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Can a Gaming Cafe be Successful?
droidlev asks: "For years I've been toying around with the idea of opening up a medium sized gaming cafe in the Chicago suburbs. I have already taken care of the issue on how to make money during the day, when our younger market is in school, However, the question of whether or not a place like this can be successful, still remains. I've seen plenty of undermanned and poorly planned places in the area (and on the East Coast) like this go under in six months. What is your opinion? What ideas and thoughts do you have that could help a place, like the one I'm proposing, succeed? Do you have gaming cafes in your area that are successful? What unique techniques have they implemented?"
I live in Brisbane, Australia, and gaming cafe's are quite popular in the major cities. I know of at least four around inner city brisbane that have been open for years and are quite successful. From my observations their main revenue intake is based around these key concepts: 1. Location 2. Word of mouth Location is imperical, and you need to strike deals/lan nights to get word of mouth generation. Setting up shop near a school (preferably private school) can sometimes make this type of business a success, as i've seen in Brisbane. If you start all nighters and events it will generate a decent amount of friends telling other friends and so on to bring in business and customers. Anyway, these are just a few suggestions i'm guessing you already know about, hope it helps. PS: If you have the room, get a pool table!
You didn't specify what kind of games your cafe would feature. I assume you mean computer games (WoW, CS:S, et al). There is a place in my area that does very well in that market, but only because of variety.
I'd recommend offering something aside from computer games. Set up some tables for Magic: The Gathering, D&D, Battletech, Warhammer, etc so you aren't only catering to the "I don't have broadband" market. This way you'll become a social gathering place for geeks. You may even consider starting a card/miniature trading deal in your shop where you buy things from your customers and sell them back.
That's my advice. But, then again, I have NO business sense.
Anyone else think the comments just weren't rendering right before they turned off ABP and saw ads?
Good luck, but currently, I don't think it's a viable business plan.
and the more successfull ones were built around other businesses as an additional attraction. a local pizza/sub shope would have a game room where i could throw away a roll of quarters from the paper route income. the laundry houses also had a few video game machines. i don't recall standalone game rooms (the malls had 'um but i never frequented these places) that were successfull.
today, places are starting to incorporate wifi access as part of their extended business plan. most panera bread stores have free wifi access. so, i go to panera bread for coffee. i hear the starbucks has wifi, but you have to be part of some expensive plan to use them. i've never gone that route.
so, to answer your quetsions, no, there are no gaming houses that are successfull around here, and more creative business establishments would use something like that as an attraction to compliment their other business.
A very successful one around me - which was open for years, but has recently closed (I think mostly due to new developments in the area) - incorporated a slightly esoteric menu (vegan items and so forth) with a coffee bar and gaming den.
SYS 64738
Sorry, here's the same post again with the paragraphs put back in.
Well, I don't have any. But some close friends of mine just opened a gaming cafe in a town small enough not to have one yet.
They put the cash in and got decent hardware while spending minimal amounts on the decor, just enough to clean it up.
Against my advice they franchised some software to manage it but the franchisor gave them a lot of help along the way. In this case the fees were paid off within the first three months but the quality of the setup was sometimes suspect (VMware virtual machine on linux running Windows NT running TurboSquidNT as the gateway. WTF?). I don't see how you couldn't do all the work yourself just a easily however.
The hours are long! It's hard, monotonous work and you don't get a lot of time to focus on your own gaming, but the cash is coming in and they're making a lot of money.
They're focusing on return customers and keeping them happy, doing things like all-night lock-ins to keep it interesting.
As for around here, there are dozens, literally dozens of crap quality net cafes in the area, but they're always full, mostly of the local asian population.
The moral: study the area you're opening. Are the cafes full? When are they full? What's the rent like? Is the area safe to hang out in? Is the cafe presentable? Work your ass off and it'll all work out just fine.
There's also one here in sunny Portland, OR. It's called backspace ( www.backspace.bz ). They have just celebrated their 3 year anniversary of gamingness. I think the trick that Backspace has pulled is that it's in a very swanky area of downtown Portland, and they've fused a cyber cafe with a full-fledged art gallery, and chill out area. They've got a lot to offer in the way of neo-entertainment. Modern art, coffee, free wi-fi, comfy chairs, chess and other board games, pool, and a slew of PC games with either an internet or LAN option for play. It should also be mentioned that their location in downtown provides them with a maximum amount of both, business traffic in the daytime, and lots of people in the evening that are within walking distance that want to get out of their tiny apartments. I don't know how you'd convince a bunch of suburbanites to leave their tract housing developments to play games. But, I think a key is to offer diversity and appeal to professionals looking for a convienient and chic place to have meetings, as well as gamers looking to come out of their caves. Good luck!
There's a place in town here (Cambridge Ontario Canada) That does fairly well (open for a year now) They use memberships for people that want to play regularly to make most of their rent. They also have food/drink there (pop and chips kind of stuff) and gamer and geek T-Shirts as well (similar to Think Geek). The WiFi is cool, secure it though so you can control who's on it better. There's another one in London Ontario that has a "Internet Cafe" in the front, so people can check email and surf the web. Then the back room is the gamer room. Combine the front Internet cafe style with a bit of a real cafe (watch out for the licensing if you're selling food/drink you make there) with a few tables at it so people can grab a coffee and do a quick email check on their own laptop/PDA while there would be a neat idea as well. Best advice is to look at the area and ask what is needed. Maybe hang out near the local EB Games for a day or two and ask people as they're leaving/entering if they'd fill out a 5 question survey about it. You may be able to avoid the mistakes the other places made.
DarkMantle I been bored, so I started a blog.
A good article from Slate about a guy and his failed coffeeshop business. Not quite the same, I realize, but still very insightful.
I like to think of the real problem game centers have in terms of system dynamics: a game center draws customers from within a limited geographic radius (about 10 miles, or maybe 15 km, in my case). Within that radius there are a limited number of people who will be interested in what you offer. In the early days business grows exponentially, but NOT because of any kind of growth in the number of potential customers--it's just that more and more of your fixed number of potential customers are finding out about you. At some point you reach saturation, and that where the system dynamics comes into play: you are in a fight between the number of potential customers in your area that are leaving (graduated, moved away, bought their own computer, ran out of money, lost interest, etc.) versus the number of new potential customers that are being created (moved in, got old enough mom would let them play, etc.). Basically, there are many more paths for customers to leave then there are for them to arrive in your pool of "potentials", so it's a loosing proposition.
Yes, there are things you can do to change the coefficients of some of the terms in the basic equation: you can try to bring in more adults, you can add more games more frequently, do more advertising, etc. What I've seen, though--and I've validated the basic model with several other (former) game center owners--is that if you do everything right business is good for about a year and a half, then it peaks and falls off to much lower level. Revenues can remain stable after that point, but at a level that is WAY below the peak--and that generally means you don't have the profits you need to upgrade machines, buy new games, etc. When you stop being able to upgrade and add new games, you enter the final part of the curve when business falls off further from the already-low plateau it was at, and then you're dead (in terms of the business).
Tweak the situation a little bit and the timing of when you hit the inflection points on the curve will shift forward or backward some, but the basic shape of the curve doesn't change--that's why I say that this really isn't a viable business.
Oh, those "special circumstances" I mentioned, that would make it viable? They DO exist, but are rare: for example, you don't pay for most or even any of your games (a popular strategy in developing countries, and unfortunately used much more frequently than you might think even in the developed world!); you're setting up business in a community where there's nothing else for kids to do; you find other uses for the floorspace and computers that you can make money on when people aren't playing games (computer classes, for example). Even if these or similar factors apply in your case, though, they usually only make the difference between surviving and not--I've never seen a case where they are enough to actually get things to the point where the business is financially attractive to be in.
Yes, all of the
In Hampton Roads Virginia (Southeast Virginia), there is a cyber cafe that has been in business for years. I'm not sure how long but at least 5-10 years. I would imagine the most expensive part of Cyber Cafe startup is the Tier line and being able to pay for it on monthly basis.
Check out Website CyberCafe. They have webcams and photos of the place to see how they got it setup. Webcams are live so you can also see how busy it is with a 1.6 million population.
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In places other then the US and Canada, they seem to do very well.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
The best thing you can do is get affiliated with Igames.org, you get a wealth of information and ideas + support from hundreds of exhisting owners.
I ran my centre, Capture The Frag here in a small town ~80,000 with 2 other pc and 1 xbox center and we did alright, surviving about 15 months.
What ends up killing you is the price of the games, the stupid licensing from companies like valve and the cost of supporting your hardware/upgrading and making sure the machines are maintained.
Get a license for Deep Freeze, it'll be your best friend.
We made a good deal of $ but it mostly went to advertising and paying for the property lease plus games, remember you're not buying 1, you're buying however many games for however many comps you have.
In the end, after about 15 months, i got sick of working 100 hours a week for no pay, its SO much more than just hooking some comps into a hub and going.
VideoGames Etc. near Harwood Heights (Chicagoland area, toward Skokie) is the place to visit if you want to check out the Internet Cafe scene. It's run by a fellow named Sean Kelly. Kelly is one of the primary organizers of the Classic Gaming Expo, and is well versed in gaming systems new and old. As a result, you'll find that his store is filled with a combination of Internet Gaming, classic systems, and the latest stuff from Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony. It's weird to find it all under one roof, yet quite satisfying when you can walk home with something for both your PS2 and Odyssey^2.
:)
Here's their address if you want to visit:
Videogames Etc
4351 N. Harlem
Norridge, IL 60706
Don't tell them I sent you, because they'd have no idea who I am.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
A suggestion to keep the system at default settings would be Deep Freeze. If someone manages to fuck up the system a reboot will take care of it quickly.
I assume you'll need to replace certain parts which are used by the customers frequently: mouse and keyboard in particular, headphones, too. Maybe even the display, although a regular cleaning might do. People tend to treat stuff badly when it's not their own. Fortunately none of these is particularly expensive.
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
I don't know what lessons can be applied to the U.S., but FWIW, game cafes are big business in Japan. In addition to computers with games and broadband connections, they typically feature large libraries of manga, CD's and DVD's, plus various types of fast food and complimentary drinks. There is often a subset of computer carels that are basically fully enclosed cubicles with lockable doors, where privacy is assured, and really big, luxurious reclining seats that people would be comfortable spending the night in. These places are often open 24/7.
in six months, on the East Coast (Boston). How about that? So, I know plently of what not to do
1. Put the cafe in a building that is not protected by the National Landmark Act. This will keep you out of conflict when you try and comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
2. Put the cafe somewhere you can get cable, or satellite TV. (Of course make sure that you've go a fat LAN to boot)
3. If you're going to sell food or drink:
a. Sell it behind a counter, or in a vending machine. Selling food out in the open will lead to vermin.
b. If you're going to sell drink, make sure your bathroom is publicly accessible.
4. If you can, (and I bet you can't), allow people to smoke. MMORPGs that are released in South Korea are designed so that you can control your character with one hand, and chain-smoke with the other. (Also used to work for an MMORPG company)
5. Get a location with as much tourist foot traffic as you can. Being just a general internet cafe helps to pay the bills while you generate a stable client base.
6. Don't spend any money on flashy crap. No Aeron chairs, no Alienware computers. Keep the space, and the website, simple.
7. Go with a stable, trustworthy computer locking system. Make it card-based, not password-based. Don't go with a vendor that doesn't expose the whole OS when the computer is unlocked. 'Gamer OSes' are presumptuous pieces of crap. Re-ghost all your machines from an offline server every day at least.
8. Charge $5 an hour or less. Anything more, in terms of more money or less time, feels like a ripoff to customers.
9. A gaming cafe requires that you get special licenses for the games you allow people to play.
a. Blizzard is ridiculously expensive. If you've got a Korean community next door, it's probably worth it to get the licenses for Starcraft and WC3, otherwise don't bother.
b. Get games that _sell well_. Don't get new games until you know how they do. Sure, I enjoyed Tron 2.0, but I didn't have to pay $7.50 an hour to play it.
c. Get games that have no licensing cost! What a concept! get as many of these as you can.
10. Get headsets with microphones. Allow people to customize their area with their own mouse/mousepad/keyboard/headset. Crazy FPS players do take that seriously.
11. Do something wacky to bring people in. The best Internet Cafe in the Boston Area serves bubble tea. I have advertisements for gaming cafes in Tokyo that offered manga libraries, on site tanning salons, and onsen. Do well, and emulate them.
Basically, the cafe I worked for did all of those things wrong, and so quickly died.
Parent information is correct, informative and important. Further it wouldn't hurt to check into taking locally given SBA classes on writing a business plan, dealing with taxes/regulations/laws, etc. The last thing you want to do is cripple your business before you start it.
I feel my center is succefful (http://www.theqwerty.com). I have been in business for two years. I've been able to pay my bills and make a little money for myself. It's also a fun business. How you measure "success" depends on you though. You probably won't get rich running a gaming center. You also have to be able to deal with kids and bad parents. Lots of parents will try and use you as a cheap babysitting service. Then you have the kids who have never been displined by their parents, so you get to deal with all their problems. Luckily, I have a lot of good kids in my store that make up for the bad ones.
No one can tell you if your future game center will be successful or not. It depends too much on you, the owner. How you can manage stress, details and time. How good you are at securing business deals and contracts. How good you are at advertising, marketting, promoting and spreading the word around. How well you can manage customers and keep them happy... There's so much involved that depends on you that only you will know. As an entrepreneur, the only thing you can do is dive in and take the risk to find out.
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
There are tons of other issues I could list but these sprang to mind first. Good luck!!!
-K
I would like to invite you any anyone else that owns or is thinking of starting a game center to join iGames (www.igames.org). iGames has over 900 game center members from around the world working together to build a better game center industry.
We have many members that have been around for years and are doing better than ever. We look forward to helping to first help you make the decision on whether a game center is a good business for you and if so, how you can be as successful as possible.
Best regards,
Mark Nielsen
iGames Executive Director