Re: [TCLUG:22931] lan-gaming center opening downtown

[^chewie <chewie@wookimus.net>]

On Thu, Oct 19, 2000 at 10:59:48PM -0500, Ben Kochie wrote:
> I wonder what ever happened to the original lan-party place
> downtown.. back in 98 there was one.. wasn't doing very well.. hard
> to keep up with cost of new boxes.

To really make money doing this, you've got to have a marketing genius
who takes building demand for the service his/her first and only
priority.  To be successful, they'll need to appeal to the competitive
spirit and drive of some players.  $5/hr is actually a very reasonable
cost.  Consider that it costs $7.50/race (10 laps == 5-10 minutes)
at the Nascar Silicon Motor Speedway in the Mall, it's a very good
deal for the amount of entertainment you get out of it.

Still, gaming for an hour is not enough.  They need to integrate
competition into every level, where the leagues they're proposing has
a first place prize that pays for most of your game time, or at least
part of it.

Another way to offset costs is to tie the business in to actual retail
hardware sales and software sales, making the LAN a secondary income.
With retailer and resale license, they can obtain hardware at a much
reduced cost.

Older boxes can be sold off or given off as prizes, or converted into
servers, perhaps donated to schools.  Imagine having a charity
tournament where the participants play FOR the boxes they're on to be
given to their respective non-profit organizations.

There's a lot of directions they can go with this.  It's just a matter
of whether or not they can execute them effectively.

-- 
  Chad "^chewie, gunnarr" Walstrom <chewie@wookimus.net>
              http://www.wookimus.net/

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