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Looking for opinions on Internet Gaming caf
corechamber
Member UncommonPosts: 148
I am wanting to start up an internet gaming caf
Comments
We had one around here for a few months. It failed miserably...
If you want people to come and pay to play games at your business, you have to offer something they do not have at home. These guys only had mediocre PCs with mouse and keyboard. That just didn't get it.
You need to have Excellent PCs, Forcefeedback joysticks and steering wheels. Possibly 3D glasses setups, etc... You need to offer something I do not have at home...
Food should be limited to dry, packaged goods only. Any other types of food would involve actively keeping computer equipment sanitary. It is not nice to hop on a computer someone just left sticky fingers on.
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Alex "Maximane" De Line
- MMORPG.COM Staff -
2: im not sure about this, but something i though of was striking a deal with nearby eateries (across the street/next door). you could advertise for them, and people could go there and eat food. could be cheaper than getting your own food, which people might not eat cuz they like that nice place across the street, heh. that could be a source of money, or you could just put up each others ads.
3: it just being there. you could do polls of the schools to see how many people are avid pc gamers and would like a cafe, or put up signs for people to send you their thoughts in the area your thinking. not sure how easy that is to do though. also, "goofy" prizes at a contest might be cool and get peoples attention more so than 20 bucks. cant think of any examples, but its just a suggestion.
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I am runing a cafe internet right now. We just started 3 month ago but business is not going that good.
My advice, make your internet in a big city
We sell chips, cola, chocolate bars and some juice. Nothing fancy but it sell well. Don't forget the cofee!
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By powergaming in an rpg games you are forgotting the true
essence of the rpg : Role. Playing. Game.
Yes there was one out here where I live and it had HUGE success. So big that another open just a mile away and also had success.
First off NO. Drinks are always good and a MUST becuase any hard-corer knows that you can play games and not eat, but drinks are needed. Merchandise is not needed becuase a small time internet cafe owner cant compete with bigger electronics companies.
Events would be fun as long as it doesnt dip into overhead. And maybe a scoreboard for that weeks gaming leader.
PS. AS a business owner and a B.S. in Business Administration I recommend you to get a premier spot for you new establishment. LOCATION LOCATION LOCATION. both of the Cafes that I talked of earlier were in great locations. The first was next to a IN-N-OUT and movie theater which is teenager heaven for Southern Cali residents. The other was next to a High School that gave discounts for after school hour sessions. ANOTHER HUGE TIP would be to make it per-hour playtime inexpensive and charge no more than 2.00/hour for playtime or 15.00 all day pass, which in turn will make it worthwhile for Internet Cafe gamers to go to. But with that plan you need to think quantity, as in you need over 60 CPUs to make any real profit. And always go with quality equipment. AMD XP/MOBOs combos can be found pretty cheap and can give great performance. Also dont think that your going to get anywhere with a MMO café, people can play that home (monthly charge + hourly charge doesnt go well unless its clan/guild stuff) so think competitive game play with games like Joint Operations or Call of Duty. Good luck and hope it works out.
Be friendly toward your customers, and don't hesitate to get involved with the customers. I personally like to know that the person running the cafe is into gaming and has a slight clue as to what is going on.
Also, I would recommend allowing gamers to purchase, or simply offer the ability to install their own games while they play, and uninstall them before their session is over. This is common in nearby cafes and one of the most popular features also. It allows people that can't afford to run new systems to purchase, and play games they couldn't on their home PCs. Its always restricted to retail CDs, to avoid bad files.
One very popular feature, is to have a set of PCs in a secluded area that you 'rent' to gamer guilds to gather at for tournys and events. For a premier price allow them to have access to their own sets of computers in maybe even a secluded room for an hour-by-hour price.
I think it would be great to host a contest.
Maybe set up an fps game (counter-strike, call of duty, ect.) And the winner of the game wins a prize thats relivant to gaming (such as an actual game, 3d glasses, ect.).
Host one every friday night or so, maybe just once a month depending how big of a prize it is. That will get more gamers to come.
Game Rankings
City of Heroes: W00T!!!!!
FFXI: Ok
Lineage II: No....
SWG: get out....
Richard J. Cox
"There were much of the beautiful, much of the wanton, much of the bizarre, something of the terrible, and not a little of that which might have excited disgust."
Coming from a relatively big city in Denmark (this would be tiny in American standards) with 4-5 internet gaming cafees my advice would be not to do it in Denmark at least.
Internet gaming was once a limited thing, people didn't have broadband or good computers at home and it seemed like a great deal for customers to play for money, nowadays any serious customer would also be on the internet at home. If you are a type of person who makes LOTS of friends, you might succeed - but IMO it's a dead horse now, the golden age of internet cafee owners is over, there ain't as many money in it as there used to be. I base this experience on that I used to frequent internet cafe's about 3 years ago - while I had a crappy computer at home, I worked there part time as well for extra cash - where he (the owner) almost always had a full house back then, it's now practically empty.
But who knows, you might succeed - you might not, I wish you luck though.
Dreamers can find their way by moonlight and their only punishment is that they see the dawn before the rest of the world
Dreamers can find their way by moonlight and their only punishment is that they see the dawn before the rest of the world