So, I'm thinking about opening an arcade...

[Niode]

A couple of things to keep in mind. The youth are your future customers. Completely cutting them out, in my opinion, would be a bad idea.
Also, Im not sure how much a liquor license is in your area, but here in Idaho Ive seen them as high as $70,000.00. You may want to start with just a beer & wine license. Also if you sell food, then its not considered a bar.
Best of luck.

Jesus, a personal licence in this country is £250~

[Limewater]

Jesus, a personal licence in this country is £250~

For those of us who are UK-challenged, can you explain what a personal license allows one to do?

[the7k]

Well, how much money would I need to get started? I'd don't have a lot at my disposal right now, to be honest, but I don't plan to start this immediately either.

My plan is to obtain equipment through attending these auctions. http://www.auctiongamesales.com/ After about one to two years of obtaining cheap equipment and saving up money (and actually putting all the things I've read about arcade maintenance to practice), I think I'd be ready... to ask for a loan from the bank. I don't think I can avoid that part, really. Thank God I have a great credit score.

I just went to the arcade that opened up, and it actually boosted my confidence in this idea. With the exception of a Ms.Pac-Man/Galaga cocktail machine and a Stern The Simpsons Pinball Party machine (which I spent about an hour on, and got me the #3 high score - was possibly the most insane pinball machine I've played, with about 5-7 pinballs in play at any given time), the machines were nothing special. When I showed up, no one was there, but as I stuck around, the place actually got a bit crowded, with a good bit of 18-25s showing up as well as families with small children.

The location is actually connected to both a family restaurant and a bar. The bar was closed at the time, though. The most popular machines included a single-player Fast and Furious cab, and the skee-ball and basket-ball redemption machines. Everything else (which was mostly kid-oriented redemption machines) got no play.

While the selection was mediocre (although I will be coming back for that Simpsons pinball), it still managed to draw a crowd. I suppose I'll have to wait and see if it can keep the crowd.

Now, the locations I've been looking at for opening an arcade have always been located next to restaurants - with a heavy focus on places that serve 'stadium foods' (pizza, burgers, that type of thing). My idea has been that those that come to the food stuff will likely be drawn to the arcade, and possibly vice versa, and we'd basically be having a parasitic connection to one another. If I had my arcade located next to a restaurant (or a bar, if I got that route), would I then need to worry about having that in my location? Or is it that I need a bar/restaurant because that's where I'm getting all my money from?

Basically I'm asking - do I need the foods/drinks to attract customers, or do I need the foods/drinks because I can't actually make money with an arcade, even if I did have customers?

[joehero]

www.sba.gov is a great place to start. Gather as much information as you can.

As for the question, "do I need the foods/drinks to attract customers, or do I need the foods/drinks because I can't actually make money with an arcade, even if I did have customers"?

From what I understand, the food industry is a hard place to make a profit. But I think if you are making a little profit in a lot of places, your chances of being successful is greater. Ever heard the saying, "Dont put all your eggs in the same basket"?

[phaedrus]

- outdoor would work if you have food and drinks. you need to keep em in once the leave chances are they will not be back.
- tokens would b the way to go. they can use quarters anywhere, tokens only and they hae to spent it their. stick to dollars and up. no quarters.
- the laws are dependent on state. they can be shit in some areas.
- the games can be used at your discretion, you will have to get licenses for each. taxes and all.
- redemption helps if you wanna keep it family friendly. yeah its crap prizes yet they will sell.
- and remember the 3 LLL's.
- I have some years of experience with arcades. worked one and was close to management so got to see some of the ins and outs.
- its a tough sell so be prepared to be in the hole for a while. Its one thing to have the passion for it and another to have the knowledge and skills. seen alot of places come and go due to bad management, lack of maintenance and apathetic employees. remember that an arcade can be a home away from home and its not where you call home but the people that make it so.
- good luck and ask away if you need.

[molotovwars]

I've noticed arcades here in Korea are actually quite popular and it always people that are just happening to walk by and then drop a few dollars in the machines. It seems like the perfect 15 minute extension to any date and you see lots of couples coming and going.

They have all the gun game staples like Time Crisis and House of the Dead, they've got Tekken, and some rhythm games, then they have a lot of cabs where it looks like they can change and rotate the games. On those cabs I played team Tetris and some Bubble Bobble game.

The location of these arcades are usually in shopping malls on the same floor as the movie theatres. People play them while waiting for a movie or after finishing a movie when they want to prolong their night. They are also along busy streets near universities.

I would never travel out of my way to find an arcade in Korea, but I know in most neighborhoods I can come across one. No one goes looking for them, they just come across it and decide to spend a few bucks. If I know there is one near a restaurant I like I'll usually go there after. Its all that kind of foot-traffic and the most important thing is the location.

I think in the situation of the shopping malls, the arcades are probably to some extent owned by the malls and then maintained by an owner.

I think being in the mall is not enough. The arcade in the mall back in my hometown gets no play. Its in the mall, buts in a corner that gets little traffic. There is a huge movie theatre across the street, but no one is going to walk across to the mall, then up to the third floor while waiting for their movie. So now the movie theater has just got a few of its own cabs.

Maybe the formula that works in Korea is what is used to be like in Korea. Korea is huge on gaming, but its all PC gaming and online based. The arcades are still a kind of social thing. Parents are really strict and very few of my students have game consoles. In addition the ones that play PC games all do it "PC Rooms" where they pay really cheap flat rates to use the computers by the hour.

Anyways I like your ideas about how to run the place and holding events and building a reputation and a good atmosphere. Someone mentioned having extra cabs and renting them out to places and rotating the ones that you have. Contact through facebook and such is all good as well. The bar/alcohol ideas are all good as well, but I'm wondering what would be the most manageable for you to start out with.

Starting out with a bar and restaurant and all of these other things may spread yourself too thin. Those aren't your area of expertise and you'll have to put much more into the place than you might expect. I guess I'm thinking about this from a standpoint of minimizing your risk. I'd probably just focus on a really good location based on foot-traffic and try to facilitate a culture that lets people just stop in for a few minutes on their way to something else. If you're successful then I'd say give it a shot at building it more into the personal place that you have dreamed of.

[ilovesega]

Just from my personal experiance in asia.

Indoor Mall.
If in indoor mall no need for food or drink. (most here disallow it anyway)

Redemption prizes are a must it seems, its the the main draw for kids and myself included to keep pumping the tokens in. I can't count how many times i spend 20bucks on the basketball machine just to win some cheap clock i couldve bought at the dollar store.

Wide range of games. Everything from light gun shooters to driving cabs to fighting and interactive machines. This seems like the main key over here. Arcades are completely different beasts from my days of single cabs all lined up. Each game seems to draw a different crowd. The guitar hero like machines draw the teenagers and hipsters, the little coin drop push machines draw old folks, families and groups with kids tend to like the redemption machines and mario kart cabs or other drivers. the strays tend to sit at the single cabs playing fighters and shooters all day. I've seen a middle aged guy who just sat at the virtua tennis 3 cab for 3hours or so. Theres also those weird little card games that have some kind of draw to little kids, pokemon style game. I never understood them but its like some kind of bizarre trend and they keep coming back to it. Like an MMO or something they level up their character or something on their little card.. LOTS of machines like that over here.

Big NO to entrance fees also.

Thats just my 2 cents..

Oh and the way you pay is you buy a card worth however many dollars and each machine has a different cost and you just swipe the card. seems like a better way than quarters or tokens as you can adjust the rate, say 5 10 20 dollar card. and people can keep them and come back to spend it whenever they want or just spend it all in one visit.

[Jrecee]

Didn't read the whole topic, but if your location is going to be in a mall I'd say tokens are better. There is more of a chance that a kid with parents will walk buy and be allowed 5 minutes to play a few games. They won't be willing to pay $10 for that amount of entertainment.

There were some good ideas in the other topic about arcades made in the last couple weeks. (some of them were mine)

[final fight cd]

Didn't read the whole topic, but if your location is going to be in a mall I'd say tokens are better. There is more of a chance that a kid with parents will walk buy and be allowed 5 minutes to play a few games. They won't be willing to pay $10 for that amount of entertainment.

There were some good ideas in the other topic about arcades made in the last couple weeks. (some of them were mine)

i would think an arcade's primary goer would wouldn't be a kid, but would be actual adults. if the arcade had good enough machines, i bet people would want to go and make a day out of it, which is why i said earlier to have a flat out fee for unlimited game play. the company probably wouldn't make too much money if it was based on people dropping in for a few minutes to use their one dollar they have in their pocket or dropping in because they have 5 minutes to kill.

[Niode]

Jesus, a personal licence in this country is £250~

For those of us who are UK-challenged, can you explain what a personal license allows one to do?

Sell alcohol. You need a premises licence as well which depending on the area and the establishment you are licencing can range from £100-635 and then £70-350 annually. Which isn't a lot really, and the upper limit is mostly for very large venues.

So basically you need at least one person with a personal licence on the premises whenever the establishment is selling alcohol, and the premises has to be licenced to sell alcohol. In the UK it's very trivial to get these things, you could open a pub/bar practically anywhere now. The government altered the way you go about getting a licence and made it very easy. We've seen a big trend in 'micro-pubs' popping up everywhere thanks to it.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/tees/hi/peo ... 379276.stm
http://www.itv.com/meridian-east/more-p ... sing38472/