How to Continue - Gaming Lounge

[Sharpevil]

Hah. This showed up in a google search.

Anyway, I know a few good tips that are gaming lounge specific.

It was mentioned earlier that you should target middle school kids. This is the opposite of what you should do. Teenagers are transient and usually have no steady income. Your best customers will be out of college and have a steady job. There are plenty of early twenty-something gamer nerds who will appreciate a place where they can hang out a few nights a week. It's important to become friends with these people for two reasons. One: They'll see the friendship as a reason to come to your store, and Two: They're generally pretty awesome people.

In addition, events are always a good idea. Let people rent out the place for a gamer party. Don't just give them the place, though. Give them a party. (Just don't overspend on it. Do things like play loud music that might be annoying to your normal guests.) If there are any cake places in town, see if you can't work out a deal to have them make gamer themed cakes for your parties. Also: Lock ins seem to be a big draw. Pay a flat fee to stay in until dawn.

Computers will draw in the world of warcraft players, as well. More likely than not, you've got a few small guilds near you. However, I'm not sure how long it would take for these guys to spend enough to make up for 6+ gaming rig computers. Assuming you only spend $1000 on each, that would be 1200 hours to pay just for the computers.

But I'm rambling at this point. This is all likely very basic and obvious. You must have known all this anyway. This is mostly to help anyone else looking at the thread.

[rpermana]

when i was in school with no income and only pocket money, I will always go with a group of friends to cyber cafe after school to challenge Counter Strike

and most players are around the same age as me..

not sure though, that's singapore

[mckin]

i actually had pretty much the same idea a couple weeks ago with a friend of mine,

as you move forward it would be great to hear of your progress, ik my my area and within at least 20mins in all directions, there isnt single internet cafe.

my idea not only incorperates gaming, but general internet usage as my area is a huge tourist spot, and we have our states basketball championships here, which means people wanting to email/video/pics to family/friends that couldnt make it, etc, as well as horse track nearby which could bring in a lot of people for general use checking for updates/etc


im working on the financing currently, but dont have a solid name yet, if you have any left over ideas let me know

[knifely]

great to hear more of your ideas. I've been moving along quite well, i had my dad, who's a banker and handles large businesses loan for a living, look over my business plan and he gave me a lot of great advice and tips on what he usually looks for in a BP.

a lot of this advice is for the gaming center portion of the business, but right now im concentrating a lot more on the social student lounge part, because this is where i need to focus more marketing and have more competitors. The gaming center will sell itself by word of mouth as there are less competitors.

[KaininConway]

Few ideas: Hold gamer tournaments for prizes. Definitely work out some deals wih the local restaurant's. Gamers love to eat while they play. Hold pool, Texas Hold Em and ping pong sessions.

Til Next Time ~ Kainin Conway