What do you think about them? Do you like them? Do you think there is no need for them in today’s world of online gaming? Whats you issues with the ones you’ve seen or been in? Just general talk about them is what I’m lookin for.
Playing with people in person is always more fun then online. That my opinion of them.
Offline > Online
I’ve never been to one, have you guys?
The LAN center where I live is fantastic, they hold monthly all-nighter events. They even have a projector screen for fighting games. I get the most fun out of games like league of legends and Team Fortress by playing there with friends.
Next Level Arcade brooklyn ny is essentially a LAN since they have few cabs…so its mostly monitors, xboxes and chairs…you play high level players from 2pm to 12am, for like 5-10 for the whole day…
what more can anyone ask for.
there should be FG LANs all over the country, if people were more commited to scene support.
i prefer lan centres to arcades. you can always play someone online if people dont turn up in person.
LAN was my highlight in my high school years. Going with bunch of friends playing Warcraft 3, Counter-Strike, Battlefield Vietnam and WoW eating pizza drinking soda and playing all night talking trash in LAN tournies was great. Now days, games are more towards consoles because lets face it, we don’t have the money to keep updating our computer every year.
and thats why lan centres are a good thing.
There used to be an amazing one that it was 4 dollars per hour or 22 for the whole day. Weekends would be 27 for the whole day and 5 dollars per hour. But alas it closed… wish it didn’t. The only one I know of is a bit expensive 6 dollars an hour and 30 dollars weekdays 35 weekends. It was great for those who can’t really afford insane gaming rigs and to play a couple of hours a day.
Last LAN I been to was back in the end of 07 when TF2 and COD4 were brand new. I miss those times.
Lan Center I go to is dark and shady looking, and it reeks of cigarettes cause they allow smoking indoors. You can’t bring your own food in, and they charge you for overpriced snacks and drink. Two dollars for a Yoohoo juice box and a Smuckers sandwich? No thanks. I’ll just sneak my shit in from the 7-eleven across the street.
LAN centers in my experience are all right. Fun sessions of Counter-Strike and Battlefield and saving lunch money from my parents to spend it on hella hours. Also so much BAWLS. Too bad most of them I regularly went to closed down as of now. Below is some specific experiences.
[details=Spoiler]When I lived in the Bay Area, there was one place that always get a lot of people even during their all night sessions for a while. Overall that place was pretty solid to go to. Almost all of my friends hanged out there or played there after school. Just a year after I moved, I saw it get replaced by some poor-ass auto shop where I would check at a later time finding that placed closed too. I found a way to track the owner of the center and found that he just didn’t wanna do it anymore IIRC.
One of them closest to me had very reliable hardware and good console setups. Everything there seemed perfect. That was back in 2008 or so. That closed and was never replaced by another business. It seemed that it was doing well even with being very near a friendly high school but apparently they stealthfully left and never went for the relocation option. I guess it was that they overspent on their hardware where they were not getting enough revenue where they can help keep them afloat.
There is still an existing one in my area but it’s piss poor hardware and like a ghost town. In 2010, they were running on hardware that can’t even run Call of Duty 4 on even medium quality at a reasonable resolution. Fuck, even their Steam Cyber-Cafe service didn’t work correctly because they fucked their network. They had a timer based system but I spent more time switching computers and booting up games than actually playing. All I saw over there was the owner and some kids playing Call of Duty on their laggy piece of shit HDTVs. It would be easy to assume that they should have closed down but what keeps them ticking is that it’s also a mini barber shop as well as a small events center. While they did hold legitimate events, they also held piece of shit and now broken-up Christian “deathcore/metalcore” bands (quoted for how fraud these bands played these music styles) with those vaguely vague band names. Anyways, that place had dread written all over it. I am gonna continue to not support them by not going there or planning to host a local fighting game tournament there.[/details]
If my area had another center and featured fighting games in their repertoire, I would be down but unfortunately it wont happen for a looooooooong time. My area doesn’t give a fuck about it anymore.
Chicago has one called ignite that’s pretty cool. They’re sort of the new arcade since you need a pretty big investment to play the newest of the new PC games. Plus they have plenty of monitors and let us run casuals/tournaments for cheap. A place like that is great because people just have to bring a couple consoles and you have a lot of set-ups going. Plus they have a bomb coffee/smoothie bar.
A lot of you mention that they closed down, do you know why?
I would imagine it is because of a lack of business. There was another LAN center that shared the same neighborhood with my favorite. I walked in one day to see how it was. All they had was the LAN and a snack bar, very impersonal, not much of a place to hang out. It closed within 6 months. The LAN I still go to has a lot more going for it; a projector screen, DDR, table games and pool tables. I’ve been going to their superbowl parties for years. The variety keeps it fresh, they treat customers very well and has been in business for close to a decade.
Interesting post.
Special events always seems to be the way to attract customers back into the business.
I’ve notice several LAN centers around my city slowly closing down, which sucks because some seemed really cool.
Working at an Arcade right now, I’d be sad if it closes down, but damn we never have any events outside of Fighting Games. It’s kind of sad, because we’re losing a lot of our player base, and hoping to convince the people around us that we need some kind of special events to help bring back the customers.
What would you suggests?
Merry Christmas by the way guys, and I appreciate the feedback.
It’s like arcades. Game companies are pushing towards consoles. MMORPGs are the only thing going for the PC.