Hey folks, so it’s been a while since I posted. Haven’t really been involved since the SFIV and Blaz Blue release several years back. In any case I’ll be opening an Arcade in NE Houston later this month near Jersey Village. Any Houston folks up for some classic fighter matches? I have SF2HF and up, will probably end up doing some SSFIV and others as well as KI2 and most of the MK’s from the original up to MK4. We’ll also have driving games, shooting games and a lot of classic older 80’s games and pinball machines.
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Wrong section homie. This belongs in regional matchmaking
https://archive.supercombo.gg/c/regional-matchmaking/southwest
It’s pretty much a ghost town though. Has been for a few years. The rise of discord, subreddits, losing so many members from the server reset at the beginning of the year and Facebook groups made meet ups, arcades and getting the word out about tournaments a lot easier.
I couldn’t find the regional stuff, been a long time since I logged on. Haven’t been on since Planet Zero.
Out of curiosity, how much profit can arcades make nowadays and that does it take to bring people in…
If they’re strictly arcades? Almost nothing. A lot of them supplement income with food, alcohol and hosting private events.
A friend of mine actually owns a pretty upscale BarCade. He’s got tons of awards for the dishes on his menu. He hosts nationally recognized Pinball tournaments too but the food recognition gets him more foot traffic than anything. Which especially helps when you’re in located in LA.
I’m speaking more about the states though. Arcades are still very popular in Japan. It helps that a lot of them are located in great spots. Usually next to massive transit stations, busy districts of cities, or districts specifically designed for those kinds of attractions.
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Arcadey type places are still nice for FGC stuff. Not everybody is comfortable with random people showing up to their homes for games.
For sure. Preppy’s place use to be the go-to place in Seattle until he started letting rando’s come over which ended up ruining it for everyone.
When I was in Washington we had gameworks in Seattle but that’s barely an arcade. There were also some pinball barcodes in Seattle and Tacoma.
As for actual venues though there was Gameglucks but that was almost a 3 hour drive for some people. And there were a few hobby stores in Olympia (about an hour and a half south of Seattle) that would let us host meet ups and tournaments.
Arcades seem to be doing pretty well in H-Town, definitely have to supplement with other things like snacks. We’ll also be screening a lot of Indie films, have vendors and also looking at having Anime Voiceover actors coming in for signings and stuff. There’s actually an Anime place a couple of doors down so that should make the strip center we’re in a destination spot. We’re in a popular area with great demographics and somewhat heavily populated. It helps that we already have all of the arcade and pinball machines since we had our collections and home arcades before we thought about opening the retail spot.
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I remember the PZ days (PZ was where I got my first ever taste of Blazblue and Cave Shmups). If you haven’t posted a topic in the Southwest regional section, get on that shit.
Already did, crickets.