Arcade in Dublin

chopperbyrne

raycaulwell wrote: »

think it would have to be more open than just fighting games tbh!

rules for any arcade worth their salt

1)no scumbags allowed.

2)sign up with management refuse the right of admission where they see fit.

3)no slots or poker machines.

4)just a suggestion here but what about 9 ballpool tables? the shortage of them here is ridiculous could be very profitable for you! 12 - 15 euro an hour!:eek: just a serious way to help you stay afloat! but ill defo give you my business as im sick of quirkeys magical scumbag emporium lol:p

If he wants to be profitable these should be the first thing he looks into.

Kinetic^

I don't think another arcade in Dublin is viable tbh. If it's this line of business you're thinking of, would you not set up something similar to XGC (with air conditioning ) with a rake of fight sticks, consoles and PCs (loaded with MAME or w/e).

At least with the consoles/PCs you can bring in a complete different type of market whether it be internet browsing or people who want to play COD/Halo/Fallout, which is what you'll need to keep things a float. You can still work on the fighting community but you'll open yourself up to a wider audience the pidgeon hole yourself into a market (fighting games) where most people have a console/PC at home.

You could even get some old arcade cabinets and customise them and load them with a PC filled to the brim with all your favourite games....although I'm not sure what the legal rights are for doing that.

Reanimemmett

I'm sure that idea is not very plausible because of copyright issues.

DARK-KNIGHT

chopperbyrne wrote: »

If he wants to be profitable these should be the first thing he looks into.

chopper tbh i stay away from kips that have those machines as they attract muppets and scummers generally, no offense if anyone here plays them! seriously though if those machines have to go in then in my opinion forget the idea otherwise your heart will be broken kicking out muppets that will treat your place like a den in afternoons and evenings!

i play snooker in a place that got those machines in and believe me it was a huge mistake as the standard of clientel has plummeted since they went in!

obviously the machines are profitable but things can get nasty too if someone throws a couple of hundred euro in and get nowt in return!

Placebo

theres no gap in the market, there is no market for this.
why would ppl go here instead of XPC?

defo not worth it, from an angle. It would be amazing but you wont make profit for a few years tbh.

Owwmykneecap

This idea has been discussed on the neo empire boards countless times and the consensus is always:
If you don't have mix of arcade and lan style pc setups, you will fail.
If you don't have the stuff to attract tourists/passers by, eg DDR, racing games, probably pool tables, you will fail.
If you don't have Gambling machines which actually generate money, you will fail.

However Gambling brings in the scum and puts off people from the other two angles.

An arcade would struggle, a fighting game arcade would die, but a general entertainment emporium might work.

The real key is location. city centre, big passing trade etc.
But whet ever you did the fighting games would have to be only a section of whats on offer. probably in the corner..

K.O.Kiki

Guys, read this post & stop saying this will fail:
*The Once and Future Arcade*

Like I said: if you WORK for your business, your business will WORK for you!

Owwmykneecap

lol Religulous faith is all well and good but, you still need to eat, the sick need medicine and daddy needs shoes.

Orim

I agree that this would be a hell of a lot of hard work but I think it would be possible to make an arcade viable with enough work and money.

As an example there is Fubar Ducks arcade, Arcade UFO, in Austin. This seems to be running well, regular competition nights, new games and they sponsered a team to SBO.
This is in a city where arcades had died. The reason he opened the arcade was due to the fact that there was no arcades left in Austin.
There is only games in this arcade - no slots or other gambling machines. Having said that it's not just fighters.
IIRC the arcade is not in an ideal location (ala the main street).
Finally the city population of Austin is only slightly larger then Dublins and the metropoliton population is pretty much the same.

Link to the site : http://www.arcadeufo.com/index.php

Now this does not mean that it will work but it is an example of how it can work.

EDIT : I just relized that your poll is terrible. Why would you assume that everyone is going to visit an arcade at all. You have to accept that it is not viable for some people to visit at all.

Shotopunx

If you're into fighting games why wouldn't you go?

L31mr0d

Shotopunx wrote: »

If you're into fighting games why wouldn't you go?

Would probably be the commute for me. If it's in the city centre I'd probably head in every 2 weeks or so and spend ~€10 there. That being said, if it was packed with scangers I wouldn't really bother.

The arcades where I used to live where in walking distance, where usually 20p a game (3 for 50p) so I could easily get in a good few games on my weekly allowance. If an Arcade opened up within walking distance to me that had SFIV machines I'd probably be there for at least an hour most evenings of the week.

Orim

People might not go because they live away from dublin and travelling to visit an arcade is not viable.

Kinetic^

HMUYA wrote: »

EDIT : I just relized that your poll is terrible. Why would you assume that everyone is going to visit an arcade at all. You have to accept that it is not viable for some people to visit at all.

I've added a few options to the poll to cover everyone.

bush

Id go for tournaments and that would be about it but I dont live in Dublin.

Reanimemmett

HMUYA wrote: »

I agree that this would be a hell of a lot of hard work but I think it would be possible to make an arcade viable with enough work and money.

As an example there is Fubar Ducks arcade, Arcade UFO, in Austin. This seems to be running well, regular competition nights, new games and they sponsered a team to SBO.
This is in a city where arcades had died. The reason he opened the arcade was due to the fact that there was no arcades left in Austin.
There is only games in this arcade - no slots or other gambling machines. Having said that it's not just fighters.
IIRC the arcade is not in an ideal location (ala the main street).
Finally the city population of Austin is only slightly larger then Dublins and the metropoliton population is pretty much the same.

Link to the site : http://www.arcadeufo.com/index.php

Now this does not mean that it will work but it is an example of how it can work.

EDIT : I just relized that your poll is terrible. Why would you assume that everyone is going to visit an arcade at all. You have to accept that it is not viable for some people to visit at all.

I don't need to know who isn't going to go.

Orim

Reanimemmett wrote: »

I don't need to know who isn't going to go.

The more information you have the better you can plan things.

If you see a lot of people saying that they wouldn't go then you can find out why and maybe you can work out ways to make them come. For example if there is people who aren't coming because of travel maybe you could work an arrangment to give free credits to anyone that travels from outside of dublin.

Reanimemmett

Kinetic^ wrote: »

I've added a few options to the poll to cover everyone.

Sorry, just noticed that it was you that changed the poll. I obviously don't need to know how many people are not going to go. I need to know how many people will go. The other options make sense, but I put my options up with the purpose of first finding out how many people would consider going regularly.

For the people constantly going on about needing slots, novelty games and such, quit it. The main reason for not having these would be to discourage unsavoury chracters and encourage others to to come, as I know some people won't go play T6 in Quirky's cause of the people who hang out there.

Again, anybody going on about this being discussed before and people saying it's not viable, no one has ever tried to do it and failed or succeeded, and I doubt anyone has ever put that much research into it.

This was made with the sole reason of seeing how many people on here would go regularly. There are other ways of making money other than the machines, as Kikki posted earlier. This is still an idea and will continue to be until it's ruled out, by me.

Reanimemmett

HMUYA wrote: »

The more information you have the better you can plan things.

If you see a lot of people saying that they wouldn't go then you can find out why and maybe you can work out ways to make them come. For example if there is people who aren't coming because of travel maybe you could work an arrangment to give free credits to anyone that travels from outside of dublin.

I see what you're saying but I explained my reasons for the poll options in my previous post. I want to try find how many people would consider going regularly first as they would be there consistently enough to be putting in money and then see what other people would be there irregularly as they would be a sort of supplementary income.

EDIT: I'm going to be posting about this on some of the college game society boards to see if there's other people interested. There's definitely more people who play who just don't know about boards.

Kinetic^

You do need to know who isn't going to go. You need to know what % of your key demograph your potential business appeals to and how often they'll use it. Then you need to work on what will bring people outside of that demograph in to spend their hard earned dollar bills.

I'd advise you to create a thread in the Entrepreneurial & Business Management forum to get some help from people who have set up their own companies/shops. They'll give you an insight in to stuff like set up costs, fixed/variable overheads, legal/taxation requirements and various other stuff that you not have thought of. I can give you some advice on the taxation/financial requirements but those guys will have more insight in to day to day business running.

Dreddybajs

Yeah, seeing as this forum is basically the only place to gather information of your prospective consumer base it seems like finding out what percentage of people here would be interested is pretty important.

Reanimemmett

Kinetic^ wrote: »

You do need to know who isn't going to go. You need to know what % of your key demograph your potential business appeals to and how often they'll use it. Then you need to work on what will bring people outside of that demograph in to spend their hard earned dollar bills.

I'd advise you to create a thread in the Entrepreneurial & Business Management forum to get some help from people who have set up their own companies/shops. They'll give you an insight in to stuff like set up costs, fixed/variable overheads, legal/taxation requirements and various other stuff that you not have thought of. I can give you some advice on the taxation/financial requirements but those guys will have more insight in to day to day business running.

All my family have their own businesses and I've helped enough with them and they know all about set up costs and tax/legal stuff, so I think I'll be fine. Thanks though.

chopperbyrne

If you don't want to listen to anyone, go and open your arcade and lose all your money.

Can't even try and be helpful anymore :rolleyes:

Placebo

but as people mentioned arcades are expensive, specially SF4 cabs, shipping etc. Do you have money or will you be getting a loan [gonna be tough]?

if you open up a small cafe with food with good atmosphere, you will develop regulars [gradually]

Reanimemmett

chopperbyrne wrote: »

If you don't want to listen to anyone, go and open your arcade and lose all your money.

Can't even try and be helpful anymore :rolleyes:

I have no problem listening to people, if you read back through the thread most of it is people saying it's not going to work, without out anything to back up what they are saying other than speculation. Now, I'm not as much of an idiot to think that it will work and everything's going to be just perfect but I'm not as pessimistic as most of the people here to just write it off.

Reanimemmett

Placebo wrote: »

but as people mentioned arcades are expensive, specially SF4 cabs, shipping etc. Do you have money or will you be getting a loan [gonna be tough]?

if you open up a small cafe with food with good atmosphere, you will develop regulars [gradually]

I know they are expensive, but the cost won't be a worry, won't be a loan. Plus the the games that aren't SFIV, BlazBlue and T6 are way cheaper. And there would be drinks, snacks, couches and whatever for people to just hang out to try create a good atmosphere and possibly get some casual players in.

Dreddybajs

Reanimemmett wrote: »

I have no problem listening to people, if you read back through the thread most of it is people saying it's not going to work, without out anything to back up what they are saying other than speculation.

I don't think the imminent death of the arcade industry is speculation man, and that's what most of us are thinking about here. I'm sure we'd all love to see a place like this open but it just seems like a really bad idea to me.

Placebo

You need all of these. There only like 20 people on this forum, so you cant just aim for fighting games

-XPC type gaming center
-Arcades machines
-Chill out couches
-Snacks/Drinks
-Member pass's/rates
-Competitions
-Good location/south side city center preferably

meducation

i'd go and play for fun probably once a week it would depend on what kinda scene was developing there..
also people seem to be gettin quite heated on this thread,dont worry about it
this will never happen.
twud be nice though

D4RK ONION

I'd travel from Clare on a regular basis, if there was rhythm games as well, namely drummania... That'd be awesome!

Relikk

If the arcade had 3rd Strike, I'd visit a few times a week. But something would have to be worked out with regards to an entry fee of some sort or some kind of membership, as you couldn't keep pumping coins into machines all day. You'd be broke within a week. Well, I would, anyway.