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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."
Didn't arcades die because you could finally play the same games with the same quality at home?
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
Until I see a gaming Dyson sphere!
Bored? Visit my exciting counter page!
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.
If you look at the article, it shows that the "73 inch screens" are nothing more than Alienware computers hooked up to a projector, and with the user sitting about 3 feet from the wall. I don't know what could be inside the "game spheres", but the 180 game screen looks very cool. Plus, realistically, you see a lot of things through your peripheral vision; your actual center field of vision is very small (if I remember correctly, roughly 5-6 cm in diameter). I really like this idea. It reminds me of the story that was on Slashdot a while ago, about having video game tournaments at movie theaters.
Did anyone else read that headline as "Massive Multiplayer Gaming Whorehouses On The Way"?
$5/hour just seemed wrong for that.
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.
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.
$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.