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Massive Multiplayer Gaming Warehouses On The Way 307

Posted by timothy from the public-telepresence dept.
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."
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Massive Multiplayer Gaming Warehouses On The Way More

Massive Multiplayer Gaming Warehouses On The Way

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  • But could you... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Vombatus ( 777631 )
    possibly see everything on the screen at once? I don't know if my field of view is that wide.

    • Re:But could you... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Sarcastic Assassin ( 788575 ) on Tuesday November 23, 2004 @10:35PM (#10906421) Journal
      If you look at the article, it shows that the "73 inch screens" are nothing more than Alienware computers hooked up to a projector, and with the user sitting about 3 feet from the wall. I don't know what could be inside the "game spheres", but the 180 game screen looks very cool. Plus, realistically, you see a lot of things through your peripheral vision; your actual center field of vision is very small (if I remember correctly, roughly 5-6 cm in diameter). I really like this idea. It reminds me of the story that was on Slashdot a while ago, about having video game tournaments at movie theaters.
    • Some people require the extra view - just outside of your field of vision, ro really get them motion sick.

      5$/hour isn't going to be enough to clean the puke out of these.

  • the return of the arcade? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by fredistheking ( 464407 ) on Tuesday November 23, 2004 @10:25PM (#10906334)
    Didn't arcades die because you could finally play the same games with the same quality at home?
    • I think the makers of DDR machines would disagree with you.

    • Re:the return of the arcade? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Tenareth ( 17013 ) on Tuesday November 23, 2004 @10:51PM (#10906527) Homepage
      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 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)

        by 955301 ( 209856 ) on Tuesday November 23, 2004 @10:55PM (#10906541) Journal
        It's called Dave and Busters over here. Adult adolescent behavior is something the US will never be short of. However there aren't tons of these - seems 30 something American men like to spend their paper dollars at titty bars over coins in an arcade.

      • 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.

      • where? I lived in London for ten years, moved out a couple of years back (but still go back about once a month). Where are these computer gaming arcades? There's the Trocadero in tourist ghetto Piccadilly, and that's half full of of other fleece-the-tourist leisure crap. There's that one big single floor amusement arcade up in Soho, seems mostly fruit machines these days. My count is one possibly zero... other people care to correct me? would be interested to know. Are we talking London as in central touri
      • We have plenty of these places in America... two right near my house are Jillians [jillians.com] and Dave and Buster's [daveandbusters.com].
    • Like somebody else said, only in the US. And I'm pretty sure it's because while everybody else in the world is playing Final Fury XXDeusSE in their arcades, the best we normally manage over here are the titles several generations behind the current. That's assuming your arcade even bothers to update on a regular basis. Heck, if they kept the titles as fresh as they do in say, Singapore (been there, done that), then I suspect sales would be a tad stronger.

    • 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

      • Isn't that the truth? I've NEVER seen the Ms. Pac-Man/Galaga 20th Anniversary machine set under 50 cents, and either of those games were a simple quarter back in the day. Greed, pure and simple.

  • odd (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I wonder what the return would be at $5 an hour for such hardware. Surely they'd go bankrupt.

    • Re:odd (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Squalish ( 542159 )
      At $5/hour, it would be quire profitable over time - new bulbs cost around 10 cents an hour(assuming a 2000 hour metal halide at $200), electricity for the whole deal(a generous 500 watts, say) is 5 cents an hour, etc. The real estate I don't know, I would assume that their 300 seat facility at ole bawltmoor would be in the inner harbor to draw attention(I don't see how they could possibly fill 300 seats in repeat customers in a rural area purely through advertising and word of mouth),which is pricy.

      Takin

  • Wow (Score:5, Funny)

    by pHatidic ( 163975 ) on Tuesday November 23, 2004 @10:27PM (#10906352)
    Cool how much to buy a porno sphere for home use? And how do I write it off as a business expense?

    • 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.

    • Cool how much to buy a porno sphere for home use? And how do I write it off as a business expense?

      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 :-)
    • put four wheels on it and call it a 'hummer'.

  • The end of "cyberstores" (Score:5, Interesting)

    by dshaw858 ( 828072 ) on Tuesday November 23, 2004 @10:28PM (#10906357) Homepage Journal
    I don't know about you, but when I want a LAN party with my friends but don't actually want to have to coordinate and set up a LAN party, I go to "cyberstores", where you pay maybe $3/hour for a pretty decent computer all hooked up and ready to play games.

    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
    • 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....

      just like Lemmiwinks [mac.com].
    • In india its costs 80cents/hour to play multiplayer counterstrike/UT etc., on a 15inch LD screen at Reliance Webworld cybercases. All cybercafes are connected by fibre to each other. So you need not be in the same cafe. Infact they regularly hold all India tournaments where you can participate and win prizes!
  • ...make the sphere 3D

  • I'm not impressed... (Score:5, Funny)

    by z3021017 ( 806883 ) on Tuesday November 23, 2004 @10:29PM (#10906365)
    Until I see a gaming Dyson sphere!

  • Too much (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Capt'n Hector ( 650760 ) on Tuesday November 23, 2004 @10:29PM (#10906368)
    If you've ever looked at a clock while gaming, you'd see that the hands move much faster. 1 hour goes by in a snap. More importantly, it's more expensive than a movie, and movies are designed for the time period, pack more into them, and are generally more interesting.

    I have a feeling that the type of person who would do this aready owns an alienware and a hdtv...

  • Okama Gamesphere (Score:2, Funny)

    by sdo1 ( 213835 )
    and their game sphere. Yes, sphere

    Been done.

    And don't forget to use a towel.

    -S

  • Uh the bulbs.. (Score:4, Informative)

    by telemonster ( 605238 ) on Tuesday November 23, 2004 @10:34PM (#10906398) Homepage
    If the projector bulb lasts 1000 hours, you would need to sell 100 hours alone just to cover the bulb cost.

    • So $4,500 (900 hours x $5 per hour) of each bulb goes to pay for the HD projector ... sounds like a good deal to me. Four or five bulb-lifetimes (blt) per station and you can pay for the warehouse too. One-half blt can pay for the Alienware computer, the other half can pay for the screen.

      Where do I sign up to open one of these?

  • $5 (Score:5, Funny)

    by thedogcow ( 694111 ) on Tuesday November 23, 2004 @10:34PM (#10906409)
    Does the $5 dollar rate include some deodorant or soap kit for the unwashed masses?

  • bring the mop (Score:2, Funny)

    by slumpy ( 304072 )
    Man, Private porn sphere title game: "Cumming from all directions."

  • Sexy Dyslexia (Score:5, Funny)

    by Kohath ( 38547 ) on Tuesday November 23, 2004 @10:44PM (#10906484)
    Did anyone else read that headline as "Massive Multiplayer Gaming Whorehouses On The Way"?

    $5/hour just seemed wrong for that.

  • Mirrordot Link (Score:2, Informative)

    by b0lt ( 729408 )
    here [mirrordot.org]

  • I don't see this picking up (Score:5, Insightful)

    by __aailob1448 ( 541069 ) on Tuesday November 23, 2004 @10:50PM (#10906519) Journal
    Arcades are dead and PC Baangs (it's the korean name for those cybercafes where you can play games onLAN/online) are nowhere near as popular as arcades were back in the day.

    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.

  • Typos (Score:3, Funny)

    by punkrockguy318 ( 808639 ) on Tuesday November 23, 2004 @10:57PM (#10906551) Homepage
    Alienware PC or or Xbox Santa, I want a new slashdot editor and a speelcheck for christmas :D
  • Bah, ISU has had a "sphere" virtual reality room for years, the C6. [iastate.edu] I think they even tried putting a few games on it at one time (e.g. - Quake).

  • Unsure of their financial viability (Score:5, Informative)

    by rkohutek ( 122839 ) <<ten.teertsrebew> <ta> <ladnar>> on Tuesday November 23, 2004 @11:06PM (#10906607) Homepage Journal
    I own a cybercafe in colorado, and I'll tell you from first hand experience that the gaming community, although incredibly loyal and a ton of fun, cannot financially support such a behemoth.

    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 /Don't/ cater to gamers, but instead to the joesixpacks.

    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.
    • From the impression I'm getting from reading the article, their niche is to take gaming and marrying it to the movie theatre model. I'm not sure that this is such a hot idea, given that the movie theatre business has been in trouble for a number of years (ie, static, or declining number of tickets, and massive costs associated with the opening of new mega-multiplexes to stay competitive, that just serve to cannibalize business at existing theatre properties in the local area.) However, the key advantage o
  • Even if an arcade machine is better, home boxes are close enough... but it'll still be a lot of fun to play with.

    And I'd love to be at the bankruptcy sale! :)

  • It just doesn't add up (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Quarters ( 18322 ) on Tuesday November 23, 2004 @11:07PM (#10906619)
    300 stations
    $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.

    • Keep in mind that the Steam CyberCafe setup costs $10 per PC, per month. Blizzards games are $3k per year for up to 20 machines, and linear from there. Almost every publishing house has horrifically expensive licensing fees for cafes.

      $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
      • Actually it's cheaper to get liscenses for a webcafe. Much like it's cheaper to get site liscences of big software, do your homework.
    • Business loans.... This guy isn't going to be paying back all his startup costs in the first year.. I've never taken out business loans before but I would expect he'd have a few years to pay his loans back.

    • Re:It just doesn't add up (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Deliveranc3 ( 629997 ) <<deliverance> <at> <level4.org>> on Tuesday November 23, 2004 @11:38PM (#10906771) Journal
      Um you assume it runs 8 hours a day? You obviously haven't been to a lan place people constantly cut class and sleep to attend. Also there is lots of money to be made through selling drinks games and hardware.

      I think you'll find that it is easily possible, also they have some of the most lucrative deals in the marketplace, $1200 U.S. buys a hell of a system (even retail) Alienware's increadible markup's won't really apply to a company that isn't stupid enough to pay them, an arrangement will be reached. Also top of the line hardware can run for about 4-5 years before needing updates, basically the stuff just needs to run CS:S and Blizzard games.
    • We're talking about XGA projectors, not TVs. Those are availaible for 1400$ on the open market. And the Alienwares may be cheaper, too. As for the software, you're overestimating the cost.

      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.
    • Think food and beverages.
    • First off, there's this thing called deprecation you get to write against your profits. If they're leasing, the picture is even better - most of the wear items are deductions and that drops the effective cost by a large margin. Leasing would be pretty perfect for an arrangment like this, as the machines can be maintained or replaced on a regular planned schedule.

      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
    • Or you can make one for a tenth the price, with a projector a mirror and a screen.
      It may not be te best projection screen in the world, but it should be just about ok.

    • 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)

      by adolf ( 21054 ) <flodadolf@gmail.com> on Wednesday November 24, 2004 @01:37AM (#10907247) Journal
      You've obviously not thought very hard about these problems. These folks are in about the same boat as conventional arcades. Here we go:

      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.

    • As another post said, this place would likely be 24 hours, so it wouldn't need to be at 100% capacity for the hours you used.

      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.
  • Yeah, now that's my idea of a great place for a test market. Baltimore I can see. It's urban. But can you get more rural than New Hampshire? Maybe they can do a test site in Montana somewhere, or Kansas. I'm sure that will encourage investors. . .

    • Re:New Hampshire (Score:3, Informative)

      by InfinityWpi ( 175421 )
      I considered modding this Famebait but decided to reply instead.

      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
      • Well, perhaps it's more urban that most of us realize, but I still think it's probably not the most favorable test market lol. I mean, I could say that northeast Ohio (where I live) is fairly urban, yet I doubt it would be a very good test market for something like this.
    • As someone who lives about 20 minutes south of Hampton, I can honestly say that you don't know the area.

      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
    • as someone who lived 7 miles west of Hampton, I'd have to agree with one of my siblings posts. The place is hopping with tourism and would make a pretty damned good test market. I dunno what you're on, but pretty much the entire east coast is one big suburb.
  • Okay Alienware = Expensive
    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.
    • That's what I thought too, unless of course Alienware is putting up money for this business to put their name in the spotlight.

      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
  • I still think RC Pro-Am is one of the most fun games I've ever played.
  • Id have to say that this will kill. I know that UMBC students alone could probably flood the place, but it will probably fill up to the point reservations are taken. If you don't believe me, look at the ESPN Zone in the Inner Harbor. It's a far worse experience for a much higher price (it's an arcade with atrocious rates). Not that it's the same market, but it shows that people definitely would pay.

  • Old news... (Score:2, Informative)

    by jbwiv ( 266761 )
    My co-workers and I have been going to a place like this for sometime here in Greensboro, NC. Digital Lifestyle Center [digitallif...center.com] has approx. 16-20 Alienware 64-bit gaming monsters and around 10 XBox'en.

    Great place to go after work, enjoy a few Bawls [bawls.com], and kill your co-workers (legally).
  • Wasn't something like this in that mediocre Robin Williams movie, Toys?

    Where the evil general takes over the toy company, and wants to turn kids into killing machines that remotely control weaponry?
  • There was a LAN place near me for a bit, was really cool inside. It had comfy couches, dark lighting, sweet rigs, and just a nice gaming atmosphere.

    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.


  • This might work if they try to do something like F1 Boston [f1boston.com], where it's a gaming center, bar + conference center.
  • Hmm... charging $5/hr for that game station would require them to sell at least 160 hours per station just to pay for the chairs!

    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.
  • I once have seen a game system linked to a 100 inch projector! That was a looong time ago and the game system was actually a NES (256x240, 16 colors) running some awful karate game... *shudder*
  • Oh boy, this sound like all those deaths-by-gaming will go, as we get strapped in, dripped up, and play away!

    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).
  • I'm going to have a very demanding job soon. I have no time to play games usually, so my dual p3-800 machine i put together as state-of-the-art a couple years ago has sat idle.

    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)

    by MongooseCN ( 139203 ) on Wednesday November 24, 2004 @08:21AM (#10908255) Homepage
    I own a game center, TheQwerty.com. Whenever I see a high end game center go up (alien ware computers, VIP rooms, fancy expensive tech..) they usually go out of business in a few months to a year. These people don't realize that this isn't a technology business, it's a *social* business. Most people don't goto game centers because of the technology, they go because they can hang out with friends and play games with like minded people.

    These are also low profit businesses, so buying big expensive items will only hurt things more.
  • Any step towards a 3D holographic X-Men simulation chamber is a good step to me. ;)

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