I appreciate all the continued feedback guys. It’s really helping me shape my plan for this center. I’m hoping that with the ideas and suggestions I have heard from you guys and my own ideas this can really be something big for this area.
Right now after all of the comments, I’m looking to maintain the minimalistic idea, but I see how including other genres can be added incentive for people to come and game. I already had plans to purchase a DDR Extreme and ITG2 machines later on down the line so having set ups for Dance Central and Wii games would be a good idea. Also, the Wii/Dance Central idea wouldn’t cost much and would add greater depth to the center.
I probably should have mentioned this too, but I don’t plan on opening the center till aroud 4 or 5pm during the week. I’d only open maybe two days during the week and all day Saturday and Sunday. The reason being is I’m keeping my current job as it pays my bills comfortably and I don’t want to have just a gaming center that might fail as my only source of income. Also the 4-5pm idea stems from the idea that most gatherings that take place usually go down at night anyway regardless of the genre of games played. Plus if kids are involved then they would be in school until then. (Aside from summer of course and most of them work during the summer.) I’d have it opening on the sames days each week.
Say for example I used these hours:
Wednesday 5 -12
Friday 5 - 12
Saturday 12 - 12
Sunday 12 - 10
These would be the hours every week. That way everyone would know which days I am open and it wouldn’t change.
Mind you I’d be manning this for these hours on top of working 35+ hours a week and helping raise two twin boys with autism. So I’d be stretched from time.
Priest is talking about building a game center for the fighting game community in jacksonville. since the venture as an income source is pretty rocky at best hes taking his time with it and being very minimalist with it, getting only what he needs and not adding too much fluff. personally, im intrigued by this and if i can get there easily enough i will support you in this endeavor with my moneys.
Lost my old account but noticed some J-Ville thread activity and thought I’d sign back up here. I just got back from CEO and I want to start playing some people locally. (Online in MvC is awful. Plus 3s is coming…) Just popping in to let Priest know I would gladly support a local venue and would bring along anywhere from 3-6 friends (depending on the night) who would also throw down monies even if it’s just to get in and play casuals.
Let us know what can be done to help bring it to fruition faster.
I think Mugen got it right on, its a labor of love for Priest. I would just like to add two more pieces of advice:
[LIST]
[]Don’t get over your head. As you can only risk what you put in, IF it doesn’t work out please don’t morgage your lievelyhood on this.
[]Remember this is a cyclical industry. Before SFIV it was bone dry for a long time. Its good now but we can find a dry spell in the future.
[/LIST]
Oh and for locations may I suggest: Southside or Mandarin Maybe near Qballs or accross the street (you’ve already got a built in base with Batman’s crew)
you know…back in November, I wrote several business plans (having a BA in business management helped here lol) based on opening gaming centers. I had two ideas that I toyed with and in the end, the long run didn’t look great. there are a lot of pros and cons to each scenario. I won’t go into detail on here, but if you are interested to know logistics on the market research and sustainability I discovered…hit me up on PM. I am more than willing to help out with anything if you are serious about it.
While there are a few of you that say you would be willing to meet up and do this once or twice a week, for a decent location to be financially feasible…he would need guaranteed business 6 days a week for most store fronts (unless in the ghetto somewhere). fighting games would also need to be the least of the focus, as the community here in Jacksonville is small. very few people come to tournaments in private/public places, why would they pay to play others on some random day? As stated before, you would need to cater to all types of gamers and put more focus on them.
The Montreal FGC came up with a good plan. While I don’t know if we have enough dedicated players locally to have something like this in the long run, it’s another option to look into. Finding a loft, random office space, warehouse, etc etc might be more financially smart since you want limited hours. I’m not sure if you are aware, but to lease out a store front on most major roads requires that you are in open on certain days and for a specific amount of time (at a minimum) on those days. For example, I managed a speed shop and we had a store front on Atlantic Blvd. For us to be able to lease the space, we had to be open at least 40 hours a week Monday through Friday. This was per the city guidelines. Office buildings on major highways don’t operate under this same rule since they aren’t listed as retail space.
while i think this is a good idea, it’s all about what will pay the bills for the location in the end. overhead is going to be your enemy here.
as far as you OP players are concerned…
you do know that there is a gaming/LAN center on Blanding right? Tyger held a tourney there a few weeks ago and has another one planned in July. I’m not sure why none of you haven’t made the trek to determine what it would take for you guys to have casuals/meetups there.
and on a side note…beer & wine license is one thing, but spending $175k on a liquor license for gamers is a waste of fucking money. get your drink on BEFORE coming to the arcade you damn alcoholics!
Spektrum thank you for posting that article. This is what I was looking for. I think we have enough people in the community to become founders myself included. I was already looking at warehouses and other options of that nature already as I knew an actual store front would cost to much. I will be pm’ing you when I’m nOt on an iPod. lol
spek, thats an incredible read. I too dreamed of opeing a internet/console cafe and the numbers wouldn’t work out no matter how much I looked at it (Business Management Majors FTW). Many many cafe’s have closed docking station / armory / that one on beach with dreams of making money. I never thought about the sustainability aspect. That puts a whole new outlook on something like that…
spek, i said it before as to why not many people go to alley so ill say it again, the location is pretty much in middleburg in the middle of nowhere. and since its not along a highway or interstate for easier access its hell on gas. its not a bad place to go to, and id definitely go if yall would do tournaments more than once every few months like Tyger does. in fact, thats the BIGGEST problem right there. whats the point of going if theres no tournaments for whatever fighting game we want to play on consistent dates?! i can cough up some money if need be if i know whats going on ahead of time, but nobody is consistent, so an obvious drop off occurs.
The best guy in our group went 4-2 in marvel sets. The best SF4 player went 3-2? 2-2? Both of those guys did about the same in 3s. Only three of us went to CEO. It was more to gauge where we stood naturally against random competition. We meet up for casuals at a friends house in Jax Beach but it’s not big enough for too many more. We already have a group of 6 or so people crammed into one room on a small couch on our weekend “poker” (read: game) nights. We are going to try and find somewhere to open it up to more people in the near future though. Desperate for more local competition. We just have to get together and work out the details. Maybe get one more Asus monitor to have two setups. There’s a game (pen and paper) store on my side of town (riverside) that mainly does table top stuff but they have a “game room” that could easily be used for matches if we picked an off night for them.
All of this is very tentative. Everyone in our group does a lot of other stuff around town (various projects in various mediums) and it keeps everyone pretty busy. Games mostly have to play second fiddle. All told we probably aren’t the best to “start” one of these nights, but if no one else does we might have to get something together. Honestly though, our little group is trying to focus on Third Strike and (for now) Marvel3. In the future possibly KoF XIII and maybe either BB or VS depending. So it’s a pretty odd group we are running. Alot of people probably wouldn’t even be interested in coming by. Almost all of us hate SF4. Just purely how it plays. Nothing against anyone who digs it. We were all 3s nerds once upon a time though, so that’s where we are coming from. Shit, I’m studying Oro right now just for when OE hits.
If you are still interested you can send a PM with some contact info and I can let you know what the plans are once we get together and talk about it seriously.
Don’t rely on someone else to make the first move or else it will never be done. There are several of you OP players asking about a place to play casuals and you actually have a place. Someone should talk to the game center and get a group rate. Then just set a date and have casuals. You don’t need to hold a tournament there to get people there. You all as a “community” should do this on a weekly/bi-weekly basis.
Which one of you will take charge of this is the only question that should be asked at this point. If no one does, then there shouldn’t be any complaining about not having somewhere to have casuals. Don’t talk about it, be about it.
hey all, it seems like this is the closest area to me with any real chance of getting weeklys up. im in valdosta, ga and heading overseas for 6 months soon. I would love to get some good competition in before that.
Yeah obviously in the end that’s what has to happen. Right now what we have is a city that is super large in area and very spread out population wise. Even just finding a “central” location is a bit of a bear. If our group starts to host something it will be either in the downtown area or at the beaches area. On top of that it would most likely have to start as a “house session” type deal. In a shed or a garage. I have alot of friends who own bars and other music type venues around town but none of those seem like a good fit for this at all. I plan on continuing to talk to folks and I will assemble something for people interested in the games I listed above, but as far as helping the “general” scene around here? Which mainly consists of SF4 and MK9. There’s not much we have to offer that community.
That’s the only reason I was very “wait and see” about it. Our casual night is going to grow if people are willing to cater to what we do and where we do it, otherwise we’ll gladly join in if something with more “mass appeal” gets going. My point was that I’d be glad to support and I know others who would as well, but we are odd ducks for starting it all off. The offer still stands though for anyone into 3s heavy. That’s what we are focused on right now.
It’s easy to say “just do it” but you have to be smart about it if you actually want it to sustain. Hence all the “talk” in this thread. It’s necessary in order to get an idea of what would even work in this oddball city.
I have definitely heard about the Orange Park scene though. Met a guy from Green Cove Springs at CEO who plays out there from time to time. I feel like he mentioned the OP venue had taken a break for a while but I’m not sure how reliable that info is. I fully intend to check it out as soon as possible.
That’s reasonable and sounds pretty awesome. Somewhat central… sort of… in that it’s equally distant from most of the town. When you say advance notice could you do a weekly deal with that system? What night and what games? What kind of setup would you be running? How many setups? What would you need help with to get it going? Would they already have T.V.s in there? And other questions.
my post was directed to mugen who lives in OP (the post above yours), where they have a location to meetup on a regular but never do anything about it.
Maybe near Qballs or accross the street (you’ve already got a built in base with Batman’s crew)