New Arcade in NorCal (interest check)

Regional Matchmaking Pacific North
41

if this is the case, it was bad planning on the student body’s part. also, why wasn’t more of an uproar made by the supporters of bearcade? if profit was coming in, it’s difficult to halt a system that has proven to be bringing in revenue vs an unproven revenue source. in most business models i’ve seen, many will expand on a proven formula, instead of tearing it down and starting from scratch with something new and with no guarantee of money coming in. and why was it not reverted back to an arcade? if i recall, (i could be wrong) there used to be a namco cyberstation at pier 39, it was taken out and replaced by another venue (not arcade related). later, an arcade was reopened there at the pier (although not by namco). if bearcade was making money, they should have reopened it or otherwise something must be running there that makes equal to, or more than what bearcade was making.

i don’t know personally, but i don’t think the golflands make a majority of their profits from fighting games. the more expensive fighters, i think they barely recoup the money they cost to buy. i think that’s the reason you don’t see many fighters going to $0.25 to play anytime soon.

actually, i should have included bearcade in this point. schools in general will give an arcade an unfair advantage as far as profit making and what not. the fact that schools are populated by 18 - 20+ year olds, people who do play videogames… these places don’t even need to advertise or hype their location. they are usually located in the student centers or where people congregate. people play during their breaks and whatnot. but if you decide to build an arcade not near a college etc, you will have a more difficult time attracting enough customers to make money. at the end of the day, bottomline - money has to be made to justify staying in business. trust me, i would like more arcades opened as much as the next person, but imagine if totoroslayer was your brother or a family member putting their life savings into this project. would you tell them to proceed? you’d want them to make the best investment possible, and if it means doing a project other than an arcade, then it has to be done.

42

Make sure there is good internet there so I can Livestream tournaments :wink:

If a family member wanted to go with this project I would tell them to absolutely do it. I would suggest they find a way to make it profitable and make it work - just like we are doing now. Some people aren’t trying to become billionaires off a company they are building up. Some people want to follow a dream and live off it.

43

I’m not making a recommendation to open it actually. In fact, I would NEVER open arcade unless financially, I was set for life. Huge investment with huge chance of failure and abysmal staying power.

Honestly, I don’t know why the Bearcade didn’t reopen. They probably sold the games or didn’t wanna have to deal with removing shit/renovating and hiring people to fix things. Or they’re just lazy and the student body is retarded (very possible, it’s Berkeley after all where everybody thinks they’re rite).

For the whole in a school bit, I agree, being in a school is a very unfair advantage and that’s what it takes to survive. I’m not saying to go through with building the arcade, I’m just talking about how other arcades get by/survive. The location for this future arcade better be AMAZING or the chance of success is ZERO. Sorry to play the pessimist.

44

awww nah you didn’t

45

Okay as someone who goes to MGL, instead of SVGL because the location is much more convenient and it’s easier for me to get around the area. I would think, this arcade would be a bigger hit than any Golfland as you’re making it player oriented, as well as carrying more machines of newer games. First of all, don’t even mention MGL as a arcade they just follow suit of whatever SVGL gets and doesn’t take care of the machines so technically the only threat here in SJ is SVGL.

46

Let me clarify a little further:

Bearcade closed because of the “powers that be,” aka rich white men behind the scenes. It was closed because of decisions that Bearcade management had NO idea about until a couple of months before closure; at the time we learned of their plans the gears had already been set in motion. Contrary to popular belief, the ASUC doesn’t have a lot of power in terms of getting buildings/locations opened up on campus. If you come to them with a far better business proposition than “arcade where young people come to just mess around most of the time and play games too,” chances are you’ll get the space, since they do own it and have control over what goes in there. So yeah, we did make an uproar, but by the time we knew we had to make an uproar it was too late.

In spite of that, we opened up petitions, turned on free play for all games for the Bearcade’s last few days, and did what we could to make people aware of the reasons why we were getting shut down. I’m not sure how many names we collected in a couple of days, but it was a pretty good amount, especially relative to how many regulars we had there.

OCEguy took his games back, you can find them at SFSU/SJSU. The rest were sold privately I’m pretty sure. The place did get renovated afterward, but the business that came in afterward closed down already. I think it’s reopening though. Bleh, I wish I could tell you why the Bearcade didn’t reopen either. My guess would be nobody stepped forward with a plan to reopen it. Oh hi Myung! :rofl:

You’re half right, if you asked the average Berkeley student if they would want an arcade or a cafe type deal where they could study and get some cheap snacks, most likely they’ll say the latter. However, you could say that about the general public as well, not just Berkeley :lol:. So people are just retarded.

47

AfroCole & Afrolegends are two different people.

Afrolegends is the Deejay player and is Vietnamese.
AfroCole is the Dhalsim player and is Black.

48

Problem is they did get a bullshit cafe type crap that flopped >_>

49

+1 interest

50

Make sure you got some AC in the building.

Make sure the most popular games have extra cabs. I know this may be tough. But that will definitely set you aside from every other arcade that has only one set for SF4. The wait just gets too long and you casual player isn’t going to wait an hour to play even if he was already down to drop $50 on the machine.

It might make some sense to not do it in such a highly concentrated area like SF. Sounds like many guys are down to drive a little to go. So might as well have it some place where parking is easy, accessible from major freeways, and cheaper rent for you. With the extra space you can save it for expansion and use it host events or even console-based tourny’s just to do some advertising.

I’d also be interested in your shelf space. :tup:

51

I think the best advice is to somehow get a hold of fubarduck (probably email via his website (http://arcadeufo.com/) and ask him what he did, because he’s very successful with what’s happening, or you also contact Shogo from Denjin (sorry I don’t know the website off hand).

This stuck out REALLY badly for me. This is a big no. You would have to get another license, and another inspection for the place to even think about having alcohol, and plus this could be a big minus for public standing. It would also possibly mean that only people 21 and over can go. Now this may not sound bad, but you also have to realize that an arcade is a business, and not a big one at that too, so if it could scrape up as many customers as it can then that’s best.

With all of these suggestions, you also have to think about regulations and the like. Opening an arcade by itself is a huge investment, and a pain in the ass (I know Texas laws state it has to wait a year for it to actually open to the public, and other things.)

Another thing you may want to think about is public transportation. Is it accessible? Sometimes your main group of people won’t always be able to drive, and carpooling sometimes doesn’t always work out, so think about “can people get here via BART/Caltrain and maybe a 10-20 minute walk?”

Other things to add are put in arcade machines that are like the old atari ones, to attract business from non fighitng game players. Although catering only to the hardcore FG players sounds like a nice idea, it really won’t work out in the long run. The people who ironically have the most to spend are the high school kids who get money from their parent’s purses, probably not the FG player who has to live with 5 other people in a 1 bed apartment just to make the cost affordable. Ticket redemption shit isn’t necessary though, just machines that anyone can come in and enjoy also (you can throw those in the back or whatever, just having the machines are nice.) I know for a fact prepare to break even, if that with an arcade. Chinatown Fair in NYC breaks even every month they have to pay bills as much as hella people go there (if you say because of rent in NY is expensive, so is Cali, esp. Bay Area!)

I don’t want to discourage anyone, but this is a lot of the facts of doing this. It sucks, but if it goes well, this is going to rule. The best of luck for you.

52

http://www.denjinarcade.com/

good luck

53

have it near the bart.

make it $.25 to play.

give some buttery ass deals like free play for $5 (maybe just on saturdays).

54

I remember reading a interview with Fubarduck and I think his main reason for opening an arcade was so that he could have a arcade to play in lol.

55

saturays would be a high traffic day. you’d want free play nights on slow days. Although I would LOVE to see quarters for games like t6 and sf4 that shit is too expensive to have players play on it for so cheap.

56

That would be cool.

I’d be down to lend my Mars Matrix board for a few weeks if there was interest in that as well. SHMUPS BABY!

57

$0.25? This isn’t a non-profit. The guys gotta make his money to do this. I’d pay 0.75 - 1.00 per game as long as it’s not too far from me and I don’t have to wait forever to get a game.

DDR or Pump It Up would be cool actually. Get some exercise there. But then you definitely need the AC and maybe sell deodorant from a vending machine next to the machine, lol.

58

Myung is seriously about this and i think with the proper amount of data he can really make it work.

We’ve been talking about it, as we’re co-workers in the same company, and being an avid competitor in the scene and being born and raised in the arcades, i think he’s got his head on right for this venture.

That being said, i’ve heard some really good constructive input here. I would say keep em coming guys. What do you want? what do you find lacking in the local arcades/home spots your frequent? I have never been to an arcade where i was totally happy (wonderpark in the great mall in san jo was off the hook when it was there) but that was probably the closest.

I think Myung has the right ideas to make this even better, but like i said, he needs all of our help. Keep em coming, Everything from what games you wanna see, what how much you’d spend to how late you wanna play till, anything and everything is being heard.

Rock on guys!

59

Or try and get a sponsorship from Old Spice … Hand out the little sample sticks they send in the mail :rofl:

I mentioned this in the survey, but if you were to bring in a DDR machine, make it an older mix that is no longer available. Finding a DDR machine with a mix prior to Extreme is nearly impossible in California … I can count them all on one hand. DDR isn’t a major attraction anymore, especially with the recent releases killing any enthusiasm the base once had (DDRX, for example, probably should have never of seen the light of day).

But if you were to get something like a DDR 4th Mix+, lots of DDR cats would come around to play. It’s pretty much a distraction at this point, so with an older mix you’d get the dedicated DDR players, and the casuals quite honestly don’t care what mix it is, so long as its the dancin’.

I also agree with wkwong on the pricing issue. If you’ve got the games people want to play and they’re well maintained and always in good condition, I can’t think of a reason not to charge .75 to 1.00 for a game of say, Street Fighter IV or Tekken 6BR. I know I’m willing to pay those prices for good competition, atmosphere and hardware.

60

most players have two things they look for when they play fighting games

  1. to get better
  2. to have fun

1 involves tournaments and events and giant gatherings
2 involves alcohol / music / food

if you want both, well, that sure is an easy mix.