LAN Centers

[harriettheguy]

Wired Warfare/Area 51
Cutting Edge
Gamer's Asylum
Fortress Gaming
Nexus

and now,
Gigabits

I'm not a business major nor have a I had much managerial work experience, but I was thinking about problems venues have in earning revenue.

What were the problems which forced the above venues to close?
**I talked to someone at the gigs counter in August, they told me one of their largest problems was advertising...there were no reliable channels besides word of mouth to attract kids.
**A narrow audience: Their market audience is predominantly males (Condition 1)aged from like 10 to 50, with 95% of them aged 14-25 (Condition 2). On top of that, those males must be into gaming enough to pay money to play at a venue. Some reasons people would pay to play on the high end computers Gigs has invested in are that they want to meet people, or they don't have the utilites at home to offer the same experience.
(condition 3).
**LOCATION...?

What are surviving venues doing right to attract more people? Or are they just dying slower?
I don't know. Do you?

So in the end, is the LAN Center idea extinct? What is VSA's approach?

As long as there are tournaments with turnouts, I will travel.

"If you host, they will come."
-Noucles

 

[Toneh]

there was 2 other lan centers in orlando b4 gigs that closed down also, cyber max and cyber knights or somethin.

Location, advertising, being too expensive per hour mainly & so many ppl got gaming comps now a days.
If you wanna bring in ppl its gota be super cheap or offer good deals on day passes.

alota reasons though

 

[Pritch]

Wired Warfare/Area 51
Cutting Edge
Gamer's Asylum
Fortress Gaming
Nexus

and now,
Gigabits

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT!!!!!!?!????!?!?!!!?!?

Man, that just made me really unhappy. Gigs was the ****. Really sorry to hear they're going under.

You know, if you're looking into this stuff there's a successful lan center over here in new orleans called Dibbz. You might try to contact them to see what they're doing right. Contact info's on their website, which is pretty easy to find.

 

[nevershootme]

the problem with advertising is creativity and costs (people to try to make them and try to spread the word.... it's a general issue overall, especially clubs at schools when they try to garner to the massive 30k+ (ucf case is 50k) students and out of it 5% would show up eventually... there's gotta be more to why gigs got shut down.

also, you gotta take into account property management and city regulations. gigs may have gotten shut down cuz of it, weather if it's health, gambling, w/e.

that's how i see why lan centers die off like that... in addition to modern day owners can just get a pc or console rig and play at home...

 

[Masky]

..........

 

[PB&J]

nexxus decide to close down not because of money.. but i can see gigabits..if i open a lan center..which i do want too..mine will never close

 

[exarch]

Well the basic reason is the current state of the economy, and the difference between luxury and inferior goods.

When the economy is bad, people stop spending money on luxury goods (like lan center time.)

So if you do start a LAN center PBJ, make sure to have a backup plan for a recession; your market will disappear.
(That's my guess as to more or less what happened to gigs.)

 

[DFEAR]

if someone opens a lan center in sawgrass. theyre set.

 

[CRASHiC]

I don't see why people don't combine Lan centers and Arcades into one, other than cost and licensing cost as well.
Two different branches of the same audience.

 

[nevershootme]

this is america. not japan... nexus was a hybrid lan center / arcade.... and people keep failing to understand laws in general, especially state specific

 

[smashplayer16]

I know I remember Gamers Asylum advertising commercials on TV. I thought I read that they got sued.

 

[Scidadle]

Theres a place in Tampa called the D-Pad, and though it's not really much of a Lan Center (10 Comps and when people are on it 95% of the time it's WoW) they have TONS of 360s 1 classic Xbox 1 gamecube 4 wiis 1 n64 1snes 1 nes 1 sega genesis.

They have these things every other saturday called lock-ins and what it is is an overnight stay with unlimited video games for 30$. (They have all the big games for 360 and then some) They serve french bread pizza, snacks, monsters and in the same plaza is a chick fil a. They also offer monthly memberships I can't remember the prices but they have one thats for weekdays only thats cheaper and another thats for any day of the week, during the weeks they have this deal called a 4 hour block and it's 10 dollars for 4 hours of gaming. The 360s have xbox live, it's a really cool spot with a **** load of TVs. Bunch of info can be found here http://thed-pad.com/blackoutdates.html.

But yeah, I'm pretty sure they do OK in terms of money, they've been up for a while so... The owner is also a really cool guy but he asks for a lot in terms of hosting tournaments : /

Pictures of the store can be seen on the little slide show on their myspace http://www.myspace.com/mydpad

They treat their regular customers realllly well and all the employees are super friendly.

 

[harriettheguy]

The owner is also a really cool guy but he asks for a lot in terms of hosting tournaments : /

So what are his conditions on hosting??? No MLG Ruleset? Door fee? Pot ****?

That venue looks really good. Surprised we haven't had one there yet.

 

[Scidadle]

He just asks for a lot.

I'm not too sure but I think he wants Pot **** and a Door Fee

I know they used to hold Halo tournaments but they stopped because they didn't like the Halo players, they were talking smack about how they don't know how to run em.

But smash won't have that problem since it would be player run

 

[Ballistics]

You can't have just a lan center, you gotta have other stuff to sell, and make some stuff for girls to do.

My lan center would have comics, anime, nintendo ****, wifi, and sell coffee and munchies and some food, get a hookah bar in that thing too. You just gotta have a chill atmosphere, and not charge people for entry so you can get regulars.