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On September 10 2010 06:07 mangina wrote:I'm Korean and I was born/grew up in New York my whole life (Bayside - Flushing Queens). The neighborhood I grew up in is very diverse too. There have been internet cafes around where I live. A lot come and go. They really don't have a stable business. There was once a place called Game Zone Cafe near where I lived. You can purchase beverages/snacks/pastries and ask for a controller and you can sit down and play a console game. Using the PC's were expensive (like $7 dollars an hr) but were high quality at the time. Recently, this summer, I got to go to Korea with my girlfriend. We stayed in pc rooms time to time. They are much cleaner, cheaper, and more friendlier in Korea. In New York, you have these very punkish kids coming to pc rooms to play. In Korea, you have little elementary kids coming at 7pm to play bubbling looking games, like kart rider and maple story. A lot of Koreans play Aion. The pc rooms are sometimes separated as smoking/non-smoking sections. They even serve snacks which is nice. Prices are cheaper in Korean RELATIVE to the USA. An hr would cost 1000 won, nearly a dollar (~$.80 USD). Now, answering your question.... 1. I believe I can see an Internet Cafe being successful in America. But EXTREMELY hard. Internet Cafe's in Korea work well for a few reasons. The amount of area in Korea is packed. The stores and homes all tightly packed to each other but with lots of people passing by. You will literally see two of the same bakery on the same side of the street. Property is expensive in Korea because of its limited land and growing populations. Most local pc rooms are actually a part of someone's house/apartment. The good thing, theyre open 24 hrs. Night life in Korea is active, but in America, its kinda dead :T People and places aren't so packed in America with so much land. New York City, though, is packed, but property/land is EXTREMELY expensive :T It would be hard to have a successful Internet Cafe in America. 2. Cafe owners here aren't finding the right place to set up an Internet Cafe. Again, finding the right place requires a lot of people, a nice environment of people (like in Korea with kids and adults), and most good places with a lot of people cost a lot :T Internet Cafe's have to be cheap, which would give people the incentive to come, pay, and play with friends. Even arcades, Tekken 6 has been a growing trend in Korea recently. Because of the price and number of people Tekken 6 arcade machines are too expensive and wont bring enough revenue in American Arcades. Playing Tekken 6 in Korea only cost 300 won (~$.28). For me, playing Tekken 6 at a nearby arcade (Peter Pan Gaming) just costs $.50. So if an Hr in Korea is 1000 won ($.80), then proportionally, an Hr in America should be nearly $1.60~1.70. (this is just one perspective of looking at pricing). If an Internet Cafe charged $1.60~1.70 an hr, I would have the incentive to pay and go! Sadly, in America, you wont be able to continue a successful business with just charging $1.60~1.70 an hr :T It wont bring enough money. If you have an questions that you want to ask me, I'm more than willing to answer 
Can't believe I missed this post, but he is spot on.
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There's a pc cafe within walking distance of my house and I used to go quite regularly when I was younger. The only negative thing I've noticed with american PC cafe's (I've been to about four and it's the same in each one) is the young counter-strike crowd. Noisy, rude, obnoxious 12 year olds who just learned the F word. Fortunately they can be somewhat avoided by either going early or late in the day.
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I don't see internet cafes ever taking off in America, especially since computer technology is progressing at such ridiculous rates. Moreso now than ever, rather powerful gaming rigs can be built at relatively low costs.
A few months ago I helped my roommate build a computer from scratch that runs SC2 on high for only 500 dollars. At such low costs, why would someone go to a cafe, even if they have 3000 dollar gaming rigs?
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it's just a different culture.
Playing video games here = nerd/geek
In asia playing video games = cool/gangsta
Pretty sure rent in Asia can be equal or more expensive than NYC in some places, but there isn't enough demand for them. You can open a really nice internet cafe here in the middle of NYC renovated nicely and shit and it'll be empty half the time, there just isn't enough people interested.
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On September 10 2010 05:53 Steelflight-Rx wrote:
its just not in our culture to view video games as a social device, unless ur bro'in out with the bros playing madden or some shit like that
Sad, true and you made it funny as hell.
bro
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i think one of the biggest issue is culture.
Asians like to hangout at PC bars like Americans hang out at bars. Asian countries have alot higher concentration of population so PC bars get a much larger crowd. when i was in HK, on a busy day, I can hardly find a seat at a PC bar.
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United States3824 Posts
On September 10 2010 05:41 ppont wrote:Show nested quote +On September 10 2010 05:22 rgfdxm wrote:
some semi-uninformed guesses:
1. USA has much lower population density than Asia. This applies much less in some of the coastal urban areas, but generally this means smaller potential markets for each location.
2. This one is more conjecture based on things I've read, but I think the US households much more commonly have desktop computers. Home PCs were invented here and Microsoft's massive marketing campaign in the 90s with Windows 95 etc led very quickly to the median household having one.
Also, and I don't know if this applies as much for Korea, but I've read that in Japan, culturally computers are viewed more as an appliance and so gaming on computers as opposed to dedicated (console) systems is even more of a niche market. I think this is pretty much limited to Japan, with Nintendo as the big factor. What I don't understand is why people in Korea go to PC Bangs when SC1 runs on pretty much any computer.
Boxer says his mom would yell at him.
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Here in italy, internet cafè probably won't ever have success. Even the few that are opened are more of a "mixed" type of internet cafè where you still can drink and eat at the tables and hang out with your friends, and there always free spots at the pcs. I guess people prefer to play soccer or drink here, dunno. Personally i'd never go to one of those, but i'm a bit too old for such things anyway so my judgment is not affidable.
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On September 10 2010 05:41 ppont wrote:Show nested quote +On September 10 2010 05:22 rgfdxm wrote:
some semi-uninformed guesses:
1. USA has much lower population density than Asia. This applies much less in some of the coastal urban areas, but generally this means smaller potential markets for each location.
2. This one is more conjecture based on things I've read, but I think the US households much more commonly have desktop computers. Home PCs were invented here and Microsoft's massive marketing campaign in the 90s with Windows 95 etc led very quickly to the median household having one.
Also, and I don't know if this applies as much for Korea, but I've read that in Japan, culturally computers are viewed more as an appliance and so gaming on computers as opposed to dedicated (console) systems is even more of a niche market. I think this is pretty much limited to Japan, with Nintendo as the big factor. What I don't understand is why people in Korea go to PC Bangs when SC1 runs on pretty much any computer.
You must be kidding. You think every Korean plays bw?
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On September 10 2010 05:08 Hakker wrote:
I've always wanted to open an internet cafe in my area because the city i live in is between Greenwich and Darien Connecticut, which are 2 of the wealthiest suburbs in the world
They will buy their own Pc's.
I can't imagine young Frederick the II asking James to bring the car around so that he may travel down to his local internet café.
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Hmmmmmm, the cultural argument aside, the initiation of the internet cafe culture more prevalent in Asia is probably due to slow internet (its still holds true today in msia =.= ). You wouldn't want one player to disconnect while ur playing a 4v4 BGH map or CS with ur friends. and there's no such thing as LAN Parties here (specifically where everybody brings their desktops to 1 person's house)
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I live near an area heavily populated by Asians and there are heaps of internet cafes that are almost always full. Almost all my friends are addicted to them. XD
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I recently just went to a PC Bang/Restaurant/Bar/Console gaming/Mini Golf sort of place in Kittery, Maine. I'm not too sure how busy it is during the weekend, I'd imagine it's pretty decently busy, but I can see how risky it can be to run this type of business. If they did not have all the food and variety of entertainment, it'd be very difficult to keep the business up.
PC Bangs in America in my opinion seem to me like a good way to just improve on yourself rather than socialize like in a Korean PC Bang, but that's just my impression from visiting a PC Bang during the weekdays during school and work hours lol. I'll have to visit again during the weekend and see if there's any other fellow PC bang goers.
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In Korea, they like to play together, next to each other and interact. Since it's not expensive, they'll come after school and play. I saw a group of high school/middle school kids in korea, come in, and start playing brood war, while I was playing sc2 beta on the side, ALONE T.T
Its pretty much the same in stockholm here in sweden we have like 3-4 Internet cafés but only one that is really good --> www.infernoonline.com , i believe thats the link , and also the owner of that place is the manager or coach of SK gaming if i recall correctly. Lots of people are there after 14:00 cause all the small kids go there to play COD and such games but at weekends during the day kids are there and over the nights the more mature people are there atleast 16 years +.
If you want to become a big Internet café like that one i think you need to be at a location with lots of people and ofc you will have to make some kind of announcement so people will know it exists.
at inferno it costs 20kr/h and 100kr for a "nightgibb" which is 23:00-09:00 on weekends. They have tournaments during the Nightgibbs and such.
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its because people in asia even if they had the best gaming pc in their house, they will still hangout with friends in lan cafe to socialize.
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I don't know about America, but there are plenty in the two Canadian cities I've lived in (Toronto and Vancouver), but they still tend to be around the areas where there are a lot of Asians and of course their popularity is not close what it is in Korea. Nevertheless, they exist and have a niche market and is no-doubt been expanding as of recent.
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Hm...
I don't know where the next Internet Café is in switzerland.
I don't know where the next arcrade/game-place is in switzerland.
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In America, do you think catering to a slightly older clientèle might be more profitable?
Perhaps providing the standard service of some PCs and a few consoles with some HD screens, along with serving liquor/pub food?
Would these two in combination be asking for bad news? Or do you think it would be a more sociable place for the twenty-somethings that want to go out and socialize, but dont really do the "club" thing. It seems to me like those who don't like to socialize purely to socialize would rather have some gaming with friends to chill out and have a few beers.
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Ok noticed a few aussies have responded but the answers have been short. I think I'll give our perspective because we sound like one of the few western cultures where it is/has been viable to run a net cafe.
I live in Sydney, and since 2000 net cafes have more or less flourished in the inner city. The suburbs also have their mix but obviously there are less. Because of our appalling internet connections here net cafes were very popular early on. They then experienced a glut as more and more opened and conversely, as broadband services became cheaper, their demand shrunk. Many folded but a fair few have survived. Some of those that survived, now with fewer competitors, are still very busy.
An interesting thing happened around 06 when a popular net cafe was raided by the Australian Federal Police (AFP) for having pirated copies of movies and TV shows on their computers. All net cafes had started doing this as a way to continue to attract business, with decent success. The AFP had decided to make an example of one of the worst offenders (although given the number of movies and shows the net cafe I frequented had, it's hard to imagine how much worse it could have been anywhere else) and they were duly prosecuted and fined, but remained open. They are still around to do this day. What did change though, (for a time) was that all the remaining net cafes had to remove illegally downloaded movies etc off their comps.
These days the net cafes that remain have a distinctly more asian flavour. All the net cafes in the inner city have traditionally been run by Koreans and Chinese, however they usually had a mix of clientele: from european backpackers and young gamers to international students. These days the cafes that seem most crowded are the one's that have been opened recently, tucked away in back alleys and frequented almost exclusively by Asian gamers and those living over here on working visas and who mightn't have access to a computer. The ones that used to be more popular on the main streets have either closed or seem to be just scraping by.
For reference, prices are around $2.50/hr. All serve snacks/noodles and the one's that cater almost exclusively to asians have better service.
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One thing that seem to help or at least did help start those cafe in Korea, is that most of the game they play were free to play or you would have to pay for you account. This make starting the cafe cheaper for the owner, they could afford low prices and then people got used/addicted to going to those pcbang.
It's pretty much the opposite here in North America, the only time i went to PCcafe around in High School when we had long time with nothing to do, so mostly during the exams week, when you finish your day in the morning, but you live to far to go back home, so you have to wait for the bus... anyways those computer would have around 10-15 payed games installed on them. Unless the owner got some kind of discount because he bought many keys, this is a huge investment.
I don't see myself going to place much, the only thing good about it is being with your friends, but for that we just get everyone to bring their computer to ones place and just drink and play video games.
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EPT
