Opening an Arcade

[Cronson]

How hard is it to open an arcade? How much start up cash do you need? What are common problems arcade owners run in to? Can an arcade be profitable?

I'm hoping someone on Racketboy has some experience with this. Do we have any arcade owners on here?

[fast]

Look into your local laws and taxes for coinoperated machines. I know in my area they spiked to something insane in the mid 90s and caused many of the arcades to close down.

[nickfil]

i would only ever open an arcade if you had another source of income.

I'm all for the passion of the arcade, but they don't really make money anymore.

[MrPopo]

How hard is it to open an arcade?

Some of that depends on your local business laws, and some of that is the financial and time investment to intially get up a space that you can step back and say "this is an arcade".

How much start up cash do you need?

Price of cabs (you can either buy or lease), price of change machines (those are probably leased), rent on the building, potentially staff salary, and then the money spent on making the space fit with the look you want (painting, carpet, etc). And that's assuming you're going for a straight arcade with no ticket games, which add additional costs.

What are common problems arcade owners run in to?

Machine maintenance. Unruly customer. Getting people interested enough to come and play.

Can an arcade be profitable?

They can, but it's hard. You first need to be in the right area that has enough people that would even be interested in an arcade. Then you need a good selection of games that is tailored to the tastes of your clientel.

[Xonticus]

In today's day and age, simply putting in an arcade might not suffice unfortunately... you might hafta have either a retro theme, added drink bar (non-alcoholic depending on target audience) or some other thing to keep people staying and coming back for more. Be creative!

[Cronson]

These guys know what's up. http://www.barcadebrooklyn.com/

I wonder if the way to succeed is to cater to the crowd who grew up on arcades, serve beer and food with lots of arcade cabs to play on.

[randombullseye]

Before he passed away my brother owned a small arcade. I used to go there every day and play the arcade games, but it seemed mostly that people wanted to shoot pool or play Air Hockey. I was the only one who wanted to play pinball and fighting games. And altered beast. That should give you an idea of what year all this was going on. It was awesome to play there. Primal Rage, area 51, adams family pinball, and a few fighting games. Later on he got another place with more games, but I only went maybe once. It was a lot more like a REAL arcade, with lots of fighting games and several cabinets with gimmicks. Claw machines, racing games, that sort of stuff.

I don't know anything about his finances though.

I recall him having some trouble with the pool tables. They attract assholes on occasion, which means fighting and arguing and at worse weapons. I recall a story where someone pulled a pistol once, over a game of pool.

This post makes me miss my brother.

[NotBlaine]

I'll start with what I usually tell people when this topic comes up...

I wouldn't suggest it.

If you love arcade games, just buy some old cabinets and restore them. An arcade is usually a money losing venture.

Now if you still want to do it, here's some links to check out:

http://arcadeheroes.com/

Which is a blog written by a guy who started his own arcade, he has a lot of details of the process.
http://arcadeheroes.com/page/2/?s=Game+Grid

http://gamegridarcade.com/

[BigTinz]

Extremely hard. Trust me.

If you open one up and are still open in a year....well, you win the internet.

[Luke]

Bad Idea Jeans.

Not trying to come off as cocky, but facts are facts. I got my MBA a few years ago, and although I've only been a marketing consultant for four years, I know a bad idea when I hear one.

I hate to be a Debbie Downer, but unless you have a few hundred thousand dollars somewhere around that you're not afraid to lose, it's a no go. Just look at the arcade market. In the U.S, it's almost non-existent, and that's for a reason. Consoles slowly killed the arcade business. Getting a loan to fund start up costs would be extremely difficult, as it would be close to impossible to conduct a proper industry/market sector analysis that would be needed to persuade a bank or the government for a small business loan.

Plus, the gaming companies are working against you. They're way more interested in the production and selling of console games than making cabinet games, which they should be. Less cost, more profit. Makes sense.

In order for an arcade to be profitable, and to be financially sustainable in the current market, you'd have to do things drastically different from past arcades. Dave and Busters is fairly successful at changing the idea of what an arcade is, and that is what you would have to do. But keep in mind that D&B is a multi-million dollar machine backed by well-off investors. I'd love to see an arcade where all the games bring something to the table that you can't do with console games. Bring back games like Super Hang-On and Afterburner, but add more realism to them. Every flight game at an arcade should have a cockpit you sit in, buckle up, and allow for complete 360 degree movement. Racing games should put you in a model car, with screens surrounding every window. But, like I said earlier, most game companies aren't focused on that.

Sorry, but in short, unless you have a groundbreaking idea with a ton of financial support, consider the arcade dead.