Random question - Computer game licensing in a internet cafe

agnes

agnes

agnes

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How does this work?

Say I have 10 stations, each with a paid for BF4 and COD license.

I charge the customer £5 per hour to play on that station. How does licensing work? Will I be breaking some contract or something under the T&C's?

Thanks
 
Yes. The retail boxed copies are not licensed for you to rent them out to customers. Neither is the OS they run on.
 
We had a gaming/LAN/cafe/shop in Lewisham when i was growing up, it crashed and burned pretty quickly. Would be cool to see then make a come back but i cant see a market for it, only the unprivilaged scrotes could make use of them i feel.
 
nick.lidgett said:
We had a gaming/LAN/cafe/shop in Lewisham when i was growing up, it crashed and burned pretty quickly. Would be cool to see then make a come back but i cant see a market for it, only the unprivilaged scrotes could make use of them i feel.
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There are always swarms of little kids in Reading town centre on the weekend. I'm just wondering if it's worth tapping into that CoD type gaming community and like you say, bringing back the gaming cafe a little.
 
I think what with everyone having access to a gaming PC or console and High speed internet this business model is pretty much completely and utterly sunk.

If you can get it to work then ! good work
 
Efour said:
I think what with everyone having access to a gaming PC or console and High speed internet this business model is pretty much completely and utterly sunk.

If you can get it to work then ! good work
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That side is a valid point, but my argument would be the community aspect of it. As I said, there are kids in Reading that just wonder around, I'm under the thought that having little tournaments or areas they can all be in the same room and have a crack at it for a bit might be appealing.

This Sat I will hopefully get some time in Reading and ask randoms a few questions.

How much would they pay for 30 mins or 1 hour of gaming time? Would they want such a venue and would they use it? What kind of tournaments would they want?

Hoping to get some very basic feedback.
 
agnes said:
How much would they pay for 30 mins or 1 hour of gaming time? Would they want such a venue and would they use it? What kind of tournaments would they want?
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You probably want to work out how much it will cost you to offer that hours gaming, rent, staffing costs, insurance, equipment etc. Then you can see the minimum you can charge to still make a profit and how much that profit will be.
 
they probably just wander around because they have no money lol

so many gaming cafes have died I wouldn't risk my money on it unless cannabis got legalised :P
 
We had one where I was growing up, was great but was £3.50 an hour which was too much when I was 14.
It got me into.gaming though.
 
RDM said:
You probably want to work out how much it will cost you to offer that hours gaming, rent, staffing costs, insurance, equipment etc. Then you can see the minimum you can charge to still make a profit and how much that profit will be.
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This is a silly idea that sparked today, kind of want to see if there is even a market for it anymore before doing that amount of research. Hence the idea of doing a face to face mini survey in town first.

I hope there is something there for it. As it could be good. Something the 90's kids didn't really have.
 
It may work if the customers log in to battlenet with their own accounts. Say they just didnt have the money for a top end gaming machine but could spend £20 on a weekend to play on it after paying for their license of bf4. At least then they would have their own stats. But usually people with origin or steam games have a desktop pc. You would have to have some games on there that its ok to use. Throw in some free for use consoles in there and kids could be fighting over who is next. Then sell coffee and energy drinks.
 
We had a gaming cafe round here when I was younger, cs and quake were the top games, it seemed to be doing well but mostly the same people went, the more they went the more time they end up staying and I think the owner was a little too soft on charging people In the end.

He ended up shutting down, my guess is not enough business to run it and make a decent profit

Plus with LAN events on the rise there was no market for a shop
 
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it would be nice to see a gaming cafe with setups you dont normally get at home such as a top spec racing wheel and seat, sort of an arcade setup but with more modern games.

i get the feeling there is a reason most arcade units are made from hard wearing plastic and not comfortable leather though, it wouldnt take more then a couple of little scoates to make a very nice setup look very unappealing.
 
I worked in a netcafe way back in 1997* - long before Steam and all that - we just bought a copy for each workstation, though with cheap high speed internet available at home these days I suspect that there just isn't the business for a gaming cafe where the gaming is the main draw - the cafe side would have to be pretty decent too IMO.

*Shoot 'n' Surf in London if that rings bells with anyone
 
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