Some of you may know that I'm planning to open a custom computer /
gaming center shop here in Fairbanks. If you didn't know that... well,
there it is. In keeping with my weird brain ideas about such things,
it's helpful to gauge public opinion. I realize that my "audience" here
(or on FB, twitter,
etc.) isn't huge, and may not reach the majority of folks I'd like it
to reach. So sharing this post with friends or other interested parties
would be greatly appreciated, especially if one lives in the Fairbanks
area, and even if you don't, opinions are always appreciated. That
being said, I'd like to have some of these ideas down on (non-existent)
paper, if for nothing else than to see how they look outside my head.
Gaming Center
This will more than likely be the main revenue stream for the store. Even though the individual receipts may be smaller than a computer sale, the (hopefully) sheer quantity of these purchases is going to bring some fairly substantial profit margins; after all, there's very little overhead associated with this type of transaction. Granted, there will still be a daily and monthly amount, sales-wise, to justify keeping the doors open, but that's a much smaller number than some might think. There's a lot to talk about here, so I'm going to attempt to get into it, in no real order.
First, let's talk operating hours. This will obviously be somewhat dictated by where the location eventually ends up; malls can be fairly strict about their hours, but even with that being the case, I'm sure things can work out with whatever management is involved. All that aside, I'd like to keep it simple: 10AM to 10PM. Early enough so folks needing computer service don't have to wait too long, and late enough so gamers can feel like they've got enough time (say after school or work) to get some decent gaming time in. For those of you concerned about the employees working such long hours every day we're open, rest assured, the plan is to have multiple "official" breaks per shift. For those of you not concerned about the employees, fuck you.
Next topic should be the games themselves. This is a trickier subject, believe it or not, as there's still a few question marks about a few aspects of handling multiple licenses, or adding new ones. Any PC gamer worth their salt knows of and uses Steam regularly, if not primarily. I've been using it for almost a decade, if not longer, and I shudder at the thought of how much time and money I've spent with it. Of course, there is a reason for this, as well as the fact that it's the most popular PC gaming service on the planet. A user-friendly client, huge selection of games, near constant sales and specials, cool features, a thriving community, exclusive content, spotlights on games both big and small, and more. It's a great service, created by a great company, Valve; known for making such huge hits such as the Half-Life series, the Portal series, Team Fortress 2, Left4Dead, and more. The Steam store itself has a vast selection of games, both single-player and multiplayer alike. Thankfully, Valve has a "cyber cafe" program designed specifically for gaming centers and the like, which gives places like this access to most of the Steam catalog, over multiple computers, for a monthly or yearly fee. It's not clear what this fee is, but it also includes: listing by Valve in their official directory (so people can search their database for nearby gaming centers,) exclusive promotions, advertising material, customer service, etc. It's a great service from what I can tell. It'll be important to note that not only will customers be able to access our "store accounts" to access Steam games, but also will be able to log in with their own Steam accounts for syncing save games or installing a game they like that's not available on the store account. (With permission, of course.) Likely big hits from this service would be Counter-Strike, TF2, L4D2, Civilization 5, Call of Duty, and even some Free-to-play MMOs.
However, Steam doesn't cover everything. There are plenty of games, indie and AAA that don't use it for one reason or another. The big one at the moment is Battlefield 3. Huge multiplayer component, widely popular, (though not as much as Call of Duty,) and is sadly tied to EA's vastly inferior (and much maligned and controversial) Origin service. Granted, it's only been around a year, so it does need some room to grow, but it's a bit of an obvious attempt on EA's part to ignore customer's demands and do what they want while getting as much money as they can in the process. This wouldn't be a big deal if EA had offered to put BF3 on Steam as well, but sadly, it as well as other popular games such as Mass Effect 3 are exclusive to Origin, leaving PC gaming customers no other choice (other than consoles) if they want to play these popular games, or any of the upcoming ones such as Crysis 3 or Dead Space 3. To top it all off, Origin has no "cafe" or gaming center program, which means that I'd have to buy a copy for each machine I intend to run it on, which would be a substantial expense. Plus, since Origin accounts and software are tied to single machines, there's no way for achievements or ranks in multiplayer games to carry over from machine to machine, so customers would have to try and stick with a specific computer each time they wanted to play that particular game. Frustrating, to say the least. That said, I'm not against doing that, buying a bunch of copies for the machines in my store. Gamers are savvy enough to know these limitations, and deal with them on a regular basis, so it might go over alright in the long run. We shall see.
Other games such as Diablo 3, Starcraft 2, World of Warcraft, Star Wars the Old Republic, Minecraft, and plenty of others use their own fashion of DRM, mainly based upon user accounts. If you're a previously paid (or currently paying/prepaid) customer, your user account for said game will reflect it, and all you have to do is log in. These clients are fairly easy to obtain, with little to no cost. MMOs in particular use this method a lot, so there will be plenty of support for those, both current and upcoming. It'll be interesting to see which ones become more popular; there seems to be a wild shift in the direction of Free-to-Play games in this particular category, such as DC Universe Online, Star Trek Online, and Lord of the Rings Online. Many F2P shooters and MOBAs such as Super Monday Night Combat, Tribes Ascend, and League of Legends use this particular system as well.
One note I've gotten (that was pretty well in the back of my mind anyway) was how young kids are going to be handled in the store. (More than likely by parents who think they're basically dropping them off at a "playground" while they go do grown-up things, like taxes or cheating on their spouse.) It's a valid point: many of these games are rated "M" for Mature, meaning that they're intended for folks 17 and up. Think of them as an "R" rating for games. We're talking realistic violence, blood, gore, foul language, sexual content, partial nudity, and just plain being mean. I'm all for keeping mature content away from youngsters, but I also think that that decision isn't up to me; it's up to the parents to take the responsibility for what their child's doing, even in terms of the games they play. So, anyone under 16 or so will be asked to bring a parent in to sign a waiver. This will basically explain that their children may be exposed to the various things I mentioned above, and that neither I nor my store are liable or at fault for what these children experience while they're in the store. If they have a problem with any of these, or are unable to sign for whatever reason, it doesn't mean the kids won't be able to play. The account they use to log in to the system to access games will limit them to games rated no higher than "T" for Teen, possibly lower if they're younger than teens, which I doubt would be coming into the store very often at any rate. It may be inconvenient, but it's important. It'll (hopefully) force the parents to take a good look at what their kids are doing, gaming-wise, and make a judgement call based on how well they know their children. I'm also hoping that it'll open up a line of dialogue between parent and child about what kind of games and other media they consume.
On to the machines themselves. I'm of the opinion that customers aren't paying for an experience they can have at home or on a cheap/outdated computer. They're paying for a better experience than that. So, without going too much into technical specifics, here's a general rundown of the "standard" tier of machines I'm going to build for customer use: Intel quad-core i5 processors, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 graphics cards, at least 8 GB of RAM, a hybrid SSD/HDD drive, high definition monitors, gaming grade mice/keyboards, comfortable headsets, and cushy chairs. (That last one is more important than one might think.) This is all subject to to change, of course; no telling what kinds of new things will come out (or how pricing will change) in the time between now and when the time comes to actually order and build these things. I haven't settled on a case as of yet; I'll probably keep them fairly smallish, nothing too fancy, though I do want things such as fan controllers, side windows, (so I can put at least one light strip in there to show off) and decent wire/cable management.
That's the standard tier of machines, which will consist of 16 out of the 20 machines that customers will be able to use. The other four are going to be... interesting. More powerful, for sure: faster (as well as possibly overclocked) processors with liquid cooling, more RAM, higher-end (if not multiple) graphics cards, boot/system SSDs, surround sound headsets, and more. That's not what's making these "premium" machines interesting, however. These remaining 4 machines will be split into 2 categories: 3D, and Surround. Surround systems will be basically triple-monitor systems tuned for games that utilize that screen real estate to immerse gamers by basically surrounding the gamer with the game world. 3D systems are just like they sound: a surprising number of games use 3D to enhance their experience, and it's something everyone should experience at least once. We may even add an extra machine that combines the two categories: NVIDIA calls it 3D Vision Surround, and it'll be interesting to see how customers react to these systems. They will be first come, first serve, of course, but I may institute a "consecutive time limit" and possibly a customer queue in regards to those machines, just so everyone who wants to (and wants to pay for it) can experience these unique machines.
I don't want to keep console folks out in the cold, so there'll probably be a selection of the major ones (PS3, 360) along with some of the more popular games on hand. Gamefly would probably be utilized quite a lot for those games, though I may purchase ones that get requested a lot, along with just ones that are universally awesome or unique. Thanks to X-Box Live and PSN, profiles and saves can travel with the customers, so they can keep their achievements and rankings up to date. This isn't going to be a huge part of the business, so I don't see having more than one TV connected to both consoles paired with a comfy couch. More ideas may surface about that at a later date, but for now, that's pretty well done.
Another common practice in gaming centers is LAN party hosting. This is a nice idea, and allows customers to basically have an all-night gaming session, complete with food, games, and friends. I also think of it as a way for some of the more tech-savvy customers to bring in (and show off) their personal machines. There would be a flat fee for this ($20 for bringing a personal machine, $25/$30 for using a store machine) and it would include pizza, soda, and other such snacks. We may also play movies or TV shows as a kind of background noise or small distraction while folks are taking breathers from their gaming sessions. As this is fairly common practice, a way to make it unique (not to mention community oriented) is to film the hijinks (both in-game and real life varieties) and post them to Facebook and YouTube. (With customer's permission, of course.) It'll be more work; editing a video together from multiple sources is never an easy task, but I believe it'll bring the customers as well as the employees together. Since these would literally be all-nighters, though, the store would probably be mildly short-handed the next day.
Speaking of snacks: yes, we will sell sodas, energy drinks, candy and the like. We may also go a little further with frozen foods, to be used in one of a couple microwaves conveniently located within the store itself. Outside foods would be allowed in a minimal basis; that is to say, customers can bring in one drink and one snack of their own with them into the store per day. If we do get located within a mall, I'm not going to argue with folk refilling a personal water bottle a few times, but for insurance reasons we wouldn't be able to risk outside food/drink damaging our equipment. I'm fine with a couple risks, but there is a limit. Weird how insurance works like that.
Tournaments are a great way to get people involved, and are fun to boot. This may roll in well with the LAN party concepts; small charge for entry (say $5-10) with the prize being... well, I dunno. I'm hesitant to put cash up as a prize. Possibly an upgrade for their computer (if they have one) or an individual component, some unique gaming swag or accessories? It's a work in progress, people. THIS IS WHY I NEED FEEDBACK. Valve hosts tournaments on their servers occasionally, usually for some pretty interesting prizes, though I believe one needs to sign up (and possibly pay) for a store's entry into these things.
Well, that's all I got for now. This is the largest part of the shop, so it needed the most attention. Hence the long post. Please, comment. PLEADING NOW.
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