polk5
join:2001-12-29
New Orleans, LA
| Off Topic:Internet Gameing
A couple weeks ago I did a shot to a new coffee house. Im in the process of installing 2 internet access kiosk there and wireless of course. The owner asked me if I would mind going a 1/4 mile away to check out his competition in the area. They have a big sign outside that says "Internet Cafe". Well, I expected to go in and see 3 or 4 PC's set up with maybe a wireless hotspot. Was I suprised. This place had over 30 PC's set up. They had a kid sitting at 25 of them at least. The guy told me they have the same games on all of them. How can someone afford to buy this many copys of games? Maybe they are using Ghost or something? Anyways, I was really impressed with the setup. They had headphones for each PC. I guess its like one big Lan party. I think they were getting like $2.00 per hour for each PC. I am not a gamer so this was something I have never come across. Heard alot about Lan partys but never been to one until now.LOL Are places like this all over these days? |
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viperm
Carpe Diem
Premium
join:2002-07-09
Winchester, CA
| They have / had a couple out this way but due to mismanagment or expenses and not enough people showing up plus a few people got shot due to gang violence the shut them down.
How long have they been around. You may have hit it on a GOOD day remember you have to have as many of thos seats filled most the time. If its a local lan and not net access okay maybe cheaper if they were all on going to the net what kind of pipe you think they would need? couple of T-1's at say min $500 each? also he may have leased the PC's what were they Dells? bet you they were about say $60 each one $1800 total so you can see the numbers which I am only guessing at. now say he had all 30 filled at 2 per hour all day (8 hours) that would only come out to $480 per day multiply that by 30 days $14k. Once again you HAVE to fill those seats.. |
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VariableARK
join:2003-03-17
USA
| reply to polk5
a couple of my friend are big gamers. they used to frequent this lan place that had about 50 or 60 comps setup, i think it was $3/hour, but they ALWAYS had at least 75% filled, every time i went in. and i mean every time, i went up there a couple of times to see what was happening at 3 or 4am, and it was still packed, mostly kids, even on schoolnights/workdays.
by my calculations they were making damn good money, but this was in a relatively populous area. |
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pooker314
join:2005-04-12
Brush Prairie, WA | As for cost of the games, some games will allow unlimited copies with duplicate CD keys on a closed LAN. However, if you try to join internet games, you have to input the CD key (which means a separate license for each machine). |
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VariableARK
join:2003-03-17
USA | reply to polk5
if you buy staight from the publisher, games are 50% too |
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IntraLink
Premium,MVM
join:2002-08-14
Utah Valley | reply to polk5
We have lots of cubicle space that would be cool to start a lan party type scheme.
Anyone have any experience with this? Or know of any good links on the pitfalls of Lan Parties? |
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VariableARK
join:2003-03-17
USA | reply to polk5
do you mean profit-making lan parties?
i have been known to host a number of just friendly get togethers amongst friends, they are fun. but once you start talking profit, it is a different story altogether. |
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