Pros/Cons of Gaming/LAN Centers?

ThatDamnDave

ThatDamnDave

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I'm going to be entering grad school for my MBA in the fall and one of the potential tracks I might go down is entrepreneurship. During that coursework, one of the projected outcomes is a real world-ready business plan that can be used after graduation that has been expertly crafted with staff/peer help. Dandy.

So, I've been pondering what I'd like to do for some time and I keep coming back to a game/LAN center as something I think I'd really get excited working towards. I'm asking the CAG community for some input on whether they actually go to these places, if they know anyone that does and what their general feelings are about these locations.

The idea is cool in theory and would put me in what I would call a fun environment, but do people really frequent these locations? There are a lot of variables like product offerings (selling used games, food sales, parties, etc.) and events (contests, tournaments, LAN lock-ins, etc.), so who knows where this business plan will even end up, but I'm hoping for some general comments.

Even comments like "Nothing a game center could offer would get me to spend $5/hour when I could just as easily sit on my couch and play the handful of games I own" are helpful. Thanks as always.
 
I would go and do all kinds of stuff there if I had one around me.

Im comfortable with gaming and I dont care if people want to make fun of me for doing it.

I think you should open up one in the shenandoah valley.

Id live there.
 
I'm not sure if any of this helps.... but here are some of my thoughts on it.

It would depend greatly on your location. I think you would have to put in in a densely populated area that has lots of college kids and perhaps high school kids. A college town like Boston would proabably be pretty good.

There use to be a place sort of close to me that was north of Boston that use to run a little LAN room that would have stuff like Unreal Tournament and Counterstrike going. It was in a mall so it use to do releltively good, but it was full of mostly little kids who's moms would drop them off and highs school kids.

A place could perhaps get me to come out to see/participate in tournaments. This would also work for probably other hardcore gamers.

One problem could be though how all the current consoles are online now. You no longer need a gaming PC to play online you can buy a 360 for 300 bucks and then spend 5 bucks a month on Live and find thousands upon thousands of people. Maybe you would do better with a combination Sports Bar, Arcade, LAN Center? That would lead to quite the mix crowd though..

Also the price would make a difference. I don't know what hte going rate is, but xbox live is 5 bucks a month., PSN is free, etc. MAybe you could make some kind of membership deal where they pay a certain amount a month for unlimited, or if they get first place for the day they get a free 20 hours, or some way to get peole into it.

So, I guess in a nutshell: I personally would go to a LAN center if it was close by and it had some good games going with a nice crowd of people. How often would depend on the price and if there was naything encouraging me to go back.
 
LAN centers are alright. I've been to two (one overseas, one here in California). The one I've went to in California was pretty big with local high school students and junior high students. That's when Counter-Strike and Warcraft 3/Starcraft were big hits. LAN centers are cool if you can't afford a suitable gaming computer and is easily accessible like being able to just walk there after school or something.

I think C-S is probably the cornerstone game for LAN centers, lol.

The cons, I really can't think of any unless there is no sitting room or you don't enjoy people next to you. Other than gaming, I know people that use them just to print out papers and stuff, similar to a library.

I don't think LAN centers are popular anymore though, because of the expenses of PC gaming, but I could be wrong. =p Console gaming could work but nowadays people want to play on their own screen. Unless you have like Rock Band or Guitar Hero set-ups, now that would be interesting.
 
Arcades were popular way back when consoles still had primitive graphics, or when you had a few minutes to kill before meeting up with friends or going to the laundromat. So I can't see why anyone would pay to use something for an hour when they likely have it at home - they wouldn't be interested in video games otherwise, right? Even with karaoke and DDR machines, Guitar Hero and Rock Band, plus all the Wii consoles in the world, it would still draw in a limited crowd, and even fewer of the 18-34 demographic you want to hit.

Any successful establishment will tell you that the secret to being successful is to be patronized by more women than men. Women are likely to have more friends than males, they're more likely to gush about something if they like it, and your patrons will consciously or subconsciously feel safer if women feel safe enough to stick around. Parks, libraries, coffee shops, and restaurants are all frequented by more women than men, and bars would be too if there weren't already frequented by countless (inebriated) men. Ironically enough, hardly any man would visit a bar if he thought there would be no women there.
 
I think whitereflection is onto something. The trick would be that you have to make the place somewhere that a woman would go on a date. You have videogames, so guys will be willing to go.

My random thoughts is, to make this work, you have to build the concept around a bar, except, instead of pool tables/darts/dancing, you build it around video games. Sure, you are going to have some fights and stuff, but I think this is the easiest way to bring in the 20 somethings, which I would think would have to be your target market (this is basically how Gameworks survived having an arcade years after the arcade died).

Being close to 30, I can tell you that you just aren't going to make money off my age group with this idea. You are either married with kids/single and flush with money. If you are married with kids, you don't have the time to go to your establishment. If you are single with the money, you likely have everything you personally want at your house. If you depend on kids, you are likely going to become a glorified babysitter, kids are going to break lots of your stuff, and if you are too harsh on them, you won't have a market. So, I'm not sure you can make that profitable.

But, building this around a college town, where everyone comes together for large tournaments and to try out the new game (while watching hot girls play DDR or Rock Band), I think you could have something.
 
I personally wouldnt go to one unless I had no PC in my house. Most of my reasons may or may not be valid.
Reasons I wouldn't go to a Lan center.
1.Loud obnoxious gamers like those found on xbox live only having to look at them and hear them in person while they act like jerks.
2. God only knows what people do with their hands and then pick up a communal controller that has been shared with every other grimey gamer.
3. I like music when I play games, and if the soundtrack that is playing on the speakers isnt't my fav type of music, it most defintely would ruin my gaming experience.
4. I hate using public facilites. See number 2 above on the hygeine of lots of people.
5. I have seen some really horrible looking lan centers that you couldn't pay me to use. The appearance is incredibly important to me in terms of comfort/atmosphere when I play games.

The reason I would want to use a lan center :
1. I have seen pics of some incredibly cool looking lan centers in korea/japan and they blow away my comfy couch and entertainment center as far as cool suroundings to play games in .
2. Better beverage selection then my fridge/ but the drawback is that i wouldnt feel justified paying 1$ plus for a coke or something simple like that.
3. If I had no pc and the lan center was open 24 hours, that would be THE place to hang out after hours isnstead of the local 24 restuarant/club etc.
4. big screen tvs/comfy couches to play on.
5. I think in the end its all about the atmosphere and amenities. Especially if I had a pc/consoles at home. That would be the only thing to get me to consistantly use one.

None of this probably helps you at all, but it might give you one perspective from a wierd gamer.

I think you also touched on selling used games. I know I have had my opinion changed of games I thought I would hate after having a good experience playing them (atmosphere,size of tv, multiplayer partners).
I think you're idea of selling used games, would help boost income if you sold used games of the stuff you had loaded on your systems.
Again, I don't know how it works in the real world, but in theory , your idea sounds great to me.

I think location plays another large factor. You could put it in a poorer section of town and hope to get people who dont own personal computers or the latest consoles. I don't think that would be the greatest idea though, you might have to deal with high crime, kids who think they dont have to take care of stuff because they dont own it (like broken joysticks in the arcade), etc..
I think the best place would be near a college and make it 24 hours. I know pool halls are popular out where I live after hours and you get clientelle that are a bit more responsible( for the most part) and with disposable income who are bored at all hours of the night/day. If you can make your set up better then the student unions have, then I think you got yourself a winner.
 
These may be obvious, but this is what I've come up with.

Location (suburbia can work, as endless kids will be dropped off as a cheaper alternative to mall/daycare/babysitting and what parent today actually enjoys spending time with their kids?)
Cleanliness & Comfort
Snack Bar
Staff is important. You're going to want to have people savvy enough with the systems and games for the eventual system problems. You're also going to want one or two who are also fairly big, because your clientelle will dwindle to a smalll crowd if you have loudmouths and bullys. So if you can find a 300lb nerd who doesn't mind telling EgoGamerX to shut up so others around him aren't disturbed, you're golden.
 
Hmm, I have often wondered about these as welll. There was one near my house, named Toles gaming or something, and it seemed to fairly well. It was however tied to a bubble tea place, so people would grab smoothies, coffee, tea, and hop over to the gaming area sometimes to play some lan games. If you could get a tourney scene going with prizes that could be interesting as people are willing to leave their house for that. Perhaps a mix of lan/console/refreshment would be a suitable combo. Previousley mentioned items are cruicial too. You need an area suitably populated by kids to young adults, upto college students, so you can tap into extra cash to blow and love of gaming. Now that I think about it Toe's was in Houston, right next to University of Houston and a junior college that was quite large (this was also admist suburbia). This probably helped its success greatly. Other than the logistics, I think qualified staff would be the tougest part (depnding on wages). It would be tough to find someone tech savy, without paying them a decent wage. There is a lot to think about for sure, I'm sure a magnitude of planning goes into opening one.
 
Oh yeah and the 24 hour thing would be fantastic, as a college student, I would hands down pay to hangout in a nicer area with games and good food (even though I own a nice pc and all the current gen consoles (minus ps3)).
 
Just wanted to chime in and say thanks so much to all those that have posted comments. This is just what I was looking for. The factors that get a person to leave the house and participate in some kind of social activity are the factors that will make money. A lot of these LAN centers operate on three-year arcs where there is excitement when they open that then dwindles and results in the place shutting down after year three (typically when the lease contract is up for renewal).

The key is grabbing that audience to begin with and then creating an atmosphere that fosters a community. I happen to have a friend group that really isn't into gaming and if I had developed some friends at a LAN center or whatever that were, I could see myself coming back to that establishment to hang out. Of course, that's not an easy thing to create and these comments help me formulate some ideas, so thanks very much to all that have written so far.

I'd love to hear more comments if anyone has them.
 
It's already been said but the social aspect of it would really be the key. All things being equal, I think we all enjoy playing games in the same room with people more than playing online. That said, I'd only use the place if I liked the people that went there. Even one regular customer that's either a colossal prick or a smelly, super annoying loser could really drive away other people and I don't see how you could control that.

But, ideally, if I could get out of the house every now and then and find some fun people to hang out and game with in a cool environment, I'd be all over it. My only other suggestion would be to focus on all the fun co-op and multiplayer games that aren't online. It would be a great chance for people to get into games like Four Swords and retro favorites on the 8 and 16 bit systems.
 
Some already mentioned it, but one of the reasons I avoid such places is usually the looks. It's usually populated by some, well, to put it nicely--social awkward folks. Much nicer are places like Dave & Buster's. A LAN site similar to it I could imagine visiting, especially with more modern party games like Rock Band, etc.
 
I personally used to go to one all the time, from 7th to 9th grade I played CounterStrike and Diablo 2 at least once a week. My computer sucked and they offered some good prices so I would go after school on Fridays and played all day until closing. And everytime I was in there it was the same exact people in there, some breathed CS and went every day. I even used to bring a ton of friends some days who never played CS and get them hooked.

I've also visited 2 other LAN places near me and they seem to do really well, I think what keeps the businesses alive is that the same people come over and over and over. I see the same people whenever I visit those two places and the key to maintaining business is getting a group of people like that, the repeat customers who come nearly 3-4 times a week. It then becomes pretty stable and you don't have to worry much, but before you get those people the place will struggle. I saw one LAN place shut down because no one was ever there and I'm sure he never got the right group of people.

I still go into them every so often to play Battlefield 2 because my computer blows and I have a craving for some warfare like that. But the majority of LAN center crowds tends to be middle to early high school students, so setting up near a school, mall, movies, other places teens tend to hang out is a great location.
 
I personally would have little to no reason to ever visit one. Mainly since I eventually get all the platforms at some point or another so there's little I don't have access to. However, I could see myself going if I had a group of friends and such and we were currently just hanging out together but then got the itch to play a game. While we could play locally it seems to be primarily online/network play these days in games and we're unable to do that. Then when we are able to do that, it takes too much of the screen when we get four players. Granted the center would have to look appealing and not have a lot of unappealing customers around it all the time.

One thing you could do is turn a small part of it into something like a private karoke joint for games like Rock Band, Guitar Hero, and DDR (Maybe even the Wii). I could see something like that possibily increasing customers as not everyone really wants to look like a fool in front of complete strangers and those types of games potentially disturb customers.

I've never actually been to, let alone seen an an actual LAN center as I've never heard of one being in my area ever. So I don't know specifically what the innards look like to make more in depth comments.



[quote name='guinaevere']So if you can find a 300lb nerd who doesn't mind telling EgoGamerX to shut up so others around him aren't disturbed, you're golden.[/quote]

That's quite the mental image.
 
I don't go to these places and I don't like the people who do. As some others have said, a collegetown is definitely the place to build it, though from what I've seen, these places go under really quick. Personally, I wouldn't get into something like this.
 
[quote name='PyroGamer']Better idea:

Gay Bathhouse.[/quote]

Better Idea.

Don't Post Useless shit and think you are funny.
 
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