Can a Gaming Cafe be Successful?

droidlev asks: "For years I've been toying around with the idea of opening up a medium sized gaming cafe in the Chicago suburbs. I have already taken care of the issue on how to make money during the day, when our younger market is in school, However, the question of whether or not a place like this can be successful, still remains. I've seen plenty of undermanned and poorly planned places in the area (and on the East Coast) like this go under in six months. What is your opinion? What ideas and thoughts do you have that could help a place, like the one I'm proposing, succeed? Do you have gaming cafes in your area that are successful? What unique techniques have they implemented?"

Yes we have one.

[TheZorch (925979)]

Springfield Mall in Fairfax County (not far from the Franconia/Springfield Metro Station), Virginia has a cyber cafe which also offers gaming on PCs and game consoles and its doing really well. They also have WiFi for people who bring in their own laptops. I'd say go for it!

Re:Yes we have one.

[kindlekoma (994806)]

There's also one here in sunny Portland, OR. It's called backspace ( www.backspace.bz ). They have just celebrated their 3 year anniversary of gamingness. I think the trick that Backspace has pulled is that it's in a very swanky area of downtown Portland, and they've fused a cyber cafe with a full-fledged art gallery, and chill out area. They've got a lot to offer in the way of neo-entertainment. Modern art, coffee, free wi-fi, comfy chairs, chess and other board games, pool, and a slew of PC games with either an internet or LAN option for play. It should also be mentioned that their location in downtown provides them with a maximum amount of both, business traffic in the daytime, and lots of people in the evening that are within walking distance that want to get out of their tiny apartments. I don't know how you'd convince a bunch of suburbanites to leave their tract housing developments to play games. But, I think a key is to offer diversity and appeal to professionals looking for a convienient and chic place to have meetings, as well as gamers looking to come out of their caves. Good luck!

Re:Yes we have one.

[Cromac (610264)]

In other words it sounds like they aren't trying to cater to the teenage/kid market, they want middle/upper middle class adults as their clients. That probably reduces a lot of the problems other gaming cafes deal with and lets them charge more for similar services, and offer other more expensive services. Kind of a modern replacment for the old local bar people used to go to after work.

Re:Yes we have one.

[Orangejesus (898961)]

you have to understand that most people don't go to gaming cafes for the games perse, they go for the social interaction, they go to play with their friends and be able to yell at them, they go to hang out with people with similar intrests. I have a better PC than the local place I go to game at and so do most of my friends, but it's easier to spend a few bucks and just go to the gaming place down the street than drag a bunch of computers around and fool with networking them and making sure everyone has the same version of what we want to play and working cd keys and ect. the gaming place I go to is open 24/7 and after 5 hours is free, (5 an hour) So it's pretty common for us to just go and set up shop and do an overnight there playing till the wee hours of the morning. When I was on break from college one summer about 6 of us litterally lived up there for almost a week straight sleeping on the couches and ordering pizza. I mean we probably didn't smell very good by the end of the week but it still ranks as one of the most fun times i've ever had. The key to a good gaming place is to make it somewhere that people just want to go to hang out and escape and not be bugged. I don't know how long this place will last but it's been open for over 5 years now and it's just a small 10 computer place in a small town. the key is that the owner is a cool guy, he lets people play sometimes if they are a little short or he'll let them owe him and ect. people like him people like the others who play there, people keep coming back and the place stays full all the time.

Re:Yes we have one.

[DarkMantle (784415)]

There's a place in town here (Cambridge Ontario Canada) That does fairly well (open for a year now) They use memberships for people that want to play regularly to make most of their rent. They also have food/drink there (pop and chips kind of stuff) and gamer and geek T-Shirts as well (similar to Think Geek [thinkgeek.com]). The WiFi is cool, secure it though so you can control who's on it better. There's another one in London Ontario that has a "Internet Cafe" in the front, so people can check email and surf the web. Then the back room is the gamer room. Combine the front Internet cafe style with a bit of a real cafe (watch out for the licensing if you're selling food/drink you make there) with a few tables at it so people can grab a coffee and do a quick email check on their own laptop/PDA while there would be a neat idea as well. Best advice is to look at the area and ask what is needed. Maybe hang out near the local EB Games for a day or two and ask people as they're leaving/entering if they'd fill out a 5 question survey about it. You may be able to avoid the mistakes the other places made.

Research?

[Jrabbit05 (943335)]

I know that the Dining and Gaming combined nicely and has several locations. I've done some light research on this topic and what you'll need is a way to be able to get rid of most of the stuff if it doesn't work out. Leasing equipment untill your making enough profit to satisfy your tastes. http://www.daveandbusters.com/ [daveandbusters.com]

wwtdd

[antiphoton (821735)]

I live in Brisbane, Australia, and gaming cafe's are quite popular in the major cities. I know of at least four around inner city brisbane that have been open for years and are quite successful. From my observations their main revenue intake is based around these key concepts: 1. Location 2. Word of mouth Location is imperical, and you need to strike deals/lan nights to get word of mouth generation. Setting up shop near a school (preferably private school) can sometimes make this type of business a success, as i've seen in Brisbane. If you start all nighters and events it will generate a decent amount of friends telling other friends and so on to bring in business and customers. Anyway, these are just a few suggestions i'm guessing you already know about, hope it helps. PS: If you have the room, get a pool table!

What kind of games?

[Enoxice (993945)]

You didn't specify what kind of games your cafe would feature. I assume you mean computer games (WoW, CS:S, et al). There is a place in my area that does very well in that market, but only because of variety.

I'd recommend offering something aside from computer games. Set up some tables for Magic: The Gathering, D&D, Battletech, Warhammer, etc so you aren't only catering to the "I don't have broadband" market. This way you'll become a social gathering place for geeks. You may even consider starting a card/miniature trading deal in your shop where you buy things from your customers and sell them back.

That's my advice. But, then again, I have NO business sense.

Re:What kind of games?

[by Anonymous Coward]

I coulden't figure out what they were untill i actually went in there

I think you should already know why this place failed.

But to the poster of the article... the first thing you do when you go into ANY business is to draw up a plan. Figure out what services you want to offer. Try to find out if anybody in the area really needs or wants those services, and how much they are willing to pay for them. If there is already competition in the area, figure out if there is an innovative way you can offer a better value: either in slightly better service/product for the same price, or similar quality for a slightly lower price. Figure out how many customers it's going to take to pay back all of your investments, then try to figure out if it's reasonable that that many customers will come through.

Next is a lot of behind the scenes work. Get a lawyer. GET A LAWYER. There are going to be a lot of codes, regulations and liscensing to wade through, and it's difficult to know what to expect. Get an accountant... you will need someone to verify everything to make sure that 1)you are doing it legally and that 2) your employees aren't stealing from you. Now go back to that business plan... make sure that everything is spelled out nice and neat. Some things may not be right, and unforseen opportunities and obstacles will pop up, but having the plan gives you something to deviate from. Without it everything will be chaos. Then have your lawyer and accountant go over the business plan. Are you going in with other people? Friends? Family? Acquaintances? Investors? Partners? Employees? Make sure it is spelled out exactly what is expected of them, and exactly how they will benefit from helping you. Make sure the penalties for either party not living up to their side of the bargain are clearly deliniated beforehand. Otherwise the plan will fall apart, and any existing relationship will become severely strained.

After all this is layed out, take steps to acquiring the storefront, equipment, funding, etc. For the big stuff, make any purchases/loans contigent on everything working out to at least the point where you can open the doors. Get everything in writing, including contigencies such as liscenses going through, funding coming through, etc. Determine occupancy limits and how you are going to enforce them. Make sure the physical premises can be secured, as well as any hardware/software used.

And remember, it is extremely difficult to start a business of any reasonable size alone and keep both a full-time day job and your sanity. Running a business of the size it sounds like you are going for will probably be more than full time, at least in the beginning. Once everything is smoothed out and a lot of the initial investments are paid off, you can think about farming some of the work off to a manager, but right off the bat you want the owner there for most of the time the cafe is open, and there is a lot of work that will have to be done when the cafe is not open.

When setting up all the finances, don't forget to budget money for yourself to live. It's okay to give yourself a salary out of loaned money to the company, as long as you are honestly working on the project. There is going to be a LOT of work that has to be done before the doors open, and you will be burned out before that time if you need a full time job to live.

Value added.

[F34nor (321515)]

The key to anything is adding value to a commodity. PCs are a crappy commodity even with mods.

Why should I use your facility rather than a crappy one. Are you going to have hot chicks offering massage? How about a place to smoke while you play? Good DJs beat matching to the action? Red velvet? What?

Take it from me nothing is worse than just another fucking cubicle.

Re:Value added.

[darkmeridian (119044)]

The guys running the computer place in my neighborhood has it figured out: hot high school girls. Apparently, they get paid 15 an hour, which is decent, but obviously draw in the entire geek crowd (especially from their high school). They sell computers, too.

No, here's why

[Monkelectric (546685)]

Anyone who can afford your services is too busy making money to actually go to your shop. Your only chance is to appeal to people who have lots of money and lots of time. IE: Near a very expensive university.

depends on how you do it

[grapeape (137008)]

I had entertained that idea myself for a while but after going to ones outside my immediate area but within driving distance one thing I observed was that while they all mostly started out great with good staff, top of the line machines, local advertising, a pleasant atmosphere and a good selection of games, within a year or so most are pits with low staffing, unkept facilities, outdated machines and poor selection of games. I dont know if their budgets run out, or if they just found that the majority didnt care about the latest and greatest so it wasnt worth the investment. One theory is that those that are hardcore games already have systems as good or better at home

I did find a few things I would do differently, for one I would like to see a bank of printers, scanners, etc so that during certain hours (maybe school hours and few after that, the machines could actually be used for study, business etc. I also thought of adding a gamestop type game exchange with maybe a points program for time rented and maybe tournaments and contests (monthly high score, etc). Another idea would be to have certain nights that are 18+ and special events on a monthly basis. For rental time I wanted to use a keycard system like gemstar to keep track of time and charges. I had also thought about working out an advertising/sales deal with a local vendor to help with equipment costs.

I wrote an entire business plan but then got a job offer I couldnt pass up and just kind of threw it aside for now. I belive "cyber cafe's" are viable here but they need more of a hook than just "PC's for rent".

in the 80's they were called arcades

[mark_lybarger (199098)]

and the more successfull ones were built around other businesses as an additional attraction. a local pizza/sub shope would have a game room where i could throw away a roll of quarters from the paper route income. the laundry houses also had a few video game machines. i don't recall standalone game rooms (the malls had 'um but i never frequented these places) that were successfull.

today, places are starting to incorporate wifi access as part of their extended business plan. most panera bread stores have free wifi access. so, i go to panera bread for coffee. i hear the starbucks has wifi, but you have to be part of some expensive plan to use them. i've never gone that route.

so, to answer your quetsions, no, there are no gaming houses that are successfull around here, and more creative business establishments would use something like that as an attraction to compliment their other business.

They Can Work

[KagatoLNX (141673)]

Well, I run one [geekerz.us] along with two other guys. The place will eventually make money but its not exactly a cash cow here (although it may get better after some of our competition goes under).

A lot of people chimed in mentioning that computers and net access are cheap. Well, that's true. I would also mention that, at a hypothetical $5.00 / hour (we're cheaper due to being in small town USA), it takes quite a while to catch up with a computer, games, maintenance, and internet access.

For people who either just browse the net or people who play games maybe five or six hours per week, it's much less trouble and cost effective to go to a place like this. I dare say that most people fall into that more casual group--especially when you consider they also divide their time with home consoles. We also have a nightly and weekly open-pass rate that keeps the place hopping when we would otherwise be slow.

There are other mitigating factors too. Maybe they don't trust their roommates. Maybe they're traveling. Maybe they really just want to avoid their parents. Maybe they skateboard in the area and just want to buy a drink someplace cool. All of these people fill in the gaps that are left by hardcore gamers just buying their own computer.

Some advice, don't go it alone. We have three people that own / work the place (only open after 5pm) and we couldn't really do it with less (and bona fide employees are expensive). Also, plan to replace your computers. If you don't you'll run out of money just when the business is taking off. Also, don't forget the three most important things to a business: location, location, and location. Finally, keep in mind that some games aren't licensed for cafe usage without special arrangements. Most notable is Valve Software (for which we have a cafe license). Also, don't pirate Windows. It's just stupid (and *will* get you shut down when the competition kindly turns you in).

Re:Good comment, and a few additions.

[binarytoaster (174681)]

A suggestion to keep the system at default settings would be Deep Freeze. If someone manages to fuck up the system a reboot will take care of it quickly.

You think?

[by Anonymous Coward]

I know you're envisioning a non-stop LAN party like you have with your friends, but (at least in the USA) it's probably not going to go down like that.

You're probably going to need to cater to teens. Teens are less likely to have their own computers, or their usage is restricted by their parents. They're also a lot more social-- they want to get out of the house and they have time to kill. Conversely adults are more likely to be able to afford their own gaming rigs, and (more importantly) they tend to want to be left alone-- they'd rather play in the comfort of home than hanging around a gaming cafe-- especially if it's filled with packs of teenagers (kind of a catch 22...)

The downside, of course, is that you'll be spending a lot of time playing babysitter. You'll be constantly monitoring for theft and vandalism, telling them not to smoke in front, maybe even breaking up a fight or two. You're going to get a lot of attitude. Did I mention the theft and vandalism? Things are going to go missing and you're going to have no idea how they pulled it off. Things are going to be broken for no reason at all. Ever seen an arcade machine in pristine condition? For that matter, ever seen an arcade bathroom? That's what yours will look like every night too...

Laundry

[dredknight (994814)]

I know a guy that has a successul gaming business. He offers a laundry feature. So people can clean their clothes while they purchase \ play games. This is a great idea considering alot of gamers need to clean their clothes anyways. btw I'm an evil genius.

Read about this guy's experience

[Supercrunch (797557)]

A good article from Slate about a guy and his failed coffeeshop business. [slate.com] Not quite the same, I realize, but still very insightful.

Uh, no, they generally can't.

[fthiess (669981)]

I started and ran my own cybercafe/game center for 3 years, so I have some experience with this subject. It was GREAT fun! Financially it always made enough money to get all the bills paid, with a little (really little) left over as salary for me. That doesn't mean it was profitable, though: unless you like charity, you need to be looking at whether a business will be profitable in an economic sense, not just an accounting sense, and that means you need to take into account not just what a reasonable salary for yourself is, but little things like depreciation of your assets (so you can afford upgrades), your cost of capital (even if it's your own money), and a reasonable return on investment (compared to what you would earn on the money if you didn't put it into a game center). After having looked at my experience in the business every way I could think of, I'm firmly of the belief that there is just no way to make money on this type of business unless you have a very special set of circumstances. Consequently, I closed my place down a couple of months ago.

I like to think of the real problem game centers have in terms of system dynamics: a game center draws customers from within a limited geographic radius (about 10 miles, or maybe 15 km, in my case). Within that radius there are a limited number of people who will be interested in what you offer. In the early days business grows exponentially, but NOT because of any kind of growth in the number of potential customers--it's just that more and more of your fixed number of potential customers are finding out about you. At some point you reach saturation, and that where the system dynamics comes into play: you are in a fight between the number of potential customers in your area that are leaving (graduated, moved away, bought their own computer, ran out of money, lost interest, etc.) versus the number of new potential customers that are being created (moved in, got old enough mom would let them play, etc.). Basically, there are many more paths for customers to leave then there are for them to arrive in your pool of "potentials", so it's a loosing proposition.

Yes, there are things you can do to change the coefficients of some of the terms in the basic equation: you can try to bring in more adults, you can add more games more frequently, do more advertising, etc. What I've seen, though--and I've validated the basic model with several other (former) game center owners--is that if you do everything right business is good for about a year and a half, then it peaks and falls off to much lower level. Revenues can remain stable after that point, but at a level that is WAY below the peak--and that generally means you don't have the profits you need to upgrade machines, buy new games, etc. When you stop being able to upgrade and add new games, you enter the final part of the curve when business falls off further from the already-low plateau it was at, and then you're dead (in terms of the business).

Tweak the situation a little bit and the timing of when you hit the inflection points on the curve will shift forward or backward some, but the basic shape of the curve doesn't change--that's why I say that this really isn't a viable business.

Oh, those "special circumstances" I mentioned, that would make it viable? They DO exist, but are rare: for example, you don't pay for most or even any of your games (a popular strategy in developing countries, and unfortunately used much more frequently than you might think even in the developed world!); you're setting up business in a community where there's nothing else for kids to do; you find other uses for the floorspace and computers that you can make money on when people aren't playing games (computer classes, for example). Even if these or similar factors apply in your case, though, they usually only make the difference between surviving and not--I've never seen a case where they are enough to actually get things to the point where the business is financially attractive to be in.

Yes, all of the

Cyber Cafes are successful.

[kahrytan (913147)]

In Hampton Roads Virginia [wikipedia.org] (Southeast Virginia), there is a cyber cafe that has been in business for years. I'm not sure how long but at least 5-10 years. I would imagine the most expensive part of Cyber Cafe startup is the Tier line and being able to pay for it on monthly basis.

Check out Website CyberCafe [webcitycybercafe.com]. They have webcams and photos of the place to see how they got it setup. Webcams are live so you can also see how busy it is with a 1.6 million population.

I ran one

[Onetrack (765809)]

The best thing you can do is get affiliated with Igames.org, you get a wealth of information and ideas + support from hundreds of exhisting owners.
I ran my centre, Capture The Frag here in a small town ~80,000 with 2 other pc and 1 xbox center and we did alright, surviving about 15 months.

What ends up killing you is the price of the games, the stupid licensing from companies like valve and the cost of supporting your hardware/upgrading and making sure the machines are maintained.

Get a license for Deep Freeze, it'll be your best friend.

We made a good deal of $ but it mostly went to advertising and paying for the property lease plus games, remember you're not buying 1, you're buying however many games for however many comps you have.

In the end, after about 15 months, i got sick of working 100 hours a week for no pay, its SO much more than just hooking some comps into a hub and going.

They can't get it at home

[Harmonious Botch (921977)]

Disclaimer: I've never been in a gaming cafe. But I've run a small business for 20 years, so the following advice is mostly about the business side of it.

1) Your job is NOT running your cafe. Your job is improving it. Owning a small business is a red queen affair: you have to be constantly improving just to stay even with the competition. Do every job in your cafe just long enough to know how to do it well. ( This will be anything from doing taxes to fixing hubs to cleaning the toilet. ) Then DELEGATE.

2) Your territory does not end at the door. OK, legally maybe it does, but you must treat the area immediately around your business as your territory. Clean up trash, cover grafitti ( immediately ), get rid of panhandlers. If something goes wrong immediately outside your business, it is not your fault, but it is your responsibility.
Get to know your neighbors. They can be helpful, or they can hurt you. ( This is especially important in your case, for many of them may initially view your clientele as troublemakers )
Join your local business association. Get to know your local cops.

3) You may have drug dealers and hookers of both sexes trying to use your place as a base of operations. Get rid of them. Not only do they give the cops a reason to cause you problems, but they will be competing for your customers' money.

4) Decide exactly what your business is. Yes, it sounds silly, but many owners don't really know what line of work they are in. In your case, you are not just in the business of offering games. As several posters have noted, most people can get that at home. You have to offer them an experience that they can't get at home.
A) Coffee and food will help. It does not have to be great food + coffee, but decent and reliably so. ( which many people don't have at home because they are too busy playing games. )
B) Have at least one hot babe working for you. ( Most gamers don't have one of those at home ) It helps if she is not an idiot, too.
C) Create a social scene ( most gamers don't have that at home, either ) This means catering to women. Keep them happy, and they will hang around, and then the guys will hang around too. Find out what kind of games women prefer. Have plenty of them. Keep the bathrooms clean.
D) Have a clear statement of expected behavior ( no smoking, no fighting, no booze, etc - whatever rules you think will do best ) Be very, very clear about what standards you expect of your customers, and then stick to them. Be prepared to explain why those particular rules are important to you. A large number of gamers play games because they find the rest of the world to be confusing, irrational, and hypocritical. Very few of them have a social environment that makes sense at home. E) Keep asking yourself 'What can I do for my customers that they can't get at home?"

Re:In Schaumburg

[Darby (84953)]

solution to the stealing the mouse balls - get a laser mouse instead

Yeah, but then people would just steal the frickin lasers, strap them to shark's heads and then we'd be in real trouble.

Re:Bargain shopping

[drsquare (530038)]

Do not price anything higher than it could typically be found in a vending machine or convience store. You won't sell very much AND your customers (particularly kids) will dispise you.

Every bar, restaurant, cinema and stadium in the world disagrees with you. People will pay for convenience.

Basically, you want to have rigid rules to combat cheating/stealing, but in those rules, allow some flexibility so that your customers trust you and don't feel like you only care about them for their money.

99% of your business will depend on the price and how good the service is. A WoW addict doesn't care about trust or how much money the owner is making, they just want to play the game.