Hi everyone!
I’m a former UW student, graduated in 2008 in Computer Science. I moved from Toronto to Kitchener to try to setup up a business here.
I’m thinking of setting up a new entertainment centre for UW and Wilfrid Laurier students, as well as individuals in the Kitchener-Waterloo area. We would be located no more than a 1-10 minutes walk from either university.
One of the main attractions would be PC and console gaming for LAN parties, tournaments, online multiplayer, and individual use.
In addition to the PC and console gaming, you would have access to
[LIST]
[]multiple large 80" TVs for playing games, watching TV, and movies
[]super-comfy leather couches, lounge chairs, etc. Everything about this place would be top quality!
[/LIST]
Take our surveyto help us understand what you’d like to see in the Student Entertainment Centre:
http://rexcentre.com/survey
Thanks!
Yonas
Gudrune, thanks for the suggestion. We thought about serving alcohol, but we’re not comfortable with it because we’re expecting young students to be there too.
From the perspective of a fighting game player, there are 2 reasons i’d be interested in your establishment; somewhere i can have a couple beers and watch Starcraft or street fighter streams and fighting game arcade cabinets. If you’re really looking for some advice/ideas about what the fighting game community wants check outBison’s Autoshop casuals some night, talk to some people, gain the support of the community. Realize this is going to be a difficult battle gaining the trust of the FGC, as an outsider looking in, and it may not be worth your time. I’ve seen one business like this collapse in my short time in the community and would not be surprised to see it happen again.
As it stands right now you have a lot of free/cheap alternatives to compete with for the FGC’s time, from Bison’s Autoshop to school fighting game groups. They offer large, localized venues at a low cost. I am not suggesting you become some sort of altruistic savior for the gaming community, but realize when it comes to the FGC, you have to offer something very special in order to justify anything over our regular $3 a night in casuals costs. The key idea at hand here is offer; ingratiate yourself to the community, become a part of it and you’ll more easily receive its support.
Since I enjoy talking in circles, I return to the quote i began this with; liquor licence and arcade cabs. While i can understand the objections to the first as it greatly segments your market, the second is the one thing that may mobilize the FGC in the area. Offer us something we cannot do while playing at school or elsewhere and you may have a winning proposition.
In short, we may be the wrong group to ask about this sort of thing. Without high capital investment or alcohol I cannot see the FGC being a profitable business segment.
Thanks Grey, I appreciate your insights. I’ve spoken with members of the UW Gamers club and they also pointed me to Bison’s Autoshop. I’m trying to get in touch with Gary.N.
About arcades, we’re going to be all over that. Fighting, music, and dancing arcades will be there, and we plan on continually purchasing more arcades every term.
From what I’ve been told, arcades are hard to come by in Kitchener-Waterloo, especially dancing arcades like In The Groove. You can fully expect ITG2 to be in the Rex Centre, as well as Street Fighter, Marvel vs. Capcom, etc.
About alcohol, we may open a separate location in the future that has a liquor license if there’s demand for it.
Great news!
We’re finally ready to start collecting memberships!!
Sign up right now: http://rexcentre.com/members
We’re offering an early bird membership to the first 100 members that sign up before July 31, 2012.
http://rexcentre.com/early-bird-membership
Excuse my bluntness on the issue, but memberships for what exactly? No location, no opening date, no statement regarding refunds or the lack thereof are provided on your website. Some allusions are made to to what this location may have and what the membership may provide. Your About Us section is a mission statement aimed at either investors or to provide an internal guiding ethos, not at enticing customers. It provides no clear insight into what I am being given the opportunity to be a part of. Without any of this information, and most importantly a refund policy should this not materialize, why should i entrust you with my money?
Grey,
Thanks for your excellent feedback. We will update the site to include all that information this week. I’ll update this thread once the information is up on the site.
[LIST]
[]The location is at 321 Weber Street North, Waterloo, ON.
[]We’re planning to launch September 2012.
[]You will receive a 100% full refund if we are unable to build the Rex Centre for any reason.
[]We will list the specific dancing and fighting arcades that we are planning to purchase and make available at the Rex Centre
[/LIST]
We’ve updated the following pages to include all this information:
http://rexcentre.com/pc-console-arcade-gaming
http://rexcentre.com/members
PC Gaming and Console Gaming
You will have access to all the popular PC and console games. If you have a specific request,
please let us know.
[LIST]
[]Battlefield 3
[]Modern Warfare 3
[]Starcraft
[]World of Warcraft
[]Team Fortress 2
[]Counter-Strike
[*]…and more
[/LIST]
Arcade Gaming
Based on our survey, we will be choosing arcades to purchase from the following list:
[LIST]
[]In The Groove
[]Beatmania
[]DJMax Technika
[]Pump It Up Pro
[]Taiko Drum Master
[]Jubeat
[]Rock Band
[]Guitar Hero
[]Super Street Fighter
[]Marvel vs. Capcom
[]Mortal Kombat
[]Tekken
[/LIST]
A list of the specific arcades that will be available in September 2012 will be published here closer to the date. You can help us purchase more arcades for September 2012 by signing up your friends!
Hosting Gaming Tournaments
We would love to host gaming tournaments as often as possible - atleast once a month. We’d also like to arrange various types of prizes. We will also try to incorporate sponsorship from companies like Microsoft, AMD, Intel, etc. Gaming tournaments will be FREE for members, and only accessible to members.
how many pc/console setups do you expect to have?
We expect to have between 10 - 20 computers. This is based on our survey, where most respondents were interested in 5 - 10 or 10 - 20 computers.
For consoles, we’ll have PlayStation, XBox and Nintendo Wii - one of each for every TV at the Rex Centre.
The number of TVs is very flexible and entirely dependent on how many members sign up between today and July 31, 2012.
Sweet! out of the arcade games you listed, how many of them do you think will make it? Five? Eight?
There should be anywhere between 2 - 5 for September 2012 - again, depending on the number of members that sign up between now and July 31, 2012. You can help us purchase more arcades for September 2012 by signing up your friends.
Because there are so many amazing arcades that we want in the Rex Centre, we will be purchasing more arcades every term (every four months). We’ll always be asking for input from our members on which arcades we should purchase next.
The fact that you benched Super Street Fighter and “Marvel vs Capcom” under “Arcade Games” scares me a little. You need to do a little more research. Both games are the most popular under their console iterations, since those are the versions that get updates frequently.
You also need to get in touch with the admittedly confusing versions of each respective game.
Street Fighter IV is currently played under the iteration “Super Street Fighter IV: AE 2012”. Christ, that sounds stupid as i type it out.
Marvel vs Capcom is currently “Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3”.
Both those versions are cheaply available on console. What FGC players will take seriously are lagless tvs or monitors. Fighting games need close to latency free (1-2 frame delay max) monitors. That sounds a little insane on most other systems, but a lot of combos are 1-2 frame links in Street Fighter, and are necessary.
DaDesiCanadian,
Thanks for your input! Don’t be scared - we have extremely knowledgeable student gamers working with us on the PC, console, and arcade choices and purchases. We’ll have the latest version of each title. If you have any favourites, please let us know:
http://rexcentre.com/contact
Yes, many gamers have mentioned that they would like to use lagless monitors. This will be part of our purchasing decision.