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Hello fellow City-Data'ers. I'm working on a few ideas for a Gaming Center/ Internet Cafe type social spot in the greater Tampa market. Obviously location is key for any niche business, but I'm curious as to what the general interest would be in something like this? Research, so far, has told me places like this haven't been very successful in the past. Having been to quite a few in the area over the years, other Lan Centers being unsuccessful didn't really surprise me. Locations were, for the most part, bad and most refused to market their business the way they should have, among other things; but any insight or feedback would be very helpful and much appreciated. Thanks.
Just recently some articles have been in the Newspaper regarding 'Sweepstake Cafe's'. I would take a look at some of them before putting too much time/effort as I think there is going to be some strong legislation from the State on what can and can not be done in these places. Just my two cents
Thanks for the feedback. 'Sweepstakes Cafe' isn't exactly the type of business I was referring to. This is more along the lines of a social hub for gamers (tweenies, young adults, etc.). Lan parties, gaming tournaments, that sort of thing. No gambling involved. But an interesting read for sure. Good information.
I would definitely be changing the name of your business concept, or you are going to find yourself overrun by senior citizens looking for a way to blow their government checks a quarter at a time.
Thanks for the feedback. 'Sweepstakes Cafe' isn't exactly the type of business I was referring to. This is more along the lines of a social hub for gamers (tweenies, young adults, etc.). Lan parties, gaming tournaments, that sort of thing. No gambling involved. But an interesting read for sure. Good information.
I don't think that would work here. i am very familiar with the concept, there is a lot of them in South America, Asia very useful when you are travelling and dont want to pay the $20 a day hotel internet fee, but the premise is that people can;t afford their own hardware and internet speed, for that to work it would have to be in a poor area, the lack of public transportation here would prevent those people from going to your LAN. You would have to market it as a place to hang out for kids, then you are really talking about i dont know a frozen yogurt shop with computers on the side, I guess the computers won't carry your store but rather they need to be a service-added sort of thing, big gamers here in the US have their own rigs and I dont think the social aspect of it is enough to get them to leave their home for your store. I dont see that working here having said that I have seen some in town and country, and west tampa and they market to immigrants who need to make a cheap VOIP call or video chat with their home country, but even that with phone cards letting talk 100 min for $2 I hardly see the margin there. I just dont see the concentration of people that would yield the required foot traffic for that business model to work.
RE: Interest in a gaming/lan center in Tampa, St. Pete/ Clearwater area?
Sorry, I know this post is a year old, but I just happened upon it after wondering after a decade, if anyone goes to lan parties anymore. From what I remember of my days going to friends lan parties, now we are talking about 10 years since I've been to one, let alone when they were more popular, but from what I remember about them, they were successful for a few main reasons. First and most critical, massively customized gaming mods. Remember those? Where you get on the game server, and the custom modifications like rapid fire and awesome maps could be downloaded from the server ultra fast because you were on the same lan. On that subject by the way, the game was a lot more fair for everyone because everyone had a lan speed connection to the server in the same room. A second big reason, was because we could play different games, even ones we didn't have yet, there was always some guy with a game dvd with a cool freeware game that he would share to everyone. Or the server would have those freeware/open source games that we could install from it, and join in with others playing in the room. Third reason, the social factor. I place this at third most critical because if you really wanted to, you could always buy a headset and talk on the server. But, its hard to replicate the real nuanced laugh or swearing of someone across the room without the fake laugh while they press the talk button on their mic. Also, nothing beats gathering around the two last guys in a game with a few beers and watching the drama unfold. There's a fourth major reason for lan parties, and it's related to the social part. Guys (and rarely a girl) that will go to these places, were the same type of people that like to tinker, almost like the makerbot crowd. They like to trade ideas, show off their pc tower etc.
Ok, so here is my advice. To make this type of business successful in 2014 and for the foreseeable future, I would do this, in no particular order of importance:
1. Market to mostly men, but don't exclude women, as most of the type of people that will be your return customers, will not want to go if the place is full of girls, they are probably nerds, and girls make them nervous. A girl here or there will show up, most likely if a guy brings his girlfriend who is a gamer.
2. Promote the idea that the customer can bring their own pc and jack in, or use a house pc. And right along with that, encourage customers to bring their inventions, tricked out pc's, gadgets and gizmos, even if the guy likes flying drones, have them bring this cool stuff, it's fun to show off, and unlike the magic the gathering gamers, pc gamers tend to change in their tastes, and while pc games might be an addiction for them, pc gamers tend not be be only gamers. I know guys who are hardcore gamers, who are firemen, photographers, carpenters, electricians, ex military, coffee baristas, etc. Which is probably why they are so less likely to naturally seek out these lan parties. I mean, back in the day, parties were more common because of the level of technology at the time. You had to be technical, in the early days, you needed to use bbses and set protocols, only the mega nerd would enjoy it, then, 10 years later, it was fun to tool around with lan servers, routers, gateways, racks, switches, rj-45 and etc. So the nerds would do this too, but it was the social, less nerdy nerd. Now, pc gamers are still mostly men, but it can be any man who gets into the game and is a bit addicted to the fun. All you need these days, it a connection to the internet, which is super easy and totally plug and play.
3. If you don't want to hook the nerd in, market to the new gamer, that one that just plays the game, because you don't have to be technical to set it up, and they are totally into the fun. Those guys are not super nerdy for the most part. They might drink beer, they might even be kind of cool and have multifaceted social lives at home. They might have non-technical careers. These guys will want to have access to big screen tvs with cool shows or movies running, maybe a war movie, maybe the news. These guys still are not magic the gathering gamers. They are active and have forward momentum in their lives. They don't always have a history of sitting around and lounging for hours and don't relate to it all of the time. They might need something educational and useful, something on a higher level of social interactiveness like 4k mud runs, hotdog and hamburger cookouts, and although probably not possible for you to organize, international vacation travel with local history tours. Is this way outside of the original lan party theme? Yes. But these guys are easily bored, even bored by relaxing too much.
In conclusion, my take on this whole thing is that, lan party locations have all but disappeared because they only existed to begin with because they were a product of the technology. The technology has improved, never to go back, and so lan parties, in the form they were, are never to be seen again. The guys that patronized these places, still exist, but in another form now. That guy that went to the router, rack and gateway lan parties, toting his cold cathode lit tower and 50 feet of lan cable, doesn't have anything so technical anymore. Right? No, that same guy now can go two way, one, he can do the same thing he did before, but with a perfectly pre-made, totally dummy proof $500 laptop with killer wireless built in that never has to be configured, so he evolves into a different creature, or he goes the other way, and finds the next new technology that has not been figured out yet, that is still in it's own wild west frontier, that has to be configured and the industry is still figuring out. Like, robotics, or drones or something. Never again to return, to something that has evolved, that has completely grown up.
My friend, I feel you, in writing this, so many precious memories return to me. Of an innocent time, an exciting time in the evolution in pc technology. But I must now admit, even I have changed. I have turned into the guy that doesn't consider computers as a part of who I am, but rather, something I need as a tool. I've bought the $500 laptop, it's easy to use, maybe too easy for a guy with my history, but it gets the job done, and I never have to let that nerd side of me come out. Does it come out sometimes? Oh yeah, of course, after all, I was one for a reason. We have a propensity for the nerdiness in things. But we aren't robotics guys, we aren't beaker guys, we aren't magic the gathering gamers, we were just in that moment. And I think I knew it all along. I was mixed in with the super nerds, they brought their pcs, but they also brought their new program they made from scratch, they brought their own circuit boards. When I would go to computer shows, similar to flea markets, but only for computers, I was excited to look at things that would get the job done, I wanted the cool video card to play a cooler looking game, the first photo quality printer for consumers that I could use to make my own magazine, and I didn't really want to spend my hard earned money on a whole, build your own laser guided night vision robot dog from scratch kit.
I think this is one of the reasons it took me so long to find my calling, career wise. We all have something that speaks to us. That fits who we are, like a key in a lock. But, all a key does is turns a lock. We have to look outside of our desires to find who we really are, deep down. Only by finding which puzzle our puzzle piece fits into, will we truly be happy. After all, all a key does, is turn a lock. A puzzle fully completed will reveal a story.
Surprised I missed this thread previously. My brother and I game a lot but honestly it's either at our homes since we have customized computers we wouldn't want to haul anywhere, or on xbox and I'm not sure I'd go out of my way to play in the presence of others vs comfortable couch. What made lan parties great back in the day was the fact that internet connectivity from homes typically stunk, and prior to widespread adoption of tcp/ip, you needed a local network for many games to operate in multiplayer mode. I used to go to a lot of lan parties then, or we'd just take over a computer lab at USF. I don't think I've been to a lan party more recently than when Quake came out and Time Warner Cable (at the time) put up their own Quake server for cable customers to use.
What I would go to now though is a video game bar. Check out Insert Coins in Las Vegas; it's in downtown but it's an awesome video game bar with tons of old arcade games scattered around the place, the main bar has tv's along the top like you'd find at a sports bar, but instead they're for gaming. One side is xbox, the other is play station. You get a controller and pick the game you want. Or, like at a night club, which it is as well, they have vip tables only these tables let you rent the console of your choice, all the way back to old school Coleco Vision, and pick whatever games you want. It's a great concept and seems to be packed most of the times I've been in Vegas.
Hello fellow City-Data'ers. I'm working on a few ideas for a Gaming Center/ Internet Cafe type social spot in the greater Tampa market. Obviously location is key for any niche business, but I'm curious as to what the general interest would be in something like this? Research, so far, has told me places like this haven't been very successful in the past. Having been to quite a few in the area over the years, other Lan Centers being unsuccessful didn't really surprise me. Locations were, for the most part, bad and most refused to market their business the way they should have, among other things; but any insight or feedback would be very helpful and much appreciated. Thanks.
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RE: Interest in a gaming/lan center in Tampa, St. Pete/ Clearwater area?
