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Massive Multiplayer Gaming Warehouses On The Way 307
hephaist0s writes "A company called Holo-Dek Gaming has opened a gaming center in New Hampshire where $5/hour buys gamers a 73-inch high definition projection screen and a networked Alienware PC or or Xbox. More impressive, though, are the prototypes for their 180-degree gaming theater... and their game sphere. Yes, sphere. This is just a pilot program--the Baltimore facility planned for 2005 would have 300 networked gaming stations. Story and pictures here, company website here."
But could you... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:But could you... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:But could you... (Score:3, Funny)
5$/hour isn't going to be enough to clean the puke out of these.
Re:But could you... (Score:2, Insightful)
the return of the arcade? (Score:5, Insightful)
Arcades are dead? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Arcades are dead? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:the return of the arcade? (Score:5, Interesting)
In other countries they focused on the adult crowd, for some reason America missed the boat on that...
Re:the return of the arcade? (Score:5, Insightful)
maybe... (Score:3, Interesting)
Also, I wouldn't count on pussy in your face/lap at a titty bar. Last time I checked around here, the places that were all nude weren't allowed to serve alcohol. To put it in geeky terminology, the law is "all nude XOR alcohol". Yeah, I don't get any either.
Re:maybe... (Score:2)
A statistic I'll cheerfully believe.
Re:maybe... (Score:2)
The girls probably hate the 10% guys since they don't make as much money.
Ahh, grasshopper (Score:4, Informative)
If you get in, then you can get whatever booze, smack, or blow you want to go along with your choice of "interactive partner". Natrually, nothing in the interactive room is free; the $500 is the weed-out money to keep the riff-raff from even asking.
Re:the return of the arcade? (Score:3, Funny)
Arcades are still VERY big in other countries besides the US. In London there are tons of 4 and 5 story arcades, each with a bar at either the bottom or middle.
In the USA we have these, they are called "sports bars." They tend to have "video games," "billiards tables," and "dart boards." Not to mention tons of alcohol and women with tig ol' bitties. Sometimes, with enough alcohol, those breasts cease to be attached to a face that can curdle milk... hence the birth of the one night stand.
4 storey games arcades in London? where? (Score:2)
Re:the return of the arcade? (Score:2)
Screw off, Gameworks (Score:2)
Re:the return of the arcade? (Score:2)
No, they died because they began to charge 75 cents to a full dollar just to play a single game. No kid can afford that!
-Grym
Re:the return of the arcade? (Score:2)
odd (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:odd (Score:3, Insightful)
Takin
Re:odd (Score:2)
Wow (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Wow (Score:2)
Cool how much to buy a porno sphere for home use? And how do I write it off as a business expense?
Easy. Just charge my wife an hourly rate, you get your tax break and a thousands of dollars per year at $5 per hour.
Re:Wow (Score:2)
Followed by...
Open source users do it in public.
Err...I really don't think it would be a good idea. Not for you, but for the sake of your neighbours
easy (Score:2)
The end of "cyberstores" (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, hell- if you can get an Alienware all LANned up (don't even get me started on the crazy screens) for only $5/hour, these little LAN businesses will surely die.
Not that I don't support these warehouses, where I will surely blow hundreds of dollars.
- dshaw
Re:The end of "cyberstores" (Score:2)
just like Lemmiwinks [mac.com].
$3? (Score:2)
Re:The end of "cyberstores" (Score:2)
The problem with the computer cafes and business LAN party places I have been to is none of them allowed beer. What the hell. If I am going to spend a few hours losing at computer games, I better come out of there drunk.
If they could only... (Score:2)
I'm not impressed... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I'm not impressed... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:I'm not impressed... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:I'm not impressed... (Score:2)
Man, I must be really tired...
Re:I'm not impressed... (Score:2)
-Colin [colingregorypalmer.net]
Too much (Score:4, Interesting)
I have a feeling that the type of person who would do this aready owns an alienware and a hdtv...
Re:Too much (Score:3, Funny)
Ahh, the evil...
Re:Too much (Score:4, Funny)
Oddly, the exact opposite is true when I'm playing defense in a UT2004 Assault map.
Okama Gamesphere (Score:2, Funny)
Been done.
And don't forget to use a towel.
-S
Uh the bulbs.. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Uh the bulbs.. (Score:2)
Where do I sign up to open one of these?
$5 (Score:5, Funny)
Someone needs to build one of those here... (Score:4, Funny)
...NOW.
bring the mop (Score:2, Funny)
Sexy Dyslexia (Score:5, Funny)
$5/hour just seemed wrong for that.
Re:Sexy Dyslexia (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Sexy Dyslexia (Score:4, Funny)
Mirrordot Link (Score:2, Informative)
I don't see this picking up (Score:5, Insightful)
Now I can see how these warehouses with their alienware pcs and nice screens (most of them are "only" 73 inches) would appeal to the same crowd that plays FPS and Strategy games and goes to LAN parties but that crowd is very very small compared to the overall gamer's market. Heck, the whole PC game market represents less than 20% so you can imagine the actual percentage of people who are fond of those games.
The idea just doesn't seem to have enough appeal to snowball into the next big trend. I know it doesn't appeal to me. For the cost of a handful of gaming sessions, I can buy a new $200 graphic card and play the same games on a respectable 20" monitor (ok, so I already own that) for as long as I want, in the comfort of my home.
This is not to say his isn't a valid business plan. The center can be profitable if the location is good and the marketing is done right. But that's only in the short term. Once the newness evaporates and those alienware rigs aren't so hot anymore (replacing 300 alienware rigs will cost you a cool $100,000) , I predict a steady decline into oblivion.
Re:I don't see this picking up (Score:3)
20% of what?
Re:I don't see this picking up (Score:4, Informative)
Video games sales in 2003 exceeded $7 billion, according to the Entertainment Software Association-double the amount sold in 1996. There were 239 million games sold, $5.8 billion in console games and $1.2 billion in PC games. 1.2 out of 7 is about 17% (less than 20%). Therefore, The pc game market represents less than 20% of the Overall game market.
Re:I don't see this picking up (Score:2)
Re:I don't see this picking up (Score:2)
Re:I don't see this picking up (Score:2)
Typos (Score:3, Funny)
Not new (Score:2)
Unsure of their financial viability (Score:5, Informative)
300 Stations? I know there is one place in NY (??) that has something like that, and the only reason they are in business is because they
Sure, the coasts are a lot more populated and have a higher per-capita of hardcore gamers who will pay to play, but with only ~20 stations, it will take them a -long- time to break out of the red incurred by the initial investment. We've been open for 14 months now, and we're still paying off our $1200 PCs, and we're the most popular gaming center in town! We charge $3/hr for members, and $4/hr for walk-ins, and we get by with very modest paychecks. We would surely be unable to stay open if our *screens* costed $1k apeice, not to mention the $2k+ alienware boxes they have, even at $5/hr.
It's a great idea, but man. Good luck guys.
Re:Unsure of their financial viability (Score:3, Insightful)
It'll never catch on... (Score:2)
And I'd love to be at the bankruptcy sale! :)
It just doesn't add up (Score:5, Interesting)
$5000 / 73" projection TV (price based on a 70" Wega projection TV on pricegrabber.com)
$1800 / Alienware Aurora PC (middle of the road configuration from their web page)
300 * (5000 + 1800) = $2,040,000. Now even if they managed to get a huge bulk rate discount for those setups it would still be horrendously expensive. Let's be gracious and give them a 50% discount, though. So, about a cool $1M to equip the place. $1,000,000 / $5 per hour = 200,000 hrs. Divide that by 300 and you get approximately 667 hrs / machine to pay off the hardware. Figuring there's about 180 business hrs in a month (5hr per weekday and 10hrs per weekend for 30 days) means that every single one of those stations has to run continuously for about 15 weeks to pay off the hardware.
Now factor in broadband for 300 stations, rent, insurance, wages, benefits, advertising, security, etc... those things can easily rack up another $1m annually. So now all 300 machines need to run continually for 30 weeks, or 7.5 months, to cover the cost of the business.
Now the never ending sink-hole that is new game acquisitions. $50/title * 300 means it will cost them close to $15,000.00 for every game they have installed. Lets say the publishers give them a break of $35 / box. that's still $10,5000 / title. What's an average loadout for a LAN box? Four titles? Five? Let's say five. That's $52,500 for the software Figure new titles come out quarterly, but not new ones. Maybe 10 new titles a year? So, $105,000. In machine hours that's another 70 per machine, or another two business weeks. That brings the / machine total to roughly 32 weeks.
8 months of 35 hr weeks, for every machine in the place is a huge huge number.
100% utilization of that facility for 2/3rds of the year is extremely agressive.
So what, right? If they manage it then they have the cost of the hardware covered and the rest is pure sweet profit. Nope. After a year a ton of revolving costs will come in to play:
* Those projectors don't last forever. The bulbs aren't exactly cheap, either.
* Some of that hardware is going to break beyond repair and have to be replaced entirely.
* People expect a LAN center to offer them the current bleeding edge hardware...something better than what they have at home. Machines will have to be upgraded/replaced at a very fast clip.
None of this even takes in to account the R&D and manufacturing costs for those spheres.
Re:It just doesn't add up (Score:2, Informative)
$30k a month for just steam/counter-strike,the world's most popular game, will add up quickly, especially when they make you pay in three-month increments.
randal
Re:It just doesn't add up (Score:2)
Re:It just doesn't add up (Score:2)
He failed to realize going in that the true expenses of providing a game accross several PCs in a commercial environment was more than just retail cost times the number of boxes he had, which limited his game selection sharply.
I'm really not sure how places like yours can make a great deal of money, but from your pa
Re:It just doesn't add up (Score:2)
Re:It just doesn't add up (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you'll find that it is easily possible, also they have some of the most lucrative deals in the marketplace, $1200 U.S. buys a hell of a system (even retail) Alienware's increadible markup's won't really apply to a company that isn't stupid enough to pay them, an arrangement will be reached. Also top of the line hardware can run for about 4-5 years before needing updates, basically the stuff just needs to run CS:S and Blizzard games.
Re:It just doesn't add up (Score:2)
Anyway, just wanted to say that your numbers don't make sense; your analysis is flawed and useless. You're just throwing numbers up in the air.
Re:It just doesn't add up (Score:2)
It adds up more than you think.. (Score:3, Interesting)
A place like this is going to run 24h or 18h/day, not 8h/day. Unless my sleeping habits do not extrapolate, that is - I suspect there are a lot of
$5000 / 73" projection TV (Score:2)
It may not be te best projection screen in the world, but it should be just about ok.
Re:It just doesn't add up (Score:2)
Paying off the hardware in a year probably isn't even on their radar. All they care about is getting enough revenue to cover their recurring rent, business loan, and payroll expenses. Plus, a business like this would work with lawyers and accountants who would be all over the IRS laws to negate tax liability, etc. The risk for them, now, is can they attract an adequate volume of customers. This risk is true of all startup businesses.
Re:It just doesn't add up (Score:5, Insightful)
Arcade games are expensive. According to Froogle [google.com], they seem to cost between $5,000 and $20,000, each.
Let's pick a nice middle-of-the-road number, and figure $8,000 each for a machine which takes up a lot of floor space, is a maintenance nightmare, and only plays one modern game.
Meanwhile, your retail prices for an Alienware box and the unlikely Sony projector cost a total of $6,800. Add $300 for six (or so) retail-priced software packages, for $7,100 total hardware cost.
This $7,100 gaming machine can play six different titles, has an enormous screen, can play any existing software title for an extra ~$50, and is easily maintained by minimum-wage flunkies. It is conveniently also $900 cheaper than an arcade machine that does none of these things.
The recurring business expenses are probably very similar. Insurance is similar. Wages, per machine, will be similar. They'll be using cheap warehouse space, while arcades typically consume expensive mall realestate - almost certainly saving money, per machine. Advertising is the same. So on, so forth.
It's the same bag - it's just sold at $5 hourly increments, instead of 25-cent game continues.
As for the software expense, it's just absolutely fucking cheap. $10-20k every few months for 300 brand-new huge-screened arcade games to draw in customers with? Sign me up.
The sheep that are Ebay will be more than happy to consume the year-old Alienware boxes for way more than they're worth, making upgrades and fresh hardware relatively inexpensive.
It's hard work, for sure. It's risky and probably slim-margin - arcades seem to be a very failure-prone industry. Nobody said it was easy to run a successful gaming business.
But it's not impossible. This has all been done before.
Re:It just doesn't add up (Score:2)
Also, I'm sure that Alienware, EA Games, Corsair, etc would be happy to give away a lot of that stuff as long as they have huge banners hanging around and are included in the advertising plans. That cuts costs significantly.
Re:It just doesn't add up (Score:2, Informative)
You have to realize that when a person is paying $3/hr to play a game at a cafe, what they
Re:It just doesn't add up (Score:3, Informative)
Risk/Reward? (Score:2)
New Hampshire (Score:2)
Re:New Hampshire (Score:3, Informative)
New Hampshire is actually more urban than most people think. Hell, the southeat sector of the state is more-or-less all Boston suburbs. Nashua is home to plenty of high-tech companies, including military contractors and hard-drive manufacturers. The site's slashdotted so I can't see where the place is located, but if it's in Nashua or the Seacoast area, then they'll be in a good position to attract Massachusettes gamers, especally with the I-4
Re:New Hampshire (Score:2)
Re:New Hampshire (Score:2)
Hampton is right on the ocean. During the summer months the roads at Hampton beach are bumper to bumper for no less than 12 hours a day.
There are two large arcades at Hampton beach which are still going strong.
Probably 80% of the frequenters of Hampton beach are 18-28 year olds, which I am sure is who holo-deck is targeting.
Now, that being said, here some factors as to why these guys won't last there
Re:New Hampshire (Score:2)
stupid costs to set this up (Score:2)
Homebuilt = Cheaper
As a part time investor just seeing that they're buying Alienware machines for the name only and seeing the total waste and high costs of playtime (Compare this to 1 dollar an hour in korea) I dont think it would profit.
Lets not to mention all the babysitting you will be forced to do with 300 potential customers of which a majority might be 13-17 year olds who are a exposive bunch whent hey get mad becuase they got beat.
I doubt they make it.
Re:stupid costs to set this up (Score:2)
If they want to make their money off of day-to-day walk-in customers and club memberships, they won't last more than a year.
Then it hit me... if they're smart, and can attract gaming events that can get media interest and corporate sponsorships a la the NFL Superbowl, then I think they've got a decent shot at profitability. But only if they can make TV coverage of these events in
Perspective (Score:2)
As a UMBC student.... (Score:2)
Old news... (Score:2, Informative)
Great place to go after work, enjoy a few Bawls [bawls.com], and kill your co-workers (legally).
Movie: Toys (Score:2)
Where the evil general takes over the toy company, and wants to turn kids into killing machines that remotely control weaponry?
Feasibility? (Score:2)
It went under a few months later. Why? Because not only was it not generating enough revenue (but keep in mind this was in the burbs), but also because these days, people are more likely to have similar setups at home.
Need to think Bigger (Score:2)
This might work if they try to do something like F1 Boston [f1boston.com], where it's a gaming center, bar + conference center.
those chairs in the article are $800 (Score:2)
They are really comfortable chairs, I have one at work. If you add the cost of PC + projector + land + other expenses, I have a hard time believing a place like this could be profitable in their first year or two. By then, the novelty of it would wear off I think.
Projector + game machine (Score:2)
Red Dwarf (Score:2)
better than life?
Of course not, you loser. its only Half-life.
The half life 'sickness' is caused by a 60hz refresh lock, I always say, I run my monitor at 100hz, then I check, 75, no wonder eye strains, I upped it back to 100. damn.
Realism might one day cause sickness, but for now frequency does it... too realistic models look less real because we view them under more scrutiny (to simplify).
Why I would be there. (Score:2)
I'd much rather just have a console at home for when I want to play something quick, and be able to go somewhere like this to play MMORPGs or other PC games. I wouldn't have to worry about building a machine every couple years and then completely not using it, or even spending the time to figure out what the good games are -- I cou
As a game center owner, I doubt this will work. (Score:3, Interesting)
These are also low profit businesses, so buying big expensive items will only hurt things more.
The Sphere (Score:2)
Re:How much you want to bet (Score:2)
I could see this being a fun activity for the ACM at school here - head down to Baltimore, and blow $20 a head on a huge-ass LAN party. I mean, LAN partying is fun, but not for longer than four hours, I should think.
-Erwos
Re:How much you want to bet (Score:2, Informative)
Re:I'm sorry (Score:3, Insightful)
Enormous stores already exist where people go to piddle away tens of hours playing games. I have a good friend who spent ~2 years in south korea -- supposedly these LAN stores get regular all night attendees. Have you ever been to Best Buy? Circuit city? Enormous televisions are all that you can find.
How about the internet? Have you ever been with someone who for the first time used it, and clicked on EV
Re:Can This Catch On In The U.S.? (Score:2)
But perhaps that is just wishful thinking, anyway the LAN place is not a comeback of the arcade, the experience is very diffrent.
It's an older crowd and the privacy of using a computer carries a pretty strange feeling, though when big games get going it get's lous and fun.
Re:DUDE!!!! (Score:2, Funny)