LAN Gaming advice
 

My brother is setting up a LAN Gaming business locally.

He is starting off with ten PC's and 4 X boxes. His theme for his lounge and gaming room is combat related. He intends to start off charging $5.00 per hour.

Anyone familiar with this type of business and have any advice to offer?

Interesting, cuz I was looking into the same thing.

Your best bet would be to have this in a spot thats really populated with teens, often - like a MALL.

We are thinking of starting with 20 pc's.... Rent out special joysticks/mice/etc... maybe even sell custom gaming rigs.

Anyways... if you need good lan gaming advice whether its for a party or a permanent place, check out http://lanparty.com


Any ideas on what games you wanna host?

Military combat types...is what he intends to start off with and as I stated his lounge and game room will have that type of decor. He intends to have dog tags made up that will have the level of the player on the tags. Tournament nights etc.

He has checked out a couple of businesses in other citys and business was booming for them. He said that there are as many, if not more adult gammers in the places he checked out as there are kids.

Should check your city too! Because I know in Orange County or at least Huntington Beach and surrounding areas, you can't have one next to eachother, and you can't have them within like a 1 Radius (2 mile diameter). Which sucks, ya know! But check all that shit out too! I'm surprised that yours are more adult gamers than kids. I know my area, has more teenage gamers, so the cyber cafe's have to be a distance from HS's because the kids ditch school! :) Probably something I would've done if I was in HS and they had that, haha.

jDoG

$5 an hour is alot, here they are $2 an hour and that includes a candy tray they bring around once an hour.

I would have standard machines w/19" monitors then have a few p4 3ghz w/21" monitors for more.

You will smoke through keyboards though, so make sure he budgets right for repairs as nobody will warranty them.

There currently are not any LAN Gamming rooms here. His will be the first.

theking, are u in cali?

hmmm, east coast?

Where are you located that they are $2 per hour? The two that he checked out in other cities...one was $6.25 per hour and the other was $7.00 per hour.

No...California and I meant in the city where he is opening the business.

The one that charged $6.25 per hour...had 21 PC's and between 6-12 PM on a thursday night they were all full.

I guess it depends on where u are at. $5 in NY to play a lan game with 10 - 20 people for an hour would be a fucking bargain. Fuck that. Kids got money. If they dont, they can get it. I would price lan gaming along the lines of playing pool, but perhaps a little more.

Im 25 now.... about 10 years ago I was into the arcades and shit, Mortal Kombat , Street Fighter, all that crap. Back then it was .25 or .50 PER game. When I last went to the same arcade for some little kids b-day party my daughter had to go to, most games where a $1 to play, per game. Kids can burn a LOT of money in an hour at the price... and thats not including other crap like food and drinks and whatnot.

Hahaha... I rememebr though when I went last time, my wife was with me so I was able to break away from the kids and play some games. I go the change machine, and see some kid fiddling around with it and then leaves without getting any money out. I approach it and its making the noise as if its still processing. So I put a $5 bill in, and it spits it back out. At the same time, it dumped $20 worth of quarters in the change slot. I just took that shit like it was mine. Ha.

Me and the wife starting looking into this when the idea of a lan party came up. We were gonna rent out a huge ass convention center and do the whle fucking 9 yards... but a big ass lan party arent really big money makers... jus big headaches.



http://unknownorigin.com/images/lan.jpg

I wonder what the elec bill was? :1orglaugh

$5.00 is too expensive, I wouldn't play there, they usually charge $2/hour here and $2.50-$3.00 Canadian in peek times.

He is supposed to make the money off of food and such, you just give them the pop, and they get keep drinking it, and have it put on their bill for the end. Charge like $1.50 a can or something, and say no outside food.

Appeal the Koreans and it will do well, it may also draw some fun gang action like the one down the road from my place where some kid got shot. The only lame thing about that is the place shut down after because of all the bad publicity. :(

Make sure he has hours like 12pm - 4am or something like that, just lock the doors and don't let people in after 12am. Depending on what the city allows.

Did you read my post where the two businesses he checked out in two different cities charged $6.25 and $7.00 per hour and business was booming? There are not any Koreans that I am aware of.

is it speed bump proof?

Also, this IS important, as to what games you will be offering. Counterstrike is a given of course if its a combat orientated place, but you should also allow for other more non-conventional games and be open to other suggestions from players, at least to start with ...

Make sure you offer a bunch of extra sockets and stuff if you can, some places I have gone for also offer just 'table space' if they want to bring in their own PC's, its cheaper of course, but the food and drink is where you will make most of your money, just make sure you offer that on tap, work the munchie deals heaps ...

why not just offer something like $20 for all day access, that's $200 for the pc and $80 for the xboxes $280/day plus im sure most people wont stay more than 3-4 hours so you can prolly make a shitload more than that easily if you get a lot of customers. Just my 2 cents.

My brother is proceeding. He has the building secured. He is going to put a big screen TV in the lounge...he is in the process of securing the PC's and Xboxes...establishing advertisement...aquiring insurance etc. and may be opening the doors within a couple of weeks. He will be selling snacks and cold drinks.

first of all, BF, quake and CS are the best games for lan parties

make sure there's enough cold pizza

etc etc

price is 2$ hour in the one near me!

oh and remember diabloI+II to get a few hardcore users;)

trust me!

Where are you located?

I was there last year, not the same arena but about same amount of people (4-5k). About the elec bill some big elec company sponsored them.
http://www.dreamhack.org

I will ask again...where are you people located that are paying 2-3 dollars per hour? My brother visited two different cities here in California and the charge was more that $6 and one was $7 per hour.

I would definately pay $5-$8/hour for something like this; I don't know of anything like this Columbus though. And arial's all-day access idea sounds like a great idea too. :) Good luck to your brother.

Here is the one in Buffalo cyberjocks.com not sure if its doing well, I think they also charge 5 dollars an hour.

Interesting link...I will pass it along to my brother...he may find something useful to him...thanks.

Great idea.. My hub wanted to start one 3 years ago when I had my comic/card/book store...


Have him check out Costco /or Sams club for bulk candy etc...

i live in southern cal, there is a place in Seal Beach or Long Beach that is $2 or less an hour, there is a place in Fullerton that is the same. Along with a bunch of places I've been. I was in that Xbox Halo tournament thing last year and it was at these places and they all were $2-3 an hour.

I think there might have been a membership $5-10 fee.

If your brother is located in Orange County please icq me 5051691 if you need more info.

No idea where you see $6-7 an hour though, even up north of la I know of 1 or 2 that are $2-3hr.

If you want to findout what places cost here is a great website you can call 5-10 places and get their rates for hour/membership/food/drink.

https://www.igames.org/Events.asp?re...s=1&Event=1085

http://www.igames.org/events.asp?Event=639

Hope that helps.

like everyone else has said, sell a shit load of drinks, chips and lots of candy. basically, lots of junk food.

try selling memberships too. for example, a $25/yr membership saves you 50 cents an hour or gurantees your invitation to VIP parties, etc...

He is located north of San Franciso.

Opening date is scheduled for the 16tn...just need the insurance agent to get his ass in gear and the last piece is in place...doing an advertising blizt now.

i just went today to check out a local place here in NY at the Palisades mall... they have at least 65 pcs and 20 other stations for xbox and ps2. They were charging only $5/hr or $25 for all day pass. We checked it out around 11am and there was at least 30 people in there playing games or surfing the web.

2 of these type of locations have opened up in my area. You need cheap real estate or do a sub-lease deal with a comic book store.

He can make big bux with the 3d glasses they are selling for games. It will add something to the games and makes it interesting for gamers who already have a computer and games to visit him. He could sell the 3d glasses (or whatever they are called) in his store.

http://www.edimensional.com/ (the 3d glasses)

Watch how many ways kids figure out how to steal from him.

The Xboxes will be destroyed within two weeks they aren't meant for commerical usage.

Solid Xbox/PS2 units for retail/commercial usage are available through South Korean distributors but importing them would likely violate the DMCA.

These are LAN-friendly cabinets that look like a regular arcade cabinet but accept memory cards and have standard console controllers.

Hopefully he can also invest in some network montioring/internet cafe style software that lets retail establishments monitor and control many aspects of cafe gaming.

Contact me if you want to know more.

What is the location of the establishment like?

Urban, suburban, industrial adjoining businesses?

Does your community have any grandfathered pool hall bylaws?

If they do, you'll likely have to post signage about no kids under 18 during hours of 8am - 3pm.

At my last job I had to open, promote, and monitor a LAN gaming center.

Opening was easiest... just set up the machines and get everything running

Promoting it required lots of work, I called up local radio stations (92.3, 107.5, 98.5 etc) and worked out deals where they would come down with their little van and have a radio personality do on-location promotion.

Did the flyers, on all the doors in the neighborhoods in the area (we built in a mini-mall in a mid-high income area) as well as cross promotion with places that have high teen/college business, like music stores.

Got the website going, message boards for trash talking, in-house live cams to see how many people are gaming at any time. SEO'd it, got it listed on local business websites etc.

Charged $2 an hour to play, 30 machines, and closed at 12 midnight, unless gamers were still there, in which case we'd stay open until they left.

Make sure you get someone responsible that you trust to monitor the gameroom... and the computers.

I left the company about a year ago because the boss was a friggin overbearing bastard. But when I left they were doing great business, and now from what I hear from my buddy who still works there, they are opening up another location.

nah, this place aint new... they have been around at least 2 years.... great location, in a fucking HUGE mall.

<--Plays Diablo 2 LOD/Classic
<--Quake 3 Arena
<--CS half-life


What about Racecar games?

The problem I would see is the fights.. People fight over shit...I know I have gotten in a few over Diablo 2


People were all local they talked shit I came a knocking

theking,

Have your brother contact me by email if he wants to expand into trading cards. I can tell him where the biggest distributor for Northern Cali is..