere" virtual reality room for years, the C6. I think they even tried putting a few games on it at one time (e.g. - Quake).
Nothing disturbs me more than blind loyalism towards some unrealistic and over-idealistic notion of one's nationality.
I own a cybercafe in colorado, and I'll tell you from first hand experience that the gaming community, although incredibly loyal and a ton of fun, cannot financially support such a behemoth.
/Don't/ cater to gamers, but instead to the joesixpacks.
300 Stations? I know there is one place in NY (??) that has something like that, and the only reason they are in business is because they
Sure, the coasts are a lot more populated and have a higher per-capita of hardcore gamers who will pay to play, but with only ~20 stations, it will take them a -long- time to break out of the red incurred by the initial investment. We've been open for 14 months now, and we're still paying off our $1200 PCs, and we're the most popular gaming center in town! We charge $3/hr for members, and $4/hr for walk-ins, and we get by with very modest paychecks. We would surely be unable to stay open if our *screens* costed $1k apeice, not to mention the $2k+ alienware boxes they have, even at $5/hr.
It's a great idea, but man. Good luck guys.
And I'd love to be at the bankruptcy sale! :)
Agile Artisans
$5000 / 73" projection TV (price based on a 70" Wega projection TV on pricegrabber.com)
$1800 / Alienware Aurora PC (middle of the road configuration from their web page)
300 * (5000 + 1800) = $2,040,000. Now even if they managed to get a huge bulk rate discount for those setups it would still be horrendously expensive. Let's be gracious and give them a 50% discount, though. So, about a cool $1M to equip the place. $1,000,000 / $5 per hour = 200,000 hrs. Divide that by 300 and you get approximately 667 hrs / machine to pay off the hardware. Figuring there's about 180 business hrs in a month (5hr per weekday and 10hrs per weekend for 30 days) means that every single one of those stations has to run continuously for about 15 weeks to pay off the hardware.
Now factor in broadband for 300 stations, rent, insurance, wages, benefits, advertising, security, etc... those things can easily rack up another $1m annually. So now all 300 machines need to run continually for 30 weeks, or 7.5 months, to cover the cost of the business.
Now the never ending sink-hole that is new game acquisitions. $50/title * 300 means it will cost them close to $15,000.00 for every game they have installed. Lets say the publishers give them a break of $35 / box. that's still $10,5000 / title. What's an average loadout for a LAN box? Four titles? Five? Let's say five. That's $52,500 for the software Figure new titles come out quarterly, but not new ones. Maybe 10 new titles a year? So, $105,000. In machine hours that's another 70 per machine, or another two business weeks. That brings the / machine total to roughly 32 weeks.
8 months of 35 hr weeks, for every machine in the place is a huge huge number.
100% utilization of that facility for 2/3rds of the year is extremely agressive.
So what, right? If they manage it then they have the cost of the hardware covered and the rest is pure sweet profit. Nope. After a year a ton of revolving costs will come in to play:
* Those projectors don't last forever. The bulbs aren't exactly cheap, either.
* Some of that hardware is going to break beyond repair and have to be replaced entirely.
* People expect a LAN center to offer them the current bleeding edge hardware...something better than what they have at home. Machines will have to be upgraded/replaced at a very fast clip.
None of this even takes in to account the R&D and manufacturing costs for those spheres.
Yeah, now that's my idea of a great place for a test market. Baltimore I can see. It's urban. But can you get more rural than New Hampshire? Maybe they can do a test site in Montana somewhere, or Kansas. I'm sure that will encourage investors. . .
Brannigan: "Kif, tell them what I call my disorder."
Kif: *sighs* "'Sexlexia...'"
Okay Alienware = Expensive
Homebuilt = Cheaper
As a part time investor just seeing that they're buying Alienware machines for the name only and seeing the total waste and high costs of playtime (Compare this to 1 dollar an hour in korea) I dont think it would profit.
Lets not to mention all the babysitting you will be forced to do with 300 potential customers of which a majority might be 13-17 year olds who are a exposive bunch whent hey get mad becuase they got beat.
I doubt they make it.
is one of those "pocket pussys".
But how much money will these places have to spend to upgrade PCs every time a new game with higher requirements come out? Upgrading 300 AlienWare PCs is going to be expensive. Buying new $500 video cards for 300 PCs every 10 months is going to hurt them unless they get an insane amount of business.
You have a comment you want to make in a long, tangential discussion that would be scored, even unmoderated, above those surrounding your own - thereby standing out as being off topic to those browsing at +2 (which, consequently, screws your karma).
I still think RC Pro-Am is one of the most fun games I've ever played.
I live in Baltimore!!! i'm Soooo Lucky!!!!!!!!!!!
Insert Pithy Quote here.
Ok, even with the possibility for extra revenue streams you mention (and let's not forget concession scams - $5 hot dogs and pizza slices, and $4 cokes - after all they have a captive audience who aren't going to leave the premises while they play), I *still* don't see this as being a hugely profitable enterprise. Sure, there might be other opportunities for some *modest* revenue streams, but personally, I don't see that there is a large risk/reward ratio hear. There's a fairly sizeable risk, with the promise of seemingly modest profits, as far as I can tell.
Course, maybe I'm just underestimating the potential side revenue, but I just don't see it being that great, considering all the expenses that others have pointed out.
Although, it may be that the $5/hour is just an 'intro' price to try to get people to start coming to the place. Perhaps they'll ratchet that up to $10/hr over time, which would go a great way towards making the 'primary' revenue stream break even (if the costs the grandparent post lists are assumed to be reasonable figures), so that secondary revenue streams can be mostly profit.
What? Did you expect a useful post here? This is slashdot, I don't even know what this article's about.
I dunno. A few recent trips to the mall have seen some very serious financial resources at the disposal of teenagers. Some with cash, many with c-cards paid by Daddy. And those who actually are broke are usually that way because they spend what they have frivolously-pretty much the definition of this rig.
Maybe you suffer from the "sexy learning disability", named sexlexia.
Movie houses use to have open game nights where for so much money they would allow you to play any snes/nes game on on the big screen. this tailed off because it was more cost effective to just show movies...
Couldn't you legally run a whorehouse so long as it's filled with real dolls?
Id have to say that this will kill. I know that UMBC students alone could probably flood the place, but it will probably fill up to the point reservations are taken. If you don't believe me, look at the ESPN Zone in the Inner Harbor. It's a far worse experience for a much higher price (it's an arcade with atrocious rates). Not that it's the same market, but it shows that people definitely would pay.
My co-workers and I have been going to a place like this for sometime here in Greensboro, NC. Digital Lifestyle Center has approx. 16-20 Alienware 64-bit gaming monsters and around 10 XBox'en.
Great place to go after work, enjoy a few Bawls, and kill your co-workers (legally).
put four wheels on it and call it a 'hummer'.
I'm planning to head out this Saturday. I live in southern NH and this is better priced than my local LAN center.
Wheel in the sky keeps on turnin'.
"Then Kit came to me and asked me if I could build some simulators for him for a theme restaurant... and while we were doing some of the investigation and he was explaining the market to me, I saw some of this and I thought, 'There's a business opportunity sitting in my cellar.'"
:) I wonder how many "ideas" have been "thought up" from kids.
So basically he stole the idea off his kid
Have you metaroderated recently?
Wasn't something like this in that mediocre Robin Williams movie, Toys?
Where the evil general takes over the toy company, and wants to turn kids into killing machines that remotely control weaponry?
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
You mean the one called THE INTERNET isn't good enough?
I came.
If you've ever looked at a clock while gaming, you'd see that the hands move much faster. 1 hour goes by in a snap. More importantly, it's more expensive than a movie, and movies are designed for the time period, pack more into them, and are generally more interesting. $5/hr * 2 hours =$10 $9 for MAYBE 2 hours? =$9* So its not THAT much more expensive, not to mention the reason why time if going by so fast is the fact your having fun and actually affecting something, instead of sitting on your duff. But as someone else mentioned the price seems a bit low, thats what the price is here, and granted theres only one in town, but that is still dirt cheap considering the 72" screens. If they can manage to keep the prophits up more power to them!
Like the saying goes, never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes. -Pyrotic
Bad ergonomics at those stations.
The middle of the screen where you most look is well above eye level meaning you would be looking up most of the time you are playing.
Sore necks ahoy!
It went under a few months later. Why? Because not only was it not generating enough revenue (but keep in mind this was in the burbs), but also because these days, people are more likely to have similar setups at home.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
This might work if they try to do something like F1 Boston, where it's a gaming center, bar + conference center.
These kind of places could be quite handy if one needed to get their daily fix of slashdot on the road... and didn't have a web-enabled cell phone handy. It might also be handy if one needed to download large completely legal files off of bittorrent, render a complex animation, or for some reason gain access to a computer.
The downside -- it most likely will be a game-only crippled Windows OS.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I'd take the five bucks and toss all the geeks in the warehouse together. Tells them it's the greatest MMWHATEVER EVER!
Hmm... charging $5/hr for that game station would require them to sell at least 160 hours per station just to pay for the chairs!
They are really comfortable chairs, I have one at work. If you add the cost of PC + projector + land + other expenses, I have a hard time believing a place like this could be profitable in their first year or two. By then, the novelty of it would wear off I think.
First off, there's this thing called deprecation you get to write against your profits. If they're leasing, the picture is even better - most of the wear items are deductions and that drops the effective cost by a large margin. Leasing would be pretty perfect for an arrangment like this, as the machines can be maintained or replaced on a regular planned schedule.
A place like this is going to run 24h or 18h/day, not 8h/day. Unless my sleeping habits do not extrapolate, that is - I suspect there are a lot of semi-nocturnal technical people out there.
$5/h might just be an introductory rate - if they move that up even a small amount, say $7.50/h - this has dramatic impacts on the bottom line if the utilization rates are high. $5 or even $8/h is a bargain - it costs time to maintain a state of the art system, and it costs real money too. Not everyone has the time (or money) to do this.
Another consideration a lot of people here haven't mentioned is the fact it gives everyone an even playing field. Either a lot of people here don't lan and don't know WTF they are talking about - or maybe everyone has money, I don't know - but there is nothing that sucks worse at a LAN than when somebody has inferior hardware, or the bare minimum hardware, and is getting their ass fragged because of it. This gives a top of the line reference platform to go have some fun with.
This hasn't factored in concessions - likely huge, movie theatres operate at a near loss and make it up on popcorn, for example. A place like this could make a fortune with a liscenced area selling alcohol, pizza, whatever - no mess, no fuss.
I think these guys are going to make a killing.
..don't panic
Or you can make one for a tenth the price, with a projector a mirror and a screen.
It may not be te best projection screen in the world, but it should be just about ok.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
This is addressed to all the nay-sayers about the cost.
Judging by the quality and scope of the initial venture, I'd say that the proprietor of this little business probably has a fair amount of capital behind him. I mean, his kid comes up to him and asks him to build a few simulators. When you are a multi-millionaire, the initial cost of a venture means absolutely nothing. His comments about eventually having a worldwide franchise definitely point towards him already having a lot of money to fund such a push.
Geek is chic. I don't want to be popular.
Homer: Comon! Damn You! OVULATE!
Machine: *You are out of sperm*
*Homer leaves. Krusty hops on the seat*
Krusty: Hey baby, remember me!
I live in VT, near the VT/NH border. And when reading this article, all I could think is "Why the hell would they put this in New Hampshire?"
Don't get me wrong--I love NH. But, last I checked, NH had about 1 million people in it. And, let me assure you, most of them either: (1) don't care about video games, and/or (2) don't have the disposable income to drop 5 bucks per hour on a glorified arcade.
Perhaps this would work in a Major Metropolitan Area. But New Hampshire?
I once have seen a game system linked to a 100 inch projector! That was a looong time ago and the game system was actually a NES (256x240, 16 colors) running some awful karate game... *shudder*
Circumcision is child abuse.
How did this get modded to 5 when he didn't even bother reading the article. Hell, he didn't even scan the images.
"73" projection TV (price based on a 70" Wega projection TV on pricegrabber.com"
So he visited pricegrabber.com but didn't even look at the pictures in the article?
Does the very first picture look like $5,000 WEGA televisions or $800 projectors?
prices on net cafes are supposed to go down, not up.
Last one I knew charged....2$=2.50 and hour, and 3$ an hour in downtown chicago.
5$/hour? no thank you.
Maybe he's one of those fortunate 10% of men who can have an orgasm from a lap dance at a strip club. Most guys will just end up handing over 20 after 20 and end up jerking off later at home.
Also, I wouldn't count on pussy in your face/lap at a titty bar. Last time I checked around here, the places that were all nude weren't allowed to serve alcohol. To put it in geeky terminology, the law is "all nude XOR alcohol". Yeah, I don't get any either.
My other first post is car post.
... And guess what OS these machines are *not* going to be running. :-D
(I'm not talking about Windows 98, either.)
But i don't think the wife will appreciate
We both love playing pinball in the arcade, something we're fairly good at and so it doesn't cost a fortune either to play a couple of hours. Unfortunately the arcades have pretty much disappeared in my country (NL).
Now this big screen thing might work and i think $5/hour is not too bad but when it's really good they probably won't be able to provide enough facilities for everyone to play when they want, and what's worse than having to wait in line or book a spot 2 days ahead to be able to play your favorite game.
Sample this!
Many have assumed that the game site would own the hardware? Why? Computers particularly game machines depreciate in value as fast as moore's law. Much better to lease the equiptment, which would reduce payments to a fraction of the cost up front. Furniture can be leased/rented.
Also rental models are possible for the software as well, working with EB or the like.
Internet badnwidth on the other hand will be expensive. So figure that most gaming will be LAN local.
Given the excess of commercial lease space currently, the business could be set up feasibly. Only needed is the proximity to willing gamers.
The founder talks about custom mounting equiptment to convert a warehouse indicating his idea is not tied to a specific location. Think bowling alley, not coffee shop. Figure his cost model is the same as a bowling alley, $5+/hr per person at peak, bonus for food/drink concessions. A bowling alley is just a converted warehouse.
This idea looks very feasible. But the proximity to a willing populous is key.
Additional offerings could be based arround regional tournament events for video game extended markets, like Quakecon. Or EA tours, etc He can set up 100 terminals in a temporary location for a week and then take them down. Quick In Quick Out.
In fact life gets really easy if alienware or somebody came up with a 1U rack mounted package. He can wire bundle the feed to the projector/input device/broadcast hub combination at each station.
Like somebody else said, only in the US. And I'm pretty sure it's because while everybody else in the world is playing Final Fury XXDeusSE in their arcades, the best we normally manage over here are the titles several generations behind the current. That's assuming your arcade even bothers to update on a regular basis. Heck, if they kept the titles as fresh as they do in say, Singapore (been there, done that), then I suspect sales would be a tad stronger.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
In india its costs 80cents/hour to play multiplayer counterstrike/UT etc., on a 15inch LD screen at Reliance Webworld cybercases. All cybercafes are connected by fibre to each other. So you need not be in the same cafe. Infact they regularly hold all India tournaments where you can participate and win prizes!
My Aurora : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o91ZsGwJYyg
FB : https://www.facebook.com/TanveersPhotography
Hows about a Beowulf cluster of these puppies?
Over the summer I started planning a budget conscious projection theater for my basement. I set aside a budget of $3500CAD and started researching my options.
For about $3500 you can put together a fairly nice fifty something inch crt rear projection television and a decent sound system. Or you can opt for a front projection unit and a much nicer sound system. I chose the later and I am thirlled with the outcome. An Infocus 4805 + Yamaha 1400 + JBL 7.1 micro speaker package + XBox is gaming heaven. Beautiful sharp picture, bright vivid colors plus a bar fridge filled with booze.
In order to keep the cost down I decided to build my own AV rack, Projector Mount, component video cables and even my own tensioned screen. I managed to come in just slightly over budget after abusing the staff pricing at a friend's work (Thanks James!). Next year the prices and the picture quality will be even better. This is the future of home entertainment. Since I have built my setup three other visitors have started planning one in their own home.
I have been spoiled by my home theater and so have my friends. Now, video games just seem so bland on a 27" TV with wimpy stereo sound.
There is definately an appeal for big screen gaming, but I think that this concept for a facillity of this type is on the virge of becomming redundant as prices drop sharply and people start setting them up in their home. Costs for leasing computer, video and audio hardware, real estate and liscencing for games is just too high for a business of this sort to really be profitable.
If I'm going to go to this facility, I want my own AV setup so I can play against my friends and therefore the number of stations required grows very quickly. Gaming and movies are very different. Gaming is not a group experience like a movie theater. You will be hard pressed to have 50 people cram into a room to watch someone else play quake, and you would be hard pressed to offer the space and equipment to needed for 50 surround sound gaming theaters for $5 an hour.
Excuse me while dim the lights and get back to killing The Covenant Armada on a 96" screen in the privacy of my own home.
Loren.
where? I lived in London for ten years, moved out a couple of years back (but still go back about once a month). Where are these computer gaming arcades? There's the Trocadero in tourist ghetto Piccadilly, and that's half full of of other fleece-the-tourist leisure crap. There's that one big single floor amusement arcade up in Soho, seems mostly fruit machines these days. My count is one possibly zero... other people care to correct me? would be interested to know. Are we talking London as in central tourist zone, or where people live (none of those 4 storey gaming arcades in Hackney anyway). Unless of course you're talking about crap bars /chain pubs with TVs and pool tables and a couple of fruit machines in a corner.
Oh boy, this sound like all those deaths-by-gaming will go, as we get strapped in, dripped up, and play away!
:-)
better than life?
Of course not, you loser. its only Half-life.
The half life 'sickness' is caused by a 60hz refresh lock, I always say, I run my monitor at 100hz, then I check, 75, no wonder eye strains, I upped it back to 100. damn.
Realism might one day cause sickness, but for now frequency does it... too realistic models look less real because we view them under more scrutiny (to simplify).
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
Information wants to be anthropomorphized!
Summary (see below for calculations:
(all numbers are per month per facility)
Income : 16,500
expenses:
Staff 4,048
Computers 2,500
Rent 4,500
25%misc 2,800
total expenses 13,848
profit: $2,652
Not including snaks and trinkets.
Hours of operation:
Mon-thurs 3-11pm 8 hrs
Fri 3-12 9 hrs
Sat 9am-12pm 15hrs
Sun 9-11 14hrs
=
Open hours 46hrs/wk
Hours per week per station:
(80% eff. at peak times)
Mon-thurs iffy rental
Fri night - 7 hrs
Sat 12
Sun 11
===============
rental hours/wk/station 30
Computer equipment:
projectors $1800
computers $1900
=
station $3700
If they upgrade the equipment every 18 mo and liquidate on ebay for $2000 it comes to about
$100/mo for the computer.
Staff:
1 worker @ $10/hr @ 46hrs/wk = $460/wk = $2,024/mo
If staff is 2 workers plus owner, and the owner doesn't get an hourly wage then:
staffing = 2 * 2,024 = $4,048/mo.
Revenues:
-A station yields 30hrs * $5/hr= $150/station
-at 4.4 wks/mo yields $660/mo/station
25 stations yeilds $16,500/month/facility +snacks +mon-thrus iffy
Rent
-Station 5ft wide, 5ft from wall + 3ft behind player then 5x8 or 40sqft is station size.
-25 stations = 1000 sq ft for gaming stations.
-Then this should easliy fit into a standard 3000sqft rental space. In connecticut this is about $4500/mo including utilities.
s/White/Yellow/
If you get in, then you can get whatever booze, smack, or blow you want to go along with your choice of "interactive partner". Natrually, nothing in the interactive room is free; the $500 is the weed-out money to keep the riff-raff from even asking.
Yeah, right.
Ah. Warehouses. I'll get me coat.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
You're an idiot if YOU missed the boat to gaming conventions which seemingly half of you forgot about.
You DO KNOW that things like Quakecon exist right? Where people hold contest to make an area more gaming centric and players come from everywhere to win all sorts of money from sponsers like AIT, nVidia, etc? Yeah, that's a pretty good reason to build one of these and it's quite a room packer if you've ever been to one.
The argument over arcade popularity is retarded, arcades aren't multi-million dollar warehouses set up for gaming, they cost 20-50K at the most and make that back slower than a snail compared to any reasonable gaming center. God why are people posting who know nothing about gaming (*cough* everyone has an alienware who would go to this? what crack are you on? they cost $5K for a good alienware*cough*) or gaming centers. Or those who want to bring up a debate on how popular arcades USED to be compared to gaming centers NOW?
You can't even use the same goddamn dollar table for crying out loud (inflation, different era, different games, different AUDIENCE).
I'm going to have a very demanding job soon. I have no time to play games usually, so my dual p3-800 machine i put together as state-of-the-art a couple years ago has sat idle.
I'd much rather just have a console at home for when I want to play something quick, and be able to go somewhere like this to play MMORPGs or other PC games. I wouldn't have to worry about building a machine every couple years and then completely not using it, or even spending the time to figure out what the good games are -- I could just show up on a weekend and play a game through for 10-15 hours!
I think it would rock.
I own a game center, TheQwerty.com. Whenever I see a high end game center go up (alien ware computers, VIP rooms, fancy expensive tech..) they usually go out of business in a few months to a year. These people don't realize that this isn't a technology business, it's a *social* business. Most people don't goto game centers because of the technology, they go because they can hang out with friends and play games with like minded people.
These are also low profit businesses, so buying big expensive items will only hurt things more.
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
It's being built by a lonely billionaire.
He just wants company... That he can talk shop with.
(Unlike the escorts he always has over)
Any step towards a 3D holographic X-Men simulation chamber is a good step to me. ;)
...does the facility have anything to cater to old-school classic GLQuakers?
All that bleeding-edge hardware, and we STILL insist on turning off all the eye-candy. Except for maybe r_shadows. To remind us it's 3d.
W-Industries did something similar with thier Virtuallity kit. Arcades took them, and gaming centres opened up. And then closed. The cost model just doesn't add up. Arcades work because the kit is low maintenance and requires no attention unless it breaks. Not so with Virtuallity, and not so here. Give the stores 1 year max, then the To Let signs will be going up.
... my NetHack experience?
An Okama Game Sphere!??
Sweeeeet.
It's a game sphere... but is it an Okama GameSphere?
503 Sig Unavailable
The Signature could not be accessed. Please try again later or contact the administrator
Honestly, this sounds like playing laser tag or paint ball without the realism and the workout. If you're going to bother driving over to some big warehouse to play with a bunch of other people, do you really want to sit at a computer and look at a monitor the whole time? Why sit down while "playing" when you could really be running around?
Obviously, I'm not big into gaming. I like computer games because they offer convenient entertainment... doesn't matter where I am or what time it is, a computer or game box is always ready and willing to go a few rounds. And with the advent of multi-player, net-based games, I can (sort of) interact with other people who I may or may not know even though I'm nowhere near them. This warehouse thing seems like the opposite of that to me. It's *not* convenient in that I have to drive to get there (and I'm not all that far from this first one), and it's likely not going to be open all the time. There's a reason that video game arcades all died out when powerful home computers and game machines came along.
Obviously, not all games can be translated into meatspace. I don't think SimCity, for example, could work as anything but a computer game. But I'll bet that these game warehouses will run few games other than first person shooters, and those translate more or less directly into laser tag or paint ball.
We've got two Dave and Busters locations near me, in Rhode Island. There's on a a new mall, and it's only been there a few years - maybe five.
They have not done a single thing to keep the place running well. Almost all the games are the same games they put in five years ago, and when they break, they fix them 'enough' to run. For games that cost somtimes two dollars to play, you would hope that the seat works, the force-feedback steering wheel works, and the sounds work. But quite often, none of these are true.
The screens all have burn-in, too.
I mean, COME ON! Everyone I know, at least, agrees with me on D&B. Sure, it's a novel thing to be able to play a game with a beer and a cigarrette, but when the games are all old and decrepid the novelty wears off quick.
They make SO much money there, there's no excuse. Three years ago, the place ways always busy - lines every night. Now, there's nothing even close to a line at the place and I think it's the old crappy games, expensive beer, and dried out food that you can get within three hours of ordering it.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
Their thoughts on these game spheres don't add up.
How exactly is the sphere going to let me see an opponent in Unreal Tournament earlier than if I was playing on a normal 'flat' screen. The flat screen projects ALL of the "view" that was programmed by the game developers. So if an an opponent enters from the left side of my flat screen, I will see him/her. Now take that same programmed view and wrap it around me on a sphere. Nothing different about the view I have, its just wrapped around me.
If I move my view (using my mouse, or other input device) the view will pan on my flat screen. It should pan as well on the sphere. The sphere can't project areas outside my view...it doesn't know what they are until I choose to pan my view and those areas are rendered.
I guess I am just trying to say that if you play
Unreal Tournament on a 15 inch monitor you see the
"view" you are currently looking at. Now play the game on a 19 inch monitor. You don't see anything more than on the 15 inch monitor, things are just bigger. You don't see areas that would have been off the side or the top or the bottom of the 15 inch monitor...because they are outside your view. Now play the game on a 50 inch screen. Again, you don't see anything more than what you saw on the
15 inch or 19 inch monitors, things are just bigger. Now project it on a sphere. Again, nothing new. Just bigger and wrapped around your head.
Sure- I remember sitting in the MACS (Manned Air Combat Simulator) as a teenager at the then McDonnell Douglas world HQ in St Louis in 1973. I got to sit in the cockpit of an F-18 (before they even built one), and watch a couple of real pilots in a couple of other spheres run simulated air to air missions between an F-15 and a simulated F-18. They had two setups, one in Va and one in St Louis, communicating over fast data lines. The whole thing was controlled by a big honkin Control Data Cyber 700 setup. Visual cues were provided by some computer generated imagery (mostly sky, aircraft, and stuff). Ground imagery was generated by a very detailed terrain model (I mean sticks and glue and felt and balsa wood) on a wall, with a fast TV camera running on a big XYZ gantry. It was incredibly cool.
I think we are seeing the new Arcade. Kind of a bummer that my generation ended up missing an arcade like experience. But I can't wait till we get one of these and the kid asks for a birthday party there.
I guess you've got to aim for either kids or adults as it would be tough to do both. It appears that these warehouses are gunning for the kids.
2. Abysmal Female/Male Ratio True its getting better. More and more women are getting into gaming, but everytime I've gone to a LAN Party shop there is at most one girl for every 10 guys. Maybe not a problem for geeks, but a huge problem for the average Joe. You'll have to think of some creative ways to get females to come out. If you build it maybe they'll come though.
3. Ridiculous cost of LCD projector bulbs as compared to CRT monitors.
I'm sure the costs are coming down, but man LCD projectors that stay on 24/7 are gonna be a pain to maintain and operate. If you're lucky enough to get 2000 hrs out of a bulb, its gonna need to be replaced every 80 days or so. That's at least $300 a pop for every projector in the entire place. Probably $.25 of your $5 an hour is gonna go toward projector bulbs alone. Not to mention the labor and downtime needed to replace them.
4. Average players gets creamed by hard core gamers that practically set up shop in the establishment.
There are always gonna be the guys that LIVE in the store and prey on the rookies that come in with their friends and family. So I'm alive for about 16 seconds and the I have to respawn again. I could kick them out of my game, but where's the fun in that?
5. Unlike movies, you can buy games on CD/DVD the very same day they are released.
So people go to movies for a number of reasons. A big reason that people see movies in theaters is that they have a monopoly on first run movies. Nobody has a monopoly on new games, and since broadband is pretty much everywhere in the US they're expecting kids to pay $5 an hour for something that they can do at home. That's like paying to see a movie at the theater that's already out on DVD. People do it, but I wouldn't build my business around it.
Now with all this said, I think that these places are good ideas and will work, but I think that the lure will have to be social as opposed to technical b/c in a few years everybody's going to have the technology, and I'm not sure they'll pay $5 just to sit in front of a projector. The people running these places are gonna have to get creative. Get families in there. Get people in there on dates. Get singles in there looking to mingle and you've got something. Host tournaments. Maybe do a networked speed dating night. The place is in an office park, so if you keep it clean enough you may even be able to set aside a room for companies to do computer training during the day when the kids are at school. A bunch of geeks in a dark room playing the latest FPS. Been there done that!
Just my 2 cents.
I have dabbled with the idea of opening a gaming center. I have done much research and additionally called many game centers across the country for guidance. You can also become a member of igames for an enormous support system.
These guys are on the right track with 300 systems. You are far more likely to succeed with 100 systems charging $1/hour than with 20 systems charging $5/hour...even with the additional hardware costs.
But the equipment these guys are using is just plain stupid. You'd have to hope to catch lightning in bottle to make this pay off. The projectors are neat, I wanted 42" plasma's. However, the eyes fatigue with a screen size over 19 inches...and 19 inch monitors are cheap. The big screens are selling point at first, but in the end it's the visceral experience of LAN gaming that continues to bring people in.
And Alienware systems? ALIENWARE!? The name will only get you so far, and really just with n00bs. Dollar for dollar, you can custom-build better systems, or save a bunch of $$$ for comparative performance.
The sphere is neat, but at what cost? It would be a novelty seat...something people would do once, maybe twice at what would have to be a premium price. You'd get a line to use for the first few weeks/months...and then the hype would settle and the reality of the wallet would set in. Further, you could give the impression that your gaming center is overpriced.
Finally, and this is just my personal pet peeve with many gaming centers...I don't like the headphones. They keep the noise down, but they also isolate the player in an environment that is supposed to bring gamers together. My design had small rooms with 4-8 machines each. Then you can yell all you want that your teammate sucks for not covering your six.
I'm sorry, but your opinion seems to be wrong.
www.xgamerslounge.com
00101010
finally, a solution to this growing epedemic! too long we've let these villans roam the streets.
although, in the name of humanitarianism, i hope this prison does have good ventilation.
jk or something
In money taken in.
A $20,000 arcade machine takes in far more than $5/hour.
A $0.25 continue is designed to last for less than 1 minute in the business. If a person continued for all of an hour, the machine would take in $15/hour. And that's all ignoring the fact that the big machines are $0.50 minimum. And also that virtually all arcade machines are designed to take money from two people at the same time.
Plus, arcades keep machines for a long time, far longer than a PC is useful for running top-line games. Finally, arcades are notorious for hiding income, since they are a cash business. Not paying the government can make a huge difference. This just isn't possible with a $5/hour credit card business.
I'm gonna call BS on this too. $5/hour won't make it for these machines. Not with electricity, staff, maintenance, games, internet, etc...
I used to deal with arcade games a lot, several friends are operators. Standup machines (regular Street Fighter-type cabinets) top out at about $6K. It's the "simulator" type games that cost more than that. And a standup machine takes up a lot less floor space than just a 73" TV alone, let alone with the chair and such added in.
Another company tried converting old movie theatres into large WAN gaming sites with the full tilt of Alienware machines, etc., with the same amount of hype this story holds. Unless the backers have deep pockets, citing industry figures on the popularity of video games is highly misleading. Most of those revenues come out of distribution, and not from end-user sales. Best of luck to them, but if they survive even two years, it would be very surprising.
He's exploring options if I read the article right. He's setup a small gaming center (well, it can be used for anything actually. You just rent the PC and screen) for now. He's researching other setups too. Sounds like he's going at this with a sound bussiness head. The first thing I thought of when I read the part about setting up in warehouses was something we have similar for RC racing around here: you arrange a big enough space (parking lot, conference room, etc.), and then contact a company to come setup cars and a track. One big bundle. Sounds like the racks would be for the same purpose: someone rents the mobil package and his people comes and sets it up. Company team-building events would love stuff like this.
It just seemed like too many people poo-pooing setting up warehouse size arcades when I didn't see that in the article.
AB HOC POSSUM VIDERE DOMUM TUUM
The place is great. Though right now they have only 2-3 dozen stations, and the big sphere and surround screen are works in progress. And they're only open three days a week.
The place is in an industrial park that doesn't attract any drive-by customers, and they put it there on purpose so they can tweak everything without getting overrun.
It's kind of a prototype shop for a chain they'd like to open, and the parent company is a robotics firm that makes motion platforms for simulatars and a bunch of other stuff.
Anyway, the place is hot. If you live near the seacoast area in NH, it's worth a trip.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.