Have you guys ever been to an internet/gaming cafe?

Have you guys ever been to an internet/gaming cafe?

What was it like?

don't they still exist?

I went to one in Manchester that looked incredible, massive underground setup but I was only with someone buying something and didn't stay

In the Sydney CBD there is a few, but I can't say I've seen any in the local area (South Sydney) in the past 5-10 years. Just realised this and figured I'd see what Sup Forums thought.

There used to be one called Headshot in my area back before CS:S came out, went there a few times and had a good time.

Also went to one in the city once and played some Quake but I was the only Caucasian guy there so I felt like the elephant in the room.

I realise this post is more Sup Forums than Sup Forums but Internet is technology.

first time i played CS was in a net cafe (in ~2003)
was never really a big gamer though, so didn't visit them much

I used to visit them all the time from 10 till I was 13,it was like a local place to meet up with your friends.All computers had wc3,cs 1.6 ,lineage and wow on them.Me and my friends used to just skip school and go to play lineage all day,no wonder half of them didn't Finish high school

oldfag has entered the thread. I'm from Santiago, Chile so I'll talk about my personal experience here.

I remember the first "cyber-cafes" (the 90s). You were literally forced to actually get coffee while using a giant piece of shit desktop PC usually running Windows 98 SE. You had IE, sometimes Netscape and stuff you'd find ridiculous today, like Microsoft Chat. I remember spending a lot of time in that one, chatting with random strangers. The internet wasn't as dangerous as today back then, you could actually run into decent people on anonymous internet software.

By the early 2000's the coffee shop was gone in most of them, so we just called them "cybers". PCs weren't so shitty, and in some places they had games already installed (Half-Life, Counterstrike and Starcraft). It was the shit. I spend hours with my friends playing le vidya and making some indian guy rich. It was also the golden MSN Messenger era.

The late 2000s were the beggining of the end. The experience was well reflected by GTA4: shady locations, silence, and creeps. They were mostly used by those or people in a hurry to print something or check their e-mail. Gaming moved to individual homes or LAN parties.

There are still a couple active in my city, but very small and they're empty 99% of the time.No idea how they survive, prolly inmigrants that show up to print CVs.

ohshit, the nostalgia...
Microsoft Chat...
dat alien...
dat beatnik...

...

It's alright , just don't like seeing a lot of cringe weeaboos or fat fucks with fedoras.

When I was younger, I went to cc's all the time. With limited/no internet, and weak "for emails only" PCs at home, many people in SEA went to cybercafe to play PC games on LAN.

>What was it like?
Very loud, very fun! You met all kinds of people (ALL kinds!), shouted yourself hoarse over games, and paid the equivalent of USD$0.5/hr for it.

Spanishfag reporting in.

Here it was pretty much as said.

You went there, and paid like 1.20-2€ for an hour with mid-budgets PC. Same games, you could buy snacks too. Curiously, they were called "cyber-cafés" here too, but I never saw someone getting coffe lol.

They're more alive here, since inmigrants are using it to call their families outside, and now are called "Locutorios".

I remember visiting a couple "cybercafes" in the 90s with some friends. We went mainly to look for more people to game with as we all ready owned our own PCs and had LAN parties. They had fairly good PCs for the times, and games like Warcraft 2, Starcraft, Doom, Duke Nukem 3D. Most people seemed to go just to check email or look at websites as many households still didn't own PCs. Gaming wasn't nearly as popular as it is today, so there was a lot of stigma attached (geek was definitely not chic) and it was kind of niche. Didn't really find new people for gaming.

TL;DR the ones I visited were fairly boring.

Where are you from Mr. Falcon?

Went there as a kid in the late 90s/early 2000s just so I could look for random stuff (I found out about emulation that way for instance). I would pay so I could use some multisession CD and put all my downloads there and bring em home. Other people would ask me to play Quake 3 and shit but I didn't.

The owners had this qt daughter and once I tried to play bid for power with her. I couldn't get used to the controls back then.

I went to an asian one maybe 10 years ago. Played some Guild Wars, Battlefield 2, Earth's Special Forces (Half-Life mod), Typing of the Dead, Counter-Strike 1.6. Computers felt properly equipped, everything was silky smooth on CRTs, equipped with a Steam net cafe license. I think while I was playing Earth's Special Forces or something when one of the four kids, literally kids but badly raised, shouted "NO I WANT TO BE ORC, FUCKING NIGGER". I turned around and some black guy my age near me turned around with a "dafug" face sans anger or hostility and we were all the same. He handled it pretty okay, because they were just dumb kids. So I checked what the little shits were playing and it was most likely Frozen Throne. But the main takeaway from this experience was finding out just how fucking dirty their keyboards are. Wash your hands after.

I've never seen one in my life, but that might be because I live in the suburbs of a first world country.

Like 10 years ago, maybe more.
CS and FIFA were the only games played, I don't think anyone went there to do anything other than play those.

Anyone else go to boxdin whenever they could as a kid? Playing halo multi-player on xbox with 9 other friends in the same room was fly as fuck

a lot like the cloud, just someone elses computer

ausfag here and can confirm this

Designated land.

It was awesome. Funny thing is, there was no Cafe, just a dark brown piss liquid. I spent from 13 to 17 in those places. Lineage 2, CS 1.5, AoE, RoN, Quake, Warcraft. Shit, the amount of cigarette smoke I've inhaled in those hell holes probably reduced my life span by a 30%.

Good ole memories indeed, sadly because I have an addictive type personalty I focused more on having fun there than finishing school, that's' why now I am a 28yr old looser with a shitty job

What's it called and where?

They're still common in Turkey.

I've been in a few. Here they are still a thing.
Kids shouting about CS source
Grandpas playing online browser games, some of them are so leet they get more than one PC to play through several accounts
9-30+ yo playing LoL

I've only been dragged there from friends never wanted to go there myself ( at least not after I got an actual PC). These places are pathetic and miserable, loser dens

I don't even understand why internet cafes are still a thing when broadband internet and computers are so cheap
Maybe if you live in a third world shithole like the USA and pay out the ass for slow, throttled and capped internet.

I still occasionally use them as they are used for local tournaments.

It's not a bad concept honestly but I just wouldn't be comfortable in a place like that. A lot of people are basically living there though.

It's also a HUGE deal in asian countries. I don't have any experience with those but holy shit is the market big there.

Here in Mexico I recall they started in the 90's, with some offering dial-up speeds.
During the early 2000's with broadband internet becoming more widespread and cheaper there was a huge boom. You could literally find an internet cafe in every corner. By the mid-late 2000's when broadband and computers became even cheaper a lot of internet cafes closed down. I can think of 2 internet cafes in my town currently, and most operate as office supplies stores with some computers in the corner you can rent.

Here in Malaysia (I'm guessing it's also similar in Singapore) they are quite common and hangout spots for teenagers and young adults to play LAN games and team-based games in person like old school LAN parties.

Except it's a public place, usually noisy.

There are good ones, and bad ones.

In the better ones you'll get properly maintained equipment, i.e proper chairs that aren't falling apart, headphones that aren't missing every 3rd machine and specs on the beefier side with the cases locked in cabinets. And clean environments, a fridge you can buy drinks from and a toilet that doesn't stink of tobacco.

All cybercafes have air conditioning though, even the shittier ones.

Rates are around 3 MYR per hour (that's less than a dollar), with cheaper packages if you purchase more hours upfront.

Many games (single player and online/LAN alike; the single player games are usually pirated) are preinstalled on the machines and properly configured CCs will have the machine states wiped after a session.

Used to go all the time back in high school
Friends would go to lan Counter-Strike and Brood War
It was pretty much a dingy smoke filled room with a bunch of people playing games and us who were the only group of people having fun.

I live on London outskirts, and I've only seen one left in my area. Part of a computer repair shop, just old Pentium 4 Fujitsu's. Broadband's pretty fast and cheap in my area too. Costs £10 for 30 minutes tho, most people just drive down to the PC World and use the display computers.

There's a section inside a popular arcade in my area that has about 10 computers along with a bunch of consoles for fighting games. Its pretty nice.(except for friday nights when there are smash tournaments).

The idea is that a group of people pitching in can afford much better hardware and better service than any one person can alone (obviously unless you're wealthy).

For example, in korea, it costs roughly $2000 a year to play for 5 hours a day every single day. That's a pretty good deal considering you don't have to pay for premium internet or for electric bills

I used to visit them when I was around 10 or 11. All the computers had cs 1.6 on them, and what we would do is have a 5v5, and the losing team would have to pay the winning team's computer usage fee.

GTA IV is the best...

dark
sad
expensive
poorly set up
pointless
cringy losers all over the place
SUPER antisocial console kids on the single console. why is that even here?

>Chile
Wena wn. I grew up in Antofagasta and can confim, same thing.

We didn't get a PC until 2003.

>MSN Messenger
>The girl you like has logged in

I will never forget this feel