Research for potential business idea

[Ha3el 10]

I think it's not a bad idea, back in my student days we used to go to the yorkshire grey, the console in there was quite popular. If you are aiming it at students I agree the best place to do your market research is around the unis talking directly to students.

 

However, what about from may to september? where will your business come from when the students have gone home for the summer? not forgetting also around holidays, exam times etc when students will be busy. would you extend this also to teenagers? however this could present its own problems. either way, students and teens alike dont have a lot of money to spend which is something you need to consider. Have you thought about instead maybe starting off by offering some kind of gaming club in collaboration with the student unions - see if you could host something there to keep your overheads down and see how it goes? good luck

 

edit: ^ has been suggested, but agree contact the unis/unions

Edited July 27, 2015 by Ha3el

[Bojolo 10]

What will your business offer that you can't get at home? That's the question. Without sounding harsh consoles are a staple part of every home. But the real hardcore gamers who are willing to spend a lot of money on their pursuits are PC gamers. The money they do spend is on a high spec machine which will be personalised to their taste. With VoIP its already social. I've got friends all over the world. I've seen this type of cafe work abroad but with PC. I just don't think it will bring you enough revenue.

[allysum 10]

Probably no help at all in a Sheffield-based business but when I was living in Quito the city was filled with these gaming/internet centres, to the point ISP's were having to drop home broadband prices to maintain customer numbers. I've seen a similar setups in New York.... comic book store with an internet gaming cafe next door.

 

Most of the revenue in those has been provided in the form of catering (sandwiches, wraps, soft drinks, milkshakes even, not a beer in sight), good quality t-shirts and PC components. I'm not really sure how online gaming works these days but isn't there a large consideration of online accounts and applications being locked to individual machines?

[andy_LT 10]

I had internet cafe business back in 2000-2001. Great location, spacious place, over 20 PC's (26 to be exact) running latest games of that time (all built by me to save on initial costs). It was open 24/7. During daytime peolple were coming to browse internet, print/scan/copy some documents and during evenging and night it was bunch of PC gamers (every single night). LAN gaming and internet gaming (Counter strike, quake, some strategy games were most popular).

 

These days everyone has internet on their phones, consoles at home so now it's different.

 

BUT I think if you have big place to start doing some tournaments (LAN parties) sort of thing (for PC , PS4, Xbox1 etc.).

 

Food+drinks on premises for extra revenue. Drop me pm if you interested to talk more about it

[MatWragg 10]

Thanks all your opinions will be considered

Thanks matthew

[drummer54as 10]

This already exists at a place i used to hire a practice room. Its pretty popular

 

http://www.theportalsheffield.co.uk/

[MatWragg 10]

The portal is a good place but they mainly focuses on LAN gaming , card gaming and table top gaming.

 

I am focused on console gaming and maybe in future portable gaming all of these include online gaming as well as computers

[hicksy3 10]

I think your market's got to be the Chinese students here.

I don't know why, but that seems exactly like their kind of thing. As well as Uni gaming societies, see what help international societies might give.

 

 

Posted from Sheffieldforum.co.uk App for Android

[bigsexydoug 10]

Bit off centre but I would quite happily pay to play old classic proper arcade games, Pac -man, paperboy etc etc.

[pmart4 10]

Me and a friend looked into something similar a few years ago but with more of an eSports twist.

 

We abandoned the idea after months of research as it is very difficult to turn a profit. We spoke to some companies in the US who run centres similar to what you suggest here. There success (like many businesses) was down to location. The area that one of the Centres was located is near a university and in an area that is highly social. They ultimately were a cafe with LAN gaming access.

 

Now this does not meanit cannot work in the UK. eSports and online gaming is picking up some huge momentum at the moment (see Free to Play featuing Dendi on Steam). I believe there is a business model that could turn big profits from this side of the industry - like you though - we just could not figure out how.

 

You're on right to investigate this path though and I wish you luck

 

Hope this helps.