There are a lot of ways to make it successful. An arcade place by itself is not enough and neither is just a plain LAN center.
Some things that are needed:
Several arcade cabinets. A popular fighting game, a popular racing game, a popular shooting game, and a DDR/ITG cab but make sure to put that dance cab away from the others in a well ventilated place because they will stink up the place in the Summer.
Updated computers so you can attract teams for games such as Dungeon Fighter Online, DOTA, Starcraft, FPS, etc. Good players prefer face to face because it’s the only way to guarantee legit play without turbo/autokey/macros/etc. Plus the face to face pressure is like tournament experience which the new school players have never experienced. Make sure you have the same equipment so that if one part goes down you can easily swap in another and you can maintain a generic image and refresh to quickly rectify software issues. You need a good service provider and good computer. If you computer or internet sucks, then people will just play from home. Which then brings up the next point.
A tech that you know well that will stay with you to fix stuff on the spot. So many places close because no one goes because nothing works. If your stick is broken on an arcade cab and you don’t plan to fix it then you might as well just throw the cab out because no one is going to play it. Better to have several techs working alternating hours in case some quit. If you have someone to maintain the equipment, then you won’t have randoms breaking your equipment by trying to fix it themselves, which can greatly cost you.
Food place and a separate area for eating. Humans got to eat and if your prices don’t suck then business should be good. A lot of places mess this up big. You don’t need a 5 star restaurant. What is needed is cheap food you can make fast. You don’t need a PhD to make a hot dog and if you buy supplies in large quantities from places like Costco then you should be able to sell cheap while still making a profit. Keep in mind that if people leave your place to eat somewhere else, they might not come back. You want to keep your customers.
A bathroom.
Must be accessible. The Next Level is in the middle of nowhere and sometimes the D train doesn’t even stop there. Also market it for everyone in a safe area so parents would feel safe dropping their kids off there and have someone you know watch the place to make sure everything is good. You can still hold events for the older people at later hours.
Speaking of events, you need to have something. Whether it’s 10% off on food, tournaments, or a free play day, do something to get new players or less active players to remember.
Venue fee. Keep it low for non-busy days or maybe just remove it completely, especially for frequent customers. The main reason for one is to keep away people who just come to chill and don’t spend any money. An example is Fun Time USA that was in Brooklyn. A lot of people would come in and spend like 3 or 4 dollars and then be out quick. They made a new rule which forced everyone to buy like 5 dollars in tokens. That killed off their customers and when management tried to rectify the issue it was too little too late. RIP Fun Time USA. Meeting people like Chris Benoit there was awesome.
There are a bunch of other things but I’m not good at these off the top of my head stream of consciousness posts.
Thanks for the post, but suggestions are what’s not needed in our case.
The Arcade has been doing fine for 3+ years now and I’ve worked there since opening. But I can see the regulars we used to get aren’t coming around anymore, and everyone seems to be losing interests in the place in general.
Basically our problem is that the Arcade caters way, way to heavily on the fighting game scene, which is cool and all… but the other people who have scene’s for the non-fighting games don’t appreciate that due to neglections of the non-fighting games. Because of this, we start losing groups of players we used to have a strong base for, and in the end we just lose out on profit due to lack of nurture on the other games.
Hell, even the fighting game scene in this city feels like we need to do something for those outside the fighting game scene.
I dunno, we can differently bring A LOT more people into the scene and actually make everyone happy… but I feel we’re too stubborn to learn
Wrong. There is no money in LANs and the consumers were blessed with the introduction of higher broadband speeds at affordable prices, less cost for hardware, crappy economy to be spending x amount an hour, and longer lifespan for today’s hardware.
Even with the cheap cost of broadband, kids still cant afford the equipment to play some of this high end games like Crysis. Isn’t it good to have a place you could go into for cheap and play without having to buy a computer?
It seems like the average gamer prefers the reclusive experience at home than going out and gathering with friends like what arcades thrived on. It was bound to happen once home consoles and computers had caught up to the technology of arcade cabinets. The economy is a factor as well. It took a long time to get to this point, but IMO the complacency of arcades and LANs has been killing them.
For years I had vacations up and down the east coast, running into the same problems: broken buttons on machines, games from the 1980’s; basically devolved to a dark corner in most malls and hotels. The price per play for the newer games is shocking too, with the minimum of a dollar for a shooter that is designed to kill you quickly (not like that is anything new). I’m surprised how quickly the LAN scene shrunk, it needs the variety to sustain it. Nothing short of being the YMCA of gaming places will keep the business these days.
Its seems everyone here is in agreement that if there were a place that got all these components right, they’d be willing to come out with friends and play. It seems well kept equipment, variety, and pricing is the main concerns.
I miss them. I never really enjoyed CS quite as much as when I played at my local lan center. I also once won a tournament there which is more than I can say about SF, which I’ve spent like over 3 times as much time on.
Sadly, just like arcades, most the local lan centers I used to know are gone.
There was a time in the 2000s when LAN centers were really popin in my city and making good business but eventually the all died out. A few of my friends were really into PC games so I went with them to the LAN like 5 times good times, one trip was funny as hell.
The LAN center that lasted the longest in my area (I think its still in business) actually used to hold events. I don’t understand why arcades n LAN centers dont hold events then wonder why they go out of business fast.
in high school, me and my boys would drive up fort lee every couple of weeks and play starcraft and/or warcraft 3. it was only like 4-5 of us, but it was always a good time.
