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So me and a buddy were wishlisting and talking about this today.. wondering if you guys out there would be interested in hanging out at a place like this? So it would be a place filled with high end gaming machines (like 20+) that you rent out to play kind of like a bowling alley or pool hall, with a big emphasis on eSports and running weekly or even nightly tournaments for the latest and greatest games. There would be an hourly fee + extra for official tournaments - discounts for regular members who sign up for a monthly pass or something like that, and soda & junk food too. Could maybe also have some consoles hooked up to really huge TVs too. Everything connected to a really fast gigabit network, and free wifi too for the folks that just wanna hang out. There would be sofas for the console areas and comfy chairs for the PCs too.

The idea being that even though folks can play at home, they probably can’t afford big gaming systems, or have a big TV to play their xbox on whenever they want.. so they can get a better, cooler experience here and have the fun of playing with all their friends together in 1 place. So it would also be good for setting up a clan match or wow guild raid too. Cyber cafes used to be a thing like 10 years ago, but you don't really see them around here anymore.. there are a couple of gaming centers downtown that seem to be doing well though, but all the pics I've seen they look like a messy kid's basement with rows of old PCs, we would want something really clean, modern and "upscale".

Would you be into something like that?

I've done it in the past, namely whenever I was home from college and didn't have my usual equipment.

In general, it's okay, but there's a couple of issues that I think you will need to address.

For PC gaming, you absolutely need security. So much PC gaming now is done via sign-ins and account details that keeping the customer's information secure is absolutely paramount. Which means not only making sure nobody is watching physically in the room, but that you're tightly monitoring where those PCs go online and that your network is flawless. The instant word gets out that your cafe is infected, you're going to suffer greatly from word of mouth.

You also need to offer enticements for people to spend money there. Yes, an hourly fee is ok, but what is the customer getting for that fee? Is it just soda and chips? Eh...that's not great. This is an age where a business like this needs to go further than just the basics. If this is something you're seriously considering, I'd recommend you see who the neighbors to your place is and see if you can find ways to get deals for your customers or vice versa if you're near restaurants and the like.

Yes I’ve been kicking this idea around in my head for many years, off and on for the last decade actually, and more lately as I have more experience running a biz now and stuff. I agree security is a big issue. But, there are software packages out there for running these kinds of shops, that can manage all of your game licenses securely and can help with that part. I have 2 locations in mind, 1 is right next tot a GameStop and surrounded by like 8 different fast food options plus a Starbucks and ice cream parlor. Another one is in a big shopping center, next to a comic book store and there’s also food options, Best Buy and a big movie theater, but the theater is kind of a hike across a huge parking lot, not very convenient for walking to before/after a movie, but I’m old so maybe it’s not so bad for teens My biggest worry would be getting and then retaining customers. Either way I’d want to do cross promotions to happen with the other businesses around. Selling drinks and junk food would be more for convenience.

My original idea was to have a coffee shop built in, and/or possibly selling burgers and hot dogs and deep fried junk, but I really don’t think I want the headaches that will come with dealing with the health dept and stuff. Not at first anyway. I’d rather shelf that idea and save it for if things are really successful and we wanted to expand and move to a big place.

I also worry it might be too tough to get funding, definitely can’t do it myself and not something that would work on Kickstarter. 20 gaming rigs is $60,000 right there. I do have a good chunk of change in the bank that could be used to cover some, but not all, so maybe a loan won’t be as tough to get if I’m willing to put up a good amount myself.. I could probably only cover about 1/4 of the opening costs though. It might be tough to put together a biz plan and show how profitable it can be, I’ve tried emailing and asking for advice for other places, but haven’t gotten a single response from anyone over the years. Guess they don’t want competition.

Yeah, this is not an easy business to keep solvent. And it doesn't help that it has a large cost of entry.

As for the location, take into consideration a few other things. Accessibility and parking is one for sure, if it is some hole in the wall that is hard to get to, and harder to know you're there, you're going to suffer. Likewise, if you've got no parking space, that's really going to put a strangle on the customer use there. Also, I'd take in mind what the spaces you're looking at will be once filled up. Are they airy? Is there good ventilation and light? While the gaming rigs and setup are what people are paying for, there is a lot of value you can gain if you have a clean and welcoming environment.

Also to note, you might want to reach out into your local area for feedback on this. I don't know how big your town is, but is there enough support for a business like this. You'll want to make sure you don't fall into the trap where the online feedback pushes you into believing that your local community can and will support such a venture.

Honestly. no.

I'd have to spend time and money getting there to face the possibility of waiting for a machine to become available, at which point I'm putting my own login info into a shared computer which has peripherals covered in grease and other people's stank. And I'm paying for every hour I'm on there, in a room that likely smells about as good as your typical LGS and is too loud to hear myself think.

Alternatively, I can play on my own hardware for free in the comfort and security of my own home.

Definitely don't want a hole in the wall, both places are in fairly large shopping centers with big box stores mixed in, plenty of traffic and probably tons of rent. The place by the GameStop is in a more populated area, but the one by the comic shop is a smaller town, but one that is growing a lot with houses springing up everywhere. I'll see if I can find any local gaming communities on Facebook and ask around.

And it will be impeccably clean, I would want a place where parents would feel comfortable letting their kids hang out there, not dingy little shop that's just for the creepy kids. Imagining a typical rectangular shop, I'd probably keep the PC area a little dark and in the back, with the consoles in a brighter area up front, so the big screens can be seen from outside.


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hmm, what if you could book online in advance, like restaurant reservations?

When i went to college in Phoenix i spent a good bit of time hanging about the cyber cafe one of my friends worked at. They had a small barista area where patrons could buy coffee or tea, they also sold a small selection of snacks and baked goods. I never remember the place being full despite it having 40+ computers and being within walking distance of ASU. I did notice that quite a few professionals would pop in to check email during breaks or lunch but with everyone having a smartphone i don't see that as much of a need any more. Maybe have some office products so people could use those or use them for printing documents.

Really the only way you are going to get patrons without being right next to a college would to be run weekly events and monthly tournaments.

Yeah that's the plan.. lots of events. I'd probably hold off for the first couple of weeks though and see which games are the most popular among the customers and see what they're asking for the most.. then start doing like Overwatch Wednesdays or Sundays of Doom, Saturday nights would likely be a tournament for a different game each week, with prizes and stuff.

At first I was thinking near a school would be best, but there aren't any ideal spots near them. Ursinus University is nearby, but there aren't really any good shopping centers within walking distance for the students, so the only option would be downtown spots with street parking which is really inconvenient for anyone with a car. I personally never shop anywhere that only has street parking, since I'm that lazy. Walking's for squares. And skinny people.

There's a high school right near our house, and some retail spots right near it, but it's not really a high traffic area. That might be good for low rent, but would be poor visibility. I'd probably have kids come in after school and maybe play for an hour or so before their moms make em leave for dinner and not come back. So I was thinking the bigger strip mall spots would be better all around.

40 PCs is too many.. I was thinking I'd start with around 20 and then add more if it seems like we are always full. Would be interesting to see if people are more into consoles though.. there's a place in Vegas I was looking up online and it seems like they mostly have consoles going, a lot more than their PCs.

You will struggle to find a suitable location and market.
High speed internet has largely killed of the need for LAN parties and most people will take their PC with them if they are away from home for a significant length of time so University students and the like aren't an ideal target.

Would there be enough footfall due to random people wanting to play games in a Mall? Maybe an area with a large Asian student population? Close to a large conference centre (or hotels that have a lot of conference attendees)?

I don't think it would be a viable business unless you manage to find a fairly specific niche.

I personally wouldn't make use of such a service.

The draw wouldn't really be about having fast internet, it's more about a place to get together with all your friends under 1 roof and play all your favorite games together, and run tournaments with prizes each week and be all about the whole eSports thing.

We have one of the biggest malls in the country pretty close by, but I would be afraid that rent would be so high that I'd never make any money. Or the place would be so small I wouldn't be able to fit anyone inside. Though I did have an idea once for a mall kiosk popup game spot, like those little carts they have in the middle where people sell dumb stuff like iphone cases. This would have a small cluster of 4-6 PCs and there would be a couple of them scattered around the mall. Still though, I think mall rent would be way too high.

Another idea I had if there would be enough space, would be to also have tables for tabletop games. I wouldn't want to get into selling games and minis, but I could maybe sell Magic cards at the counter since they have a small footprint, and I could do friday night magic. Maybe for minis and board games just charge a low all day general admission. Or have board game rentals? I don't really think the offline games would make any money for the amount of space they would need though, but if it helps bring folks in the door and they have a good experience it could be a good word of mouth booster, and they might stick around for some video gaming too.

I think you're going the wrong direction with adding on tabletop games. Piling niche on niche is not effective- to make this social gaming work, you need to play up the social aspect of it. That means food and drink- ideally booze. Of course, at that point you're opening a restaurant, and those are one of the most volatile businesses.

The successful ones around here (Orlando, FL- I don't think any small town can support something like this) combine bar or pub style dining with gaming. Think Chuck E Cheeses with computers, or Dave and Busters. Your quirk will be the e-sports theme- fair enough. Theme the hell out of it. Don't just have computers- name them, and theme the cabinets after characters from e-Sports. If there's one thing we milennials love, it is bizarre chairs. Find some chairs that look like things from major e-sport games, or at the very least cover them in decals.

http://www.player1orlando.com/ This is an example of what you're probably going to want to shoot for. Plan to have some way to broadcast e-Sport events live. And check that your area has an active community- perhaps try to organize a watch party at a bar in the area, or something similar before you launch.

Think about the business model you're running as well- you mentioned the 60 grand start up costs. How many years can you operate those rigs before they need to be replaced? What does one of those gigabit networks cost per month? If you want to charge state of the art prices, will you need to make enough to cover 60,000 in replacement fees in 3 years? Or will you switch to tiered system with a pass to the older games, and a premium for the most current computers?

I'd say selling steam cards, xbox live cards, and all the other online currency cards is a wonderful way to augment your income here, however slightly.

Yeah prolly right about the offline games. Just thought maybe if I had a lot of space. And I really don't want to get into gaming retail.

Definitely don't want to do a bar or serve food other than prepackaged snaks, at least not at first. Too many unknowns for me. Could do a coffee shop with blended drinks and that kind of thing. I was looking into [url=http://www.crimsoncup.com/]Crimson Cup[url] to take care of that, they're kind of a not-franchise that supplies the equipment and coffee and all, but you can use your own kind of branding and stuff. They also come out to your place and help you set it up, do on site training, help you out writing a biz plan, lots of other services. And it's all real, natural, awesome stuff.

But then, selling coffee, do I need to be open early so people can buy it on the way to work? One of the other reasons I didn't want to be in a mall is because I don't think it's worth opening at 9 am when I'm probably not going to have a single customer till school lets out. I was hoping to have a place where my hours could be something like 2-10pm week days, maybe till midnight or later friday and saturday, opening around 11 saturday and sunday and holidays, and summer. Basically be open longer when school is out.

I was planning to have themed stations. Maybe a cluster of 4 PCs on a long table 2x2 per side, and you get the PCs with different colored blinky lights inside, and colored gaming chairs to match. So there's the red zone, blue zone, green zone, etc. Tournaments would be set up with different zones fighting each other. Would definitely decorate the place with lots of gaming goods too, as long as it doesn't junk the place up.

As far as costs go, $60k just covers 20 PCs. Maybe up to 30 if I drop the specs a bit, but I really want high end systems to be a selling point. Anyone can play Doom on the laptop their mom got them, but not may people can play it on a 4K screen with settings maxed out. All said and done, and to have enough money left over to be able stay open a good year or so before we really start turning a profit, I'd need roughly $200k to open my doors. More if I add in coffee.

I also wanted to have a plan to replace PCs every 2 years or so, selling off the old ones to help cover the costs. Or at the very least upgrade them with new video cards and stuff. One thing nice about PCs is they are easy to upgrade. Even the small ITX sized kinds.

I have no idea what I would charge to play. One place I found charges 15 cents a minute / $9 per hour, $25 max, plus extra for tourney fees. Then you can buy a monthly membership where it all gets cheaper per day, almost half price. Another place just has a $20 flat rate general admission at the door, you can grab any station you want and just start playing. If you get tired of playing on a PC, you can relax on a sofa and play some xbox instead. I kinda like both ideas, but the latter doesn't seem like it would work unless you have tons of customers, or that might compliment the coffee shop part pretty good since you'll get extra sales from refreshments. Could also do like a half price admission for lunch breaks or happy hours if you come late at night for the last hour or so.

Oh and yeah, eSports all the way. I'd want to be broadcasting tournaments and everything on FB Live, Twitch, whatever. I really want to go for the social / community aspect. Anyone can play at home, but it's a completely different experience when you're all in the same room all playing together.

+1 for avoiding Tabletop games. You have 3 shops within 20 miles of you that do nothing but tabletop gaming, so you would have way too much competition.

Also avoid the mall. KOP charges $800 per month for just a kiosk and a cart, and up to $100 per square foot for an actual store. And you're a gaming store, not a coffee shop, so you shouldn't feel obligated to open just to sell coffee and snacks.

I like your idea for the colored lights and zones, but I would consider maybe more than 4 spots per zone, even a game of CS:GO is 5v5.

$9 per hour doesn't seem too excessive, and it sounds more reasonable than $10. And you could still make decent money offering a discount for a membership card, or bulk hours in one purchase.

I would gladly swing by if you opened your doors, I'm close enough.


P.S. Sorry about the incoherent rants, I've been drinking

There used to be such a place in London, ON. It was positioned between a University and a College. It lasted up until high-speed internet became widespread, and then if failed.

On the other hand, a friend of mine has opened a shop in downtown Hamilton... shameless plug...

http://www.gameopolis.ca

That works like this. $5 gets you in the door, for as long as you like. They sell drinks, "light" food and snacks. They happen to be vegetarian, so they sell vegetarian food, but don't hold that against them. Their main money maker isn't the games, but the food and drinks they sell. Hamilton has a college, maybe more, but the point is you can go. Hang out, have a few drinks, and be able to talk to the people you're there with while you eat. It's tough to eat a decent snack when you're wrangling a controller. But when you're taking turns rolling dice / whatever the game needs, you can easily eat a sandwich and have a beer.

So don't open a cyber café... but if you like board games and have a crap-load of them, open a gaming pub.

Nope, wouldn't be interested. And I think your business model is off by a bit. You're going to get near-zero traffic from random people coming in to play a game, the kind of people who would be interested almost certainly already have their own gaming hardware that they can use for free. Your primary source of income is going to be groups coming in for special events: tournaments, birthday parties, etc, where the social aspect of the game is important and you already have a group coming in all at once. So you need to ask yourself how often you're going to have 20+ people coming in to justify having that many expensive high-end gaming computers (which will have significantly less resale value once the next generation comes out).

I may go for the King of Prussia area, but definitely not the mall. And yeah 5 or 6 systems in a cluster would probably work better than 4, forgot about that. Lots of the competitive shooters are 5 man teams. For locations, what about something more like an office building than a retail area? They're more suited to having rooms full of desks, and rent will be much cheaper.

I thought about the tabletop gaming cafe idea too, but I was afraid it wouldn't really be profitable without havign a full restaurant to support it.. but I am leaning more toward having the coffee shop built in now. It would have to be like a movie theater, where you make most of your money on refreshments while people hang out and play. So maybe general admission instead of hourly is the best way to charge too, you just come in and play whatever you want. I don't really have many board games, but i do have 2 closets overflowing with miniatures Perhaps having general admission it might be better to have more consoles? So you can kick back with a frothy caramel mochachino while you play some gears of war on a 60" TV?

And yeah the other money maker would be for parties and special events and tournaments. I don't think random players walking in is something I could count on, but if they have a good experience it could help for word of mouth. But it would need to be be place where regulars hang out all the time.

Anyway just throwing ideas around and wishlisthing. This idea has been going back and forth in my head for the last 10 years or so, and I'm feeling like eSports is becoming more and more of a thing these days and maybe it's time. But it's not something I could do without a huge loan from a bank, so I'm not holding my breath. Even still, won't hurt to put together a biz plan and try.

If there will be possible to stay all night and order to install games by request. And if it works every day with no exceptions. And if it's located somewhere in the center of the city, so you can walk around shops, movie theaters, cafe and then go to play games night.

Staying all night could be an option, I've seen some game shops that lock the doors at closing and people keep gaming till whenever, so I'm sure we could do that sometimes. I'm at least hoping to have "bar hours". Was also wondering if maybe booze could be allowed, I don't want to sell it and get into the headache of needing a liquor license, but lots of restaurants let you bring your own beer or wine. I'd have to see how that works, i'm sure there's some kind of permit needed.

I don't want to be in the city though.. not this one anyway. Too far, no parking, driving sucks, just not somewhere I want to be. There are many strip malls around here though, many have lots of other shops and lots of foot traffic.. so there are a lot of good options for having cool stuff nearby. I think having a movie theater nearby would good. I have 2 options there.. one is in a shopping center with lots of big box stores like Target and Best Buy, but kind of out in the burbs where it's a lower population but I would be right by a comic store that does lots of business. The other has lots of restaurants and foot traffic, but rent is a premium price. Once I get all of the other costs figured out I'll start looking into a good location and try and find the best one I can for the best price and see how it goes.

But Peregrine has a point. Foot traffic is not really going to do a lot for your business, since you're going to really be reliant on people coming in to play games. You don't really get that with foot traffic. What kind of customer base do you have?

 curran12 wrote:
But Peregrine has a point. Foot traffic is not really going to do a lot for your business, since you're going to really be reliant on people coming in to play games. You don't really get that with foot traffic. What kind of customer base do you have?

To elaborate: gaming of the kind you're talking about is a social activity. A random person walking by on their way to the Target next door is not going to say "hey, I think I'll stop in and spend an hour playing video games all by myself". It isn't 1995 anymore, you aren't offering that single person anything they don't already have at home. Almost your entire business is going to be groups of people making specific plans to come in and play games, whether it's at a tournament you're hosting or just a random "guys night out" kind of thing. And those people are going to drive to wherever you are for the specific purpose of being your customers. Paying extra to be near heavy foot traffic doesn't make any sense, you aren't going to attract enough random drop-in customers to offset higher rent. You do want a central location that's easy to get to though, if your location isn't convenient your already-weak argument for getting people to come in gets even less appealing.


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 Necros wrote:
But it would need to be be place where regulars hang out all the time.

This isn't likely to happen. Remember, you're charging quite a bit of money for your services, not many people can afford to come in regularly and drop a bunch of money on playing video games. Your "regulars" would almost have to be people who end up hanging out all the time without spending much money, and that's not helping to pay your bills. What you really need, instead of regulars, is a solid schedule of events. You don't need one person to come in every day, you want 30 different people who each come in once a month for their respective monthly events.

You'd likely have more luck setting up an arcade as well.

Not unless there was a reason to, like friends having a LAN party at said cyber cafe.

Yeah i don't really have a business model at all at this point, I'm just spitballing and tossing ideas around. This business, if it even happens, is a long ways off. It won't happen without a hefty loan from a bank, and I won't get that unless I can show that it's really profitable. I think it could be, similar places are, just got to figure out how.

And yeah I don't think foot traffic is the way to go, but it would have to have car traffic.. should be a location that's convenient, easy to find, visible enough that people know it's there, and ample parking.

But I worry about how much cash it would be able to bring in. Doing some math.. at $9 per hour, 20 systems just bring in $180 per hour. Not too shabby if they're in use all day long, but they won't be. So say my hours are 2-10pm, and they're in use half the time, that's $720 per day. Just over 5k per week, $20k per month, maybe $240k per year. Seems like a good amount on paper, but then with the cost of rent, utilities (electric bill will be nasty), salaries, game licenses, upgrade costs.. it's gonna be tight.

Adding in more systems will increase those numbers, basically each system could bring in $12k per year. But if I don't have enough customers to use them, then they're a waste.. so I thought starting with 10 PCs and 10 console stations (xbone, PS4 and latest Nintendo all 3 connected to 1 big TV). And then I can see what people are playing and if we are maxed out a lot, then I can add more. I feel like I need more than 20 total though, that number seems small.. 40 seems too big.. maybe 30 is the magic number?

There will be extra cash coming from snacks and soda, but I have no clue how much. The coffee shop part would probably be much more profitable, but that means a lot more hassle with permits and heath codes and also hiring more employees. Without it, it's something I could run myself with a handful of minimum wage part timers. But with it, it would be a cooler place all around and have a lot more to offer and hopefully encourage folks to hang out longer, but also require a lot more startup costs. And I hate the idea of buying "stock" that can spoil if no one buys it fast enough.

Add the place like our Russian "anti-cafe", where dudes can stay and chat, watch movies, eat, play tabletop games, work with ther laptops etc,

Yeah I imagine I would have a “hang out” area, maybe a few cafe tables .. I wouldn’t have the space available for running games of 40k but I wouldn’t stop someone from whipping out their Magic cards if they want to. And hopefully buy some refreshments The hourly fee would only apply to the video games.

Don't skimp on employees. I noticed that you mentioned you want to run it with 'yourself and a handful of minimum wage part timers;. That is business suicide if you aren't willing to invest in some higher paid people. With that arrangement, you will be working every single day of your life and your business will not run if you are sick, need a day or anything else. Invest in some people to give them leadership and growth.

Yeah guess I would need a manager, and it would be good to have someone who knows something about setting up and maintaining networks and security and all. I don't really know a lot about that, but I can learn. Maybe I'm wrong but, I don't really think a business like this could afford to pay people more than a retail kind of salary. Not at first anyway, so that's why I was thinking I'd have to start small and after we open I can see what else I might end up needing.

Going the coffee route though, I would also need a barista or 2, and looking around online they typically only make around $9 per hour, depending on location.

But without it, it almost feels like it could be run with just 1 or 2 people in the store. 1 boss & 1 minion. Maybe 3 on busy Saturdays. Or maybe even just 1 person on week nights. I mean, all you need is someone to stay at the front desk and ring up sales and check in players when they come in, then maybe a 2nd person to organize run events and make sure they're going smoothly and everyone has what they need. And a 3rd person for making drinks if we have that.

I'm kind of thinking of it working like a bowling alley or pool hall, seems like you mostly just need someone to ring stuff up and assign people a lane. And hand out shoes. Or headsets in this case.

 Necros wrote:
and they're in use half the time

That's an incredibly generous assumption. Any time before ~6pm on weekdays is going to be dead because most people are at work (remember, this is social gaming, nobody is going to pay without 5-10+ other players), so that's half your hours right there. Then even when you have customers you won't have all your stuff in use at the same time. It would probably be generous to assume 50% usage during active hours, but even that is enough to cut your $240k/year estimate in half. A more pessimistic estimate, the kind you need to work with to ensure you don't go into debt, puts you below $100k/year, maybe down to $50k/year.

 Necros wrote:
Maybe I'm wrong but, I don't really think a business like this could afford to pay people more than a retail kind of salary.

Remember, you get what you pay for with employees. If you want passionate fellow gamers who love the business and are excited to help your customers you need to pay more than minimum-wage retail jobs. If you cut your pay offer to the minimum you should expect to get the usual minimum-wage retail employees, the kind of people who will shrug and say "not paid enough to care" when someone walks out the door with one of your expensive gaming PCs.

With those assumptions, then it sounds like there's really no way to make a profit at all. Yet there's plenty of game centers out there that are making it work, and packed every night. How do they do it? I've tried contacting them to ask for tips, and never got a single response. Kinda frustrating.. and a complete opposite for tabletop games, every game shop owner I've talked to seems to be more than happy to give advice. Guess it's a different breed

Maybe a better approach then would be putting a cafe or sandwich shop first. Some restaurants have a separate section for private parties, we could do something similar and that could be used for gaming events instead... maybe opening at 11 AM for the lunch crowd and having the game room open for stragglers during the day, and no events till later at night. I kind of feel like that approach would work better with consoles and not so much PCs. Might not be a bad idea, would cut out some of the startup costs.

Very interesting! Sounds like your area is quite different from mine. Well, if they won't supply trade secrets, engage in a little corporate espionage. What do these successful game centers charge? What events do they run? What additional services do they offer? Is anyone offering the exact same service you plan to? If they are, what will make your location more convenient, or allow you to beat their rates?

Strangely enough for the idea you propose- I'm not sure if starting modestly with 10 machines would really work. If even 1 goes down, you can't run even a league of legends game in house, and the esports angle relies on event play. What you may consider is discussing a partnership with an existing game store. I could see a successful tabletop gaming store or even a lasertag store being willing to dedicate some square footage to your pods and allow you to run it in shop. The benefit to you of course, is you would have far less risk.

Ugh, this is such a catch-22! You need a huge playerbase to support you, because it's a really expensive startup which relies on very steady use to turn a profit. And I can't think of a way for you to generate interest or create your base before you launch the business.