How difficult would it be to start an arcade business?

How difficult would it be to start an arcade business?

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It would be extremely painful.

I would say expensive rather than difficult. Cabinets are probably rare and pricey these days.

in today's day and age probably approximately a 6.24 on a scale of 1.31 to 11.59 depending on how much of a doer you are rather than a dreamer lol

Don't even bother, round1 has all the exclusive rights to bring japanese cabinets to the US.
They have complex licensing agreements with amusement companies where the machines are considered sitting on japanese territory for the purposes of licensing and copyright law.

you couldn't have an arcade in the same old style you'd need unique ideas for it.

Personally I'd consider paying to play games somewhere else if there was a server hosted there, and there was a big enough crowd. Of course, that can't always be the case, but I'd be willing to pay a monthly fee for access to games and consoles I don't own.

just start a virtual arcade in VR, but charge real money to play the games

Depends. Do you want to get a liquor license and open a shitty "barcade" that serves mediocre drinks to hipsters who will over pay to play on fucking Pac Man cocktail cabinets? Pretty fucking easy
Do you want to have an actual good arcade with unique games you can't play at home or find in this country? Near impossible.

There's no way to make money in arcades in the US anymore unless you're also selling beer and food.

This is also an option. A VR only arcade would sell like hotcakes because most kids can't afford VR. Have mostly sit-down VR units, with a few full blown stand up HTC Vive setups, with a higher fee of course.

Every arcade should always be selling food at minimum if not liquor. Back int he good old days I'd spend 8 hours at the Family Fun Center playing DDR because I could get food and drinks right there.

You're gonna go through a shit-ton of VR headsets every month, you also have to pay people to monitor players to make sure they're not about to run into the wall or hit people and guide them back into the playable area because VR noobs will wander a lot and get disoriented, especially on their first time.
You also have to clean the headsets between uses, it's just a huge pain in the ass.
These things were built for 1 user at home, not for being an attraction at a barcade establishment.

I've had an idea for a VR building. Take a building similar to something you'd have originally set up for laser tag, but have a game designed entirely around the layout of that building. Charge people to play it.

Aside from some legal issues I can foresee and the money that would be spent in development this sounds like an amazing idea to me.

You'd have an easier time opening a bar where people can come in and watch Twitch while they drink. You can even have live nights where you fly in streamers and have them up on stage.

What if I had one of these fuckers in my arcade, buy a couple and put them on counters and charge by the hour

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you're a big guy

Don't ever start a business where your main customers are teenagers. Teenagers will try their absolute hardest to rip you off at any opportunity they can, just so they can tell their friends they did it. They'll trick free games out of the machines, steal from the prize store and damage anything they can, just because they can.

Even good, sensible teenagers turn into assholes when there's one wayward kid with them. Don't build your financial security on the entertainment of people dumb enough to eat laundry detergent.

By the hour is a mistake, especially with fighting games. Do tokens and have some drink specials that include tokens.

Why can't arcades just charge $15 admission for unlimited free play?
Trick people into thinking they're getting a good deal when they're probably gonna spend less if they paid with credits.

>implying teens would do that more often than any other fucks

Stupid fucks ask prices to new employees over the phone just because they want them to make a mistake and give a lower price.

Some fuck came in a few weeks ago and wouldn't tell us what his order was aside from "a pizza and something else" despite him having ordered 2 pizzas. He expected us to give him the second one free because it isn't what he ordered.

I can spend $15 in an arcade in an hour easy, and back in the day I would spend a huge chunk of my weekend days at the arcade. That would have saved me a ton of money.

Can't you just use their reckless behavior as an advantage to sucker out even more money from them? The rich or less financially responsible ones of course

easy to start, also easy to go bankrupt

Depends where you live
Close knit city like nyc it can work

A city like Vegas or SD it can definitely work if placed in the right spot like a suburb

Outside those cities I can't see it working at all

Maybe small cities or towns but honestly nah

This. They built a 90s themed barcade near me and i thought it would be all old people like myself. I went once and it was all pink haired, waxed moustached hipster faggots. Im considering opening one myself but on opening night im going to chain the doors shut and burn it down with everyone inside.

It's actually easier than ever to make a cab thanks to modern day computing power and the cheapness of screens/monitors. Getting a MAME or even PS4 setup running inside a cab is also incredibly easy, and in MAME's case all the games would be free.

Now, licensing and shit would probably be a huge pain, since I'm sure you can't just set up games and charge people to play them. Or can you? I'm not sure. If you want to get actual arcade cabs with actual arcade boards in them that would also be prohibitively expensive.

Like movies the games are "not for commercial use", of course enforcement comes down to a rights holder actually coming after you.

I live near the Mall of America, they have a VR arcade. It's not going to be cheap, they have fucking crazy shit there.
There's also a pretty damn successful barcade. but i've only ever been there coked out of my mind

Can't you charge people access to the venue and then have the arcades set up "for free" as like a bonus? It's like when people have movies playing on a screen in a store, I'm sure they're not paying for the rights to run a movie theater or anything.

Granada? shit man its a shame FFA closed down I used to love going there

for you

Again that's a question for lawyers but there is a difference between demoing a movie (which most stores have permission to do if they aren't being paid to do it) versus giving access to games.

You'd better offer food & drinks (like beer & wine) if you wanna operate an arcade anymore. People can play these games on their phone, you have to have a hook to get them in the door and WANTING to spend money. Think of your favorite bar - NOT a fucking hole-in-the-wall - include music & live DJ's, add games, and cater to the under-21 crowd until 8:00 PM.
Portland sucks, but groundkontrol.com/ does it right.

Basically it would have to be the gimmick to something else you focus on.

Hence why Barcades exist. They sell alcohol...and then drunk people play arcade games. But you aren't going to make a 'kids play games' arcade that isn't something shitty like Dave/Busters.

Teenagers of today are not familiar with arcades games at all. All they do is stare at facebook and play some mobile games perhaps.
Arcades disappeared in West long time ago and altough it would be great to see a revival I think it would be a very niche audience if you start arcade hall only. There are few places where you can still play some games but mostly just some "retro" pubs where hipsters go to drink soy-infused drinks and such.

Are you underage? It's illegall still. Copyrights are valid.

Not difficult at all. Making any decent money and staying in business for any length of time, that's gonna be the hard part. Not worth it at all

All you have to do is buy Japanese Rhythm games out the ass. Weebs from all over your area and beyond will desend on your arcade and be the most loyal and frequent customers you could ever want.

t. Have a Round 1 around me and keep seeing the same faces everytime I come. I only go there for Sound Voltex and Beatmania myself

Its a dying breed unless you either do a big modern Dave and Busters type setup or some hipster retro place.

Used to be a time when even pizza shops and corner stores had machines and every mall had a stand alone arcade or a movie theater with a decent selection in the lobby but those are non existent now.

Probably easier to start an "esports" cafe if you have a lot of FOB chinks in your area.

Barcades are pretty profitable

>Don't even bother, round1 has all the exclusive rights to bring japanese cabinets to the US.
No mom and pop arcade would want or be able to afford current generation online Japanese games anyways. They don't have "exclusive rights," they're just the only ones who can afford it and have the contacts.

It's not like you can't run older or offline Japanese games

You'll never survive being a pure arcade, there needs to be something else attached to it.

>Chuck E. Cheese has a playground for kids, marketed at kids
>Dave & Buster's has a full restaurant and bar inside, marketed at family
>some bars have arcade machines in them

Basically what said. An arcade will never turn enough profit to survive just being an arcade.

News flash: Obscure weeb games don't make money here anyways
If you want to make money off an arcade in the west, you either need to pander to normie nostalgia and sell alcohol or have it also be a general game shop that does buy/trade, MTG events, etc

>tfw I used to live near the great mall

^this. Weeb culture is starting to become more common and most are pretty loyal. If you brought any of the jap rhythm games or even racing games like Initial D zero, you'll definitely see consistent profits from loyal customers.

I just don't know how you would be able to use all the network features and IC cards in NA.

I'v clocked in like $300 alone on Initial D Zero when I was in Japan earlier this year.

Expensive because you'd have to make everything wheelchair accessible

are you in nihon or did you really pay marked up western prices for glorified memory cards?

also someone told me a banapassport card works as an aime card, is this true?

Isn't the entire system in America designed to make it difficult to start any business or do any work outside the existing national corporate structure?

How the fuck do these places operate then? You telling me these video game centers are paying a licensing fee/rent for every single game they hold? What about Internet Cafes?

I go to Japan once a year for around 2-3 weeks at a time. Hence why I keep my cards. Also aime cards and banapassport cards work on the same machine as long as one is supported. For example Tekken 7 only says banapassport on the scanner but aime works also.

Sadly, this alone isn't enough to run an entire business.
You get a small but dedicated audience from this stuff, but that won't keep you afloat alone.

No we're saying that enforcing IP infringement is difficult and small businesses often won't be noticed.

isn't it like everywhere else?
you need money to make more money

you'd make more money with a van and a bouncy castle

no one uses arcades

nah they pirate the games and let people play them it's all perfectly legal

someone already one-upped this
a game truck rental service, you get one instead of a bouncy castle for a kids party
it's full of chairs and video games

>bouncy castle
a what? you mean a moonwalk?

It's a bounce house you dumb shit. Castle doesn't rhyme with bounce.

i'm sorry i wasn't aware there was a rule about businesses having to rhyme according to your local vernacular

A retro arcade opened in my area recently that charges by the hour and that seems to go well enough for it. No alcohol either, so it's more or less doing well off nostalgia and the model alone.

Good fucking luck mate.
Individual cabinets that aren't straight out of a dumpster are like $5k minimum and any company that will lease out the cabinets to you will take a ridiculous amount of money from every machine. And good luck affording a liquor license if you're going the barcade route, they're like $150k each (at least in Florida, can't speak for other states but I can imagine they're in the same ballpark).
Then there's impact costs, permit costs (they fucking charge you per power outlet), architect planning and a whole load of other fun bureaucratic shit.
Arcades also have to pay a special tax for every machine they have.

>Individual cabinets that aren't straight out of a dumpster are like $5k minimum
You can't be serious.
Where are you looking? Fucking ebay?

You can easily find arcade games for ~$500

Only ironic weebs play that garbage though. You can build yourself a controller for that shit for under 100 bucks, only an idiot would go to an arcade to play it.

The cool thing to do is a barcade, expensive drinks offset the money sink an arcade can be. It also hits that 30 year old millenial market with enough money to spend drinking and nostalgic about older games.

Anything below $2500 is either in fucking atrocious condition, is a cocktail cabinet or isn't a coin-op.

That's wrong though.

>not owning multiple controllers and frequenting your local R1 to throw credits at progressing on official servers
too bad no arcades outside of japan (and R1) can have these games on official servers. there's unofficial servers out there that allow arcades on but it's just not the same.

Ok bud

Where do you live for your arcade market to be so shit?

I'm in Australia so not quite america but not too far off. The most popular games by far are rhythm games like mai mai and weeb driving games like wangan midnight and the inital d one.

>being a monkey who has to watch the pretty numbers go up on the "official" rankings
Nah, I'm good. I'll stay at home playing on displays and with controllers that have less latency.

There's one of these in my city. The truck is painted off brand razer/monster energy colour with green neons underneath. According to google images this is what it looks like inside.

a traditional arcade is nearly impossible to sustain. there are "game centers" around my town that are financially secure, but i mean they're basically day cares. bunch of young kids playing console games or league of legends on the computers.

By the hour? Shit, a retro arcade opened in my town about 6 months ago, and it's $10 for all day, and the owner is a total bro.

I remember when I went to the huge arcade at Castles 'n' Coasters back when they had the 4 major fighting games on big screens in the center of the room and people were lining up to play Capcom vs SNK 2. Plus the After Burner Climax machine with the vibrating chair.

Every arcade or even game center I see these days is basically a passion project destined to get about half a year of good use for people who like the community aspect and fighting game players and then close down in two years.

I've seen a few of these trucks near my job, they usually go for Xbox360/Wii/PS3 era to get the kids, also poor man's DDR pad. The weird thing when I was checking with them, is that their revenue comes profitable from fucking Bar Mitzvahs. But they seem to get a reasonable amount of money, so it looks like a good business. Also, he LAN connects them, so that might be a boost for some games.