We have a Coca-Cola machine that gives out 20oz bottles for $1 =) Also, we are on a very busy downtown street with a lot of restaurants.
Dude, host tournaments (maybe every couple weeks) and charge a 10 or 15 dollar entry fee and you’ll make your money back for the equipment in no time.
Yeah tournaments were actually planned before the idea of just keeping a system to play on around. We have a number of customers who are into fighting games and one of the more hard-core ones has been asking if we would be ok with hosting tournies. I think he wants to do weeklies and I’d like to have a once-a-month higher stakes tourny as well.
Any input on some rules?
Rules for what?
If you mean rules of conduct, normal stuff:
- Don’t mess up shit
- You are not liable for losses (but of course remind everyone to be careful of their stuff)
I was thinking, maybe instead of daily, you can have like SF weekends (or day(s) of choice) where you pay an entry fee to play all day. Then they can go out to munch, then come back to play more and chill and have coke. My rationale for designating a specific day is to find a day where everyone can get together, instead of having your regulars spread out over a week. Maybe you can choose the first day yourself, then just ask what day is the best day?
The cafe I was talking about, we liaise with them on a Malaysian forum, so he keeps us up to date. This way, we can negotiate ourselves if we can meet up or not. For instance, this weekend and the next I can’t make it, so I suggested the week after that’s Sunday to meet up, and so far, the plan is on (April 19th).
Best to know your customers man.
EDIT:
Just to let you know, the cafe conducts its friendlies like so: whoever wants to play, plays. If the winner wants to stay on, he/she can. However, if he wants to stop to take a bite to eat, then whatever. It is a hobby shop, so sometimes the better players owuld help the weaker players in a part of their game for 10-15 minutes while everyone else gives comments or eats or plays some other game or something.
Basically, we self regulate. We don’t cause trouble, and we chill with the organisers.
I’m not too worried about my regulars, but we do get a lot of walk-ins. Also, it’s always best to run a business as a business and not a clubhouse. If you don’t, you occasionally get that one person who tries to take advantage.
I have most of my fighting game guys’ phone numbers so it’s easy to coordinate. The reason having it daily is a good idea for this group is a lot of them have school and no work, and we are only about 8 blocks from campus. Also, there is a wide gap between their skill levels so some of them may want to get more practice in (especially with a stick) than others.
I’ll contact a few of them in the next couple days and we’ll flesh out the beginnings of a rules set and I’ll come back to post it here for refinement. Thanks for everybody’s help so far. Keep it coming!
If there’s one quality I hate in people it’s lingering.
Great idea. But $2 all day is too generous. Do it like the PC bangs; $1 per hour, $4 for 6 hours.
Now for a rough draft of the rules:
- You may bring your own controller if you like.
- Abuse of the equipment will cost you your privlidge to play for the day, week, month or indefinitely @ the discretion of Drom’s Comics & Cards.
- The winner of each round may stay on until they have played one full rotation of the line.
- Keep the trash-talking fun for everybody. Don’t make it personal and don’t let it be personal.
- No betting!
- No fighting! If there is a fight, we will call the police and those involved may be banned.
As for the price, I don’t think charging hourly for a game where you might not be playing the whole time is fair. We aren’t like a PC cafe where you get a machine all to yourself. The idea is to have a place where other people are playing. That said, I would like to charge daily and monthly, and I think $2 a day is fair right now. We will be working toward a nicer TV though since we are working with a spare one atm. Once we get a better one we might raise it to $3 or $4 all day. I’m thinking a 32" LCD would be decent for what we are doing.
Update: 80gb PS3 with HDR and SF4 on a 42" 1080p Vizio. 2 Amazon HRAP2 sticks with inPin converters. That’s our official setup and it’s been working well for us for the past week or two. We have $5 buy-in tournaments on Monday’s and a lot of casual guys playing through out the week.
I’d just like to say thank you to those who gave their thoughts and encouragement.
i just got off the phone with you lol, i thank you for giving us somewhere to compete n meet new ppl,im from scaramento but i will b driving to davis just for your tourneys every monday, i like the fact thast you can use your own stik if you likie, and i also like the fact that you have sticks available for use,il b usin mt madcatz te lol,
how many players have ben entering your tourney? also you guys should take some piks and or record some videos, or at least allow ppl to record, thx again for setting this up i feel like my prayers are coming true
Our tourny entry numbers have been: 10, 8, 10, 14 so far. We have no rules against recording, and there has been talk of somebody bringing down a camera.
Many card/hobby shops are set up for stuff like this so being in the way of others shouldn’t be to huge of a deal. The annoyingness factor may be, but again I’m sure that’s something card/hobby shops already have to deal with(I hear stories from the magic community about annoying people all the time).
I think it’s a great idea, i’m sure you’ll get people who already han gout to give you more money, and have fun. And you’ll attract new people with the games who might become customers for other stuff. I’m in the second boat, i’m a video gamer with a slight lean towards pen and paper/cards/comics, so if there was a store around here that did something like that You’d probably take a lot more of my money than just the games :). 2 or 3 dollars for the full day sound pretty good, that’s about the level where I personally at least, would go whenever i felt like it, 4 or 5 and i might start feeling like I might not because go as much as i’d like because of cost(i’m a jobless college student!).
i cant wait to participate. im using a arcade stik but are ps3 pads and fight pads allowed iff ppl bring there own? also we we b playing siting or standing? im gona practice playn standing just n case
just be sure to buy spare parts for the joysticks.
can you post piks of the setup? ie tv acual card shop?,i wanna b able to adapt fast lol, im sure its gona b diff from playn n my house
It may be a good idea to use a DVR instead of a camera if video quality is more important than crowd noise.
If you set it up nice with an open comfortable area and big screens, then charge $20-$30 a month.
Otherwise, $5 all day. You have to make it somewhere people want to hang out though.
Alright, time to answer some questions.
Two dollars a day is working out great. We bring in an average of $6-10 a day, which adds up.
There are chairs.
Yes, you can bring your own controllers. We have inPin PS2->PS3 adapters so it can even be a PSX/PS2 controller.
Having the setup really helps on a few levels. First, when people walk through the door for the first time they comment on how cool it is. The people in the shop, even during a slow period makes the place more alive. The atmosphere of the shop comes from the tables, the card players, the $1 20oz Coke machine and the SF4 setup. On top of that there are figures and comic books everywhere. It makes people feel like it’s a place they would like to hang out.
As somebody mentioned before, there is a lot of potential for the SF guys to get drawn into the comic scene or card scene. We carry the SFIV comics and will probably get more of them in stock since we have more of an audience for it than before.
Like I said previously, the $2 a head adds up. It’s not going to cover our rent or anything, but it’ll cover the month’s electric bill all on it’s own. One less bill we need to make sales to cover.
Now I’m trying to get more things in stock the SF guys would be interested in. For instance, I’m doing my best to get a wholesale account opened with a Sanwa supplier. I know I couldn’t sell a ton of it in house, but it sells incredibly well online, and we could carry some of it in the store as a luxury. Also, this weekend I’ll be writing up a used video game buy list so we can start carrying some of the out of print RPG’s and fighting games.
Edit: I’ll post a better pic in a few days.
Can’t believe I just now found this thread, as we’ve been doing a similar thing at the hobby/card shop I work at since HD Remix came out. Glad everything is working out for you!
man im so pissed cuz i cant make it today, i gt a ride there but not a ride bak so i cant go, yall post sum piks or vids or sumn, so i can pretend i was there lol
I forgot the camera dude… I’ll try to remember it next week though!