How much would you pay for LAN gaming?

[Kinoss]

Hey! I\'m starting up my own LAN-Gaming business. I was wondering how much you guys would play per hour. I was thinking like 4.00 an hour. Is that too low? Or maybe its too high? Gah! you guys gotta help me out here. Also what kinda games do you think We should play? My list of games that I\'ve thought up are:

Warcraft III
Unreal Tournament
Empire Earth
Battlefield 1942
Age of Empires
Need for Speed

Of course the games would be the newest ones, with the latest updates and expansions.

I am quite aware of the prices and hardships of this task so don\'t go telling me I can\'t do it, save your breath... or the muscles in your hand anyhow...

By the way, any other features you think should be in my business would be greatly appreciated too! thanks!

[zaphar]

I know someone who just started one of those here in st. louis he actually does very well

some of the other games he has:

rogue spear and other squad combat games

EQ (I know I know....)

and even M$ flight simulator

[Kinoss]

Ah, i forgot about those FP tactic type games... Oh, and um... You didnt say how much I should charge. Thanks for the advice though!

[Drilixer]

hmm... for the kids I would advize you to be a little easy on the charging.. maybe give em a little bit more time than they pay for (not much just enough to make em comfortable) they will feal all big and bad and keep coming back - but then again being prescice is good to.  One lan gaming place that i went to sent messages to your screen warning you before your time was up - great idea...

but you know you might be asking the wrong community this is a Free gaming open source area afterall

[sashok]

I dont understand how you will make money off of those companies games??!?

Can you explain what Lan-gaming is?  I play wc3 a lot, but I play on b-net, which is free. what do you mean by charging for lan? what are the benefits?

[Kundalf]

usually you don\'t charege for the playing (which would be pretty sensless). But its common to charge for the hosting of servers (like clan servers), which means providing space, hardware resources and network bandwidth.

Or do you mean like a gaming hall, or an internet cafe with lots of computers, where ppl can come and play computer for a fee?  I can\'t tell how much you could charge for that, since I always used my own computer.

[Kinoss]

Ya, im talking about a gaming hall, not something over the net.

Sashok20, LAN gaming is where you play games over a group of connected computers with your friends. The reason you have to pay for such a thing is because you are playing on someone elses computer, playing with someone elses game, and supporting people that work there. Its like going to a coffee shop to drink coffee, you gotta pay for the coffee, the cup, and the employees working there. Of course you could just drink coffee at home, but your still paying for it. And you could just play on your computer at home, but your still paying for it. If you go to a \"gaming hall\" to play LAN-games you play with a bunch of other people in the same room. Its like playing over the internet with a lot of other people. Except you get to know these people personally, and you can scream \"Hey! you stupid noob!\" to the guy right next to you after he caps you!    As i always say, its a lot funner to play a game with a lot of other people than to play the same game alone. LAN-gaming is a great experience when you really get involved.

[zaphar]

the guy I know charged 3 dollars an hour but its hard to say what you should charge because your in a different location. It largely depends on how much demand you think you would have.

I would try to estimate how much you think people would pay in your area.

Your real bread and butter however is probably going to be in hosting parties and get togethers. I would work up some prices for reserving your game room for a group.

[Drilixer]

maybe you should advertise as free (or just a very low price) for a couple days (or a week) and get to know what kind of demand there is that way - makew sure to inform players that there will be a payment later though

[theonlyjimbob]

Do you mean a gaming thing like that Unreal Tournament thing they pulled off in Montreal a few months back?
   If so I\'d pay up to ten bucks.

Thomas

[boonet]

Hmm to calculate how much you must ask, you should calculate the cost of all your computers, the OS licenses, the game licenses, the rent, the electricity, the public gaming spot license cost, the taxes, the life expectation of your hardware before it needs to be replaced, the expected players volume, the necessary personnel with relative salaries and social extras, the share between earnings and reinvestment, and at the end of all that, you can see how much you can ask for 1 hour of LAN gaming without bankrupting after 2 days ;-)

[sashok]

oh oh oh lol , yeah, I\'ve seen plenty of those in my nearby chinatown.  Well, I don\'t know how much they charge, but they do pretty good.  This kid I know says that they mostly play counter-strike, but I guess no harm in variety of games.  If I didn\'t have a comp and wanted to play this baad, I would pay 4 or 5 an hour.
You could invent monthly or weekly or even daily fees.
And yeah, the location is very important.  The reason why these places that I mentioned are doing so well is because they are located in chinatown where there\'s a lot of kids, but who mostly can\'t afford a good comp with all the games.

[Kinoss]

Hey, thanks for all the feedback, this helps a lot! Ive been asking around town here, and most people would willingly pay 5 bucks. So, that sounds good to me.

Theonlyjimbob, yes its similar to the thing that unreal tournament does, except at a much smaller scale.

Sashok20, ya ive got hourly fees, and per session fees, and rental fees. Dunno if the price should change depending on the day though... Saturdays however would be the one exception though.

If anyone wants to know more about this go here:
Here!

[Drilixer]

yeah kids are important - try to work something out with the local highschools and middle schools so you can advertise there - companies do that at my school and it does real well - but be aware that you will not get any gamers by advertising with the cheerleaders or football team

malls and theatres (you can buy adds for before movies! great for reaching young gamers) are also a good place to advertise

[jago]

i know of a LAN place over near me. their prices are $2/hour or $10 all day. but i think they make most of their money off of repair.