Any Ideas for a starting LAN Gaming Business?

[Bigblades]

I just started working about 2 weeks ago at what I consider to be the coolest part-time job ever. I am working at a LAN caming center right near my college. It has 42 computers all hooked together and connected to t1. Has great computers, charing 5 dollars an hour (or far less if you buy hours in bulk) and has 2 X-box's linked on big screen TV's. Has most of the latest games out and stuff too.

Now the reason I'm posting this, is cause I wanna help the place out. My bosses are really cool, I'm getting paid pretty well compared to most college students around here, and I really love working here. I wanna do whatever I can to make sure it survives.

Business seems to be going okay so far, trying to advertise the place around campus some and stuff, but I just wanted to ask in here if anybody had any ideas as to good ways to advertise the place and boost their business.

Website for the place (still somewhat under developement) is www.wysiwyggaming.com

 

[ElFenix]

name it something from the lord of the rings and have really bad radio spots where you have someone doing a bad gollum/smeagol bit. that is what the place around here did. and they've been in business for 6 months!

 

[Kelvrick]

Open 24 hours, sell drinks and snacks (don't allow snacks and gaming at once).

Advertise a lot towards the end and beginning of the year for those freshman moving out of the dorms and their bandwidth and people just moving into apartments with no internet.

Try throwing some tournaments there with prizes and such.

 

[MacBaine]

don't.

 

[GtPrOjEcTX]

Holy crap, unless that stuff is stolen they're going under quick.

 

[TranceNation]

risky at best

 

[BlueWeasel]

Originally posted by: GtPrOjEcTX
Holy crap, unless that stuff is stolen they're going under quick.

You can say that again...WOW!

 

[BaboonGuy]

Originally posted by: GtPrOjEcTX
Holy crap, unless that stuff is stolen they're going under quick.

I wonder if they bought cheaper setups and just oc'ed then said those were the speeds. I'd definetly do that if I ran one of these places, huge cost saver.

 

[Bigblades]

Not worried about it getting stolen, that place is open almost 24-7. (official closing time is 2 AM, but they leave it open until whenever everybody feels like leaving, which averages around 5 AM) Plus, its located on the second floor of a building near a major road and right next to a big campus, tons of security in that area, and the actual store has only one window with a very good security system in place.

The people here are liking the place a lot so far, many are coming in and shelling out 100-300 bucks buying bulk hour deals and comin in daily. As far as food goes the place allows you to bring in food if you like, they sell sodas and candy, but being as there is a pizza place directly below them, a resturaunt to the right, a mcdonalds accross the street, a subway and pita pit in the same building, and a starbucks a block away, it would be kind of hard to compete in selling anything but candy and soda. Plus allowing them to bring food in has had people spending money to play games while eating lunch and stuff, or just casually coming in to hang out and play during a period off from school.

There are tourne's and stuff that will be happening in the future, we are working on setting that stuff up some now. Still kinda getting a solid player base down, once we are open for more than a month I think we will get more into that stuff.

The best thing this place has going for it is that there are so many college students at UF who want to see this place succeed. Not everybody in Gainesville wants to go clubbing every weekend, and this place is an excellent hangout for the nerdier side of the school. (which is probably like 70% of it)

 

[Bigblades]

The comptuers are all the specs said on the web site. They weren't really as expensive as they look though, but they do run quite well. I'm having a helluva time getting some of the servers up. There are 4 servers running, 2 of them being linux servers. Have dedicated for a bunch of games and stuff, but with some games we are still kinda shaky as to how to properly setup a good dedicated. Lots of picky "uber FPS" guys come in and have been somewhat helpful in tweakin' the stuff to get the most out of it.

 

[THELAIR]

in 1994 at the age of 15 i actually wrote up a 12 page business case for a business just like this. I only needed 22 grand i figured. Somthing simple yet small

now my home city is saturated with these gaming places

 

[TitanDiddly]

College radio...

Give out coupons for one free hour?