The Arena - A new business thanks to all of you

[Mikee]

Hello, fellow RMXPers.

This is a topic I thought I should start to get some input from fellow gamers, creators, designers, and just the general public within the area. I work at Maverik. For those of you who aren't within my region of Wyoming and surrounding states, Maverik is a decent sized gas station chain that sells basically a bit of everything. I currently make $8.25 an hour and I work usually from 9 PM to 5 AM. The graveyard shift.... Oooh boy. This is definitely not what I thought I'd be doing at 20 years old. I thought for sure I'd be going to college by now, and be into some great game design school, on the verge of making millions. But... as everyone knows. It's not as easy as it seems.

My friend, Rob, whom I just met a few months ago, also works with me, making the same amount of money. He's retired from the Marine Corps and is now in the National Guard, to pay his bills. Him and I started talking.... This is our idea.

You can start reading here, if you'd like to skip my "poor me" introduction.

Rob and I were talking about how ridiculous the gas station chain is and how strict and absolutely pointless some of the rules are. We then began discussing how if WE ran a store, we'd do this and that differently. That's when it struck us both in that epiphany-like moment of silence with wide eyes and held breath. We needed to open a store. A coffee shop was the first idea. And then it was quickly shot down when Rob mentioned a place for kids to keep out of trouble.

(Keep in mind paragraph)
We live in a small town called Thayne Wyoming. It's actually a valley of close towns that make up Star Valley, Wyoming. All of the kids are bussed to one community High School near the center. Within this town, there is a small grocery store, a few gas stations (Maverik is the most used.) a few little diners, and a video store where you pay $4.00 to rent a movie for one night, or $6.00 to rent a video game (only original xbox, PS, and Gamecube) for one night. (Due back at 4 the next day.... ) If you wanted to buy ANYTHING to do with electronics, entertainment, video games, etc, you had to drive 2 and a half hours to Idaho Falls, where you'd find a mall, EB Games, Toys R Us, and everything else a decent sized city has.

Anyway....

Our plan is to create a lounge kind of business where we sell a bit of food, like, candy bars, chips, maybe a few other small packaged things, and have a soda fountain, with paper cups for a simple $.75 or something. Along with this, we'd set up 4 big screen tv's (At least for now) and system link X360's, Playstations (2 and possibly 3s) and Wii's. We'd also like to put up a few decent computers for internet browsing, and possibly a few online games, such as WoW, GuildWars, and other things that might come our way. Along with these gaming systems, that anyone can walk in and sit down to play, we'd be renting used video games (That we'd buy in huge bundles on eBay and other places, obviously)

The real money maker:
We'd sell membership cards, for as cheap as $20 a month, which will add points to your card that you can trade in for things like, new games, systems, and many other things. Along with these points, the cards would get you a memory card for either X360 or PS3 with a gamer profile. (X360 is the main focus here...) This profile would allow you to sign up for tournaments and other gaming events that would end in prizes like... Controllers, games, consoles, points, free food, and a lot of other random things we'd throw in every once in a while. Along with these tournaments, we'd allow customers to suggest more things, that we'd pin to the suggestion board (a big quark board on the wall) Eventually, we'd like to get people interested in things like WoW guilds, tabletop games, and my hopes is maybe even a decent RMXP/VX team.

Even more stuff:
We'd also look into card games where you'd basically gamble points instead of money. Not being able to cash the points in for actual cash, but in this town, a LOT of people play poker and other card games.
Another extremely popular past time is Pool/Billiards. We'd throw down $700 for a pool table or two and start tournaments there.

Overall goal:
The point of the place would be to get all of these kids with NOTHING to do off of the street, out of drugs and drinking, and into a place where they could fit in, have fun, and ultimately make friends. The two of us would be able to run the place alone for a long time, until we were on the verge of emotional breakdowns, and at that point, we could always hire an employee or two. The main output of money would be on renting the building/buying depending on loans grants and other stuff, (Which is a great possibility since Rob was/is in the military (great credit)) Electricity, powering computers, game consoles, and the heater (it gets down to 30 below in the winter here) The main source of income would be game rentals (which would also be either payed upfront for $6 a week, or on the membership card, and extra $15 for unlimited access to 2 games, that can be swapped for any others at anytime. Which kind of destroys GameFly out here.) food, and the membership cards.


I don't expect to become a millionaire off of the place, and I honestly don't think it will be easy to get started, or even keep running. Keeping the druggies, drunks, and thieves out will be difficult enough. All I hope to do is make more money than I'm making at Maverik, give the younger generations in the area something to do and somewhere to go, and eventually, enjoy working my dream job as my own boss.

Any input, ideas, suggestions, concerns, criticism, critiques, punches, questions, offers, help, or anything of any kind would be greatly appreciated. I understand that without knowing the community and economy of the area, it's difficult to know if this would work. But if anyone's tried this, or seen it done, or even fail, I'd like to hear about it. It's a big investment, and I don't want to be working at Maverik AND bankrupt because of the idea by the time I'm 21. Not my plan in life.

Thanks to anyone who read this entire post. You get two points.

 

[friend]

Whoa I've never thought of this before, good job.

I recommend you read how to start businesses books ( NOT GETTING A BETTER JOB OR SOMETHING ELSE ) and read.

I would give ya a tip I'm not sure whether it works but it's from Robert Kirosaki:
The reason why many people go poor YET have high-paying jobs is because they have no assets but have LOTS of liability.

Meaning, more money must come in that money going out.

Ok, back to your shop idea mate.
I really like how you can get the kids of the streets ( well in my country you rarely see these, cause the kids are all either sports experts or people sitting right at their computer. ) The truth is, I would like to visit there...
Membership sounds alright, but if your asking my country to buy the membership, never you think of it ( I think our 1 dollar is like 3-4 US )
But your targeting the locals, so it's considered "cheap" to them.

I'd suggest you think about this, will your company handle in recessions?
If yours wouldn't, find a way at this moment, well, ASAP.

And I was never fimiliar with the XBOX 360, never seen it IRL, never touched it, never seen how it is played. But I'm assuming it'll be like the PS.

What about having a class where people learn about RMXP? :P
The oldies can be potential makers ( seeing how many young children says their game is the best when they have less than 1 year experience :P )

Well, that's all I have to offer, peace mate.
:cheers:

Is it too unclear? Tell me, I'll revise it.

Good luck.

And remember to DONATE to the poor. :cute:

 

[thekingofmikes]

There is actually a place sorta like this a few towns away from where I am from... I hear advertisements on the radio about it all the time. They seem to be doing pretty good.
I have juggled ideas like this around in my head before, but never took it any further then just the idea.
The only criticism I have, is that $20.00 a month might be too much for some kids... Yeah sure, it doesn't seem like a lot, but some parents might not want to shell out the cash for their kids to hang out there. A bit sad, sense it is probably kids like this that are most at risk for the drugs, etc...


Anyway, There are plenty of grants out there, and low interest buisness loans, especially for veterans. I recommend doing your homework, and searching for a few on the net. I am sure if you look around, and do the research, you could start this up with little or no overhead... Teen centers are a value to the community, and more often then not people are willing to donate money or time to see these types of things get off the ground...

 

[SephirothSpawn]

You have to remember, supply and demand. If there isn't enough demand for what you are making, your business may fail. You will need to look into the cost of each month expenses (building rent, utility bills, licensing, insurance, staff, advertising, etc.), startup cost, and make an extreme underestimate of what you can expect to make each month, from your products.

Survey your town and surrounding towns. Some schools well let you do this, restaurants, etc. Make sure you have questions like how much would you spend on x, y and z a month? Yada yada yada.

You will need to probably get a load, which means you better have an organized demonstration on what your business is going to offer, and references to how the person is going to get their money back (unless you get a grant, and then no worries lol).

Lastly, is when a business starts up, it needs to have most of what it is going to have upon the grand opening. If you are hoping to add things later, your business will probably not do as well. People aren't going to spend money to build a business. They want a business to be built, then put their money in support of that business.

Just my thoughts on this.

 

[Venetia]

There's a place similar to that in Tampa actually. GameWorks.

Anyway, I think you'd need to build on it a little more. It looks like you don't have a whole lot of money going IN but you have a GIGANTIC start-up investment.

GameWorks here in Tampa, it caters to kids in the day, and adults at night. After like 7pm, the bars open. Lounges only flourish if you're providing booze atleast SOMETIMES. There are arcades and a restaurant and a bar at night, sometimes live music. It's pretty neat.

When you base a business around children, you're not going to get ANY money unless you aim it at their parents. Chuck E. Cheese makes money because they're offering cheap entertainment for the kids so the parents can take a load off. GameWorks makes money because they shift their business model towards something more adult in the late hours.
When it all comes down to it, your customers will be adults. Unless you're a not-for-profit organization, in which case, you'll just end up being like a rec center (and kiss the snacks/sodas goodbye, places focusing on kids are almost REQUIRED to sell healthy shit).


Anyway, you're only 20. In order to get a business loan, esp one of THAT size, will require some things. Banks like to see sparkling credit, first, and you have to have 7 years of credit history ATLEAST. You'll need to get a business mentor. They like to see a degree in Business. They like to see that you and/or your partner has experience in owning businesses, or that you come from a family who owned a profitable business. You have to have an EXTREMELY fine-tuned business model. You have to have a high line of credit and/or a large savings (for expenses not covered in the loan).

Everyone would be an entrepreneur if it were easy to get started!

When starting even a CHEAP business, like a small diner, expect anywhere from $70-$250k in start-up costs ALONE. And it takes months, sometimes YEARS, for a place to be profitable. Could you afford to pay for that loan during the time that you're not making any money?

 

[Mikee]

I don't have a whole lot of time to reply right now, but I'll give it a shot.

Venetia: The area I live in is a very small town, which is my biggest worry because there have been countless coffee places and such who have taken the dive here and been sold, rebought, sold, and rebought over and over, and just end up failing again. The main attractions in this town, especially for adults are the bars. We've got plenty of places for people to drink with live music, but they all cater to the 70's and 80's generations. My parents, and their parents. But there are so many teenagers stuck here, who just fall into that scene and end up doing nothing with their lives because they turn into drunks or drug addicts. That's why this business would be a great investment, and I think in such a small town, it wouldn't be too difficult to suggest a teen center to whoever we need to to get the business loan. Mainly because we honestly have no competition. A bowling alley is about 20 minutes away, but other than that, gas stations are where kids spend their time.

I won't ever fall into the alcohol option though. We have enough of that. And by turning this place into a bar, we lose all hope of calling it a teen center. However; poker, pool, and other types of entertainment focused on adults and gambling are a huge interest in the town. At nights, we would definitely open these options up for people. Hopefully those things would cater to adults and the kids would focus more on the video games, and other kinds of novelty stuff.

As far as opening this business with everything to offer, that's a great idea. If we started small, we'd lose a lot of interest right from the beginning. It's like starting a demo of a video game where all you can do is walk around in a field. I'm going to talk to Rob tonight and see if he wants to start compiling a list of outgoing and ingoing cash. See exactly what we're up against. Also... I'm thinking of getting a kind of petition thing going. More like a survey with a list of activities that would be possible. We'll send it around the highschool, bowling alley, and even the bars and get some input. Obviously if we don't get any feedback, or we don't get ENOUGH interest in the things we offer, then the business will fail. Cross your fingers.

Money will be an issue. Especially since I've only got three lines of credit, and I've only had them for 3 years or so. My grandfather however; has made millions by buying, building, and selling homes and property, and now he owns a multi-million dollar business online. I'd like to say that he'd help us out, but currently my aunt passed away leaving them 4 kids, (two are gymnasts, and if any of you know anything about serious gymnasts, then you know that it's VERY VERY expensive.) and the other two are extreme sports enthusiasts, meaning snowmobiles, motorbikes, and everything in between. On top of that, with USA being on the verge of a recession, he's slowly starting to watch his money a lot closer.

I'll keep you updated. Perhaps I'll throw the list we come up with on here, and the petition results. Thanks so much everyone for your input. Not only have you inspired me, but you've made me realize that it's not going to be a walk in the park in any way.

I appreciate the comments!

 

[Glitchfinder]

You might want to look into getting arcade games. Personally, I'd avoid the classic arcade, with a bunch of machines that you bought used and that will probably need work to mainatain. Instead, find someplace like arcadeinabox, and go with what they offer. You can even set up what looks like an arcade machine that, instead of playing pac-man, plays over a hundred different games! On the other hand, it seems like you might get a lot of business where. you are. Good luck!

 

[Mikee]

Thanks Glitch. There was an arcade in a neighboring town about fifteen years ago, but they went under because of drug deals and stuff going on in and around the place... We'll definitely have a sign saying that we don't need a reason to ask someone to leave. That way we can sift people out even if they ACT suspicious. Ya know?

Excellent idea though. I'm going to look into that.

 

[Mundane]

GameWorks was the shit. I haven't been in a couple years. The idea is great but I don't think it could work entirely well. You should look into the how to make the proper atmosphere for the lounge. If you you set up to much like a gamer lounge you might not get the kind of people for the other activities.

 

[Mikee]

Alright guys. We've done some hardcore revising for the idea.

I'm going to do a quick little business plan/store outline for you, and I've also got some favors to ask. Critique this for me.


When you first walk into the store, you'll see a kind of lobby in front of you. A few chairs here and there. But mainly, you'll see racks and racks filled with not only the next gen console titles, but with old gen titles including hard to find games, like FF7, Secret of Mana, and many other very popular games from systems like SNES, N64, PS, PS2, Some Sega platforms, (Dont' know much about them...) Xbox, and more. Next, on the shelves, you'll see a wide variety of PC games for sale. At a decent price at that. Next, there will be a rack filled with books, cards, and other board game paraphernalia, for things like... Dungeons and Dragons, Magic the Gathering, Pokemon, Yugio (Don't know much... sorry) Heroscape, Mage Knight, and maybe some DnD miniatures or even Warhammer stuff. Not a whole lot, but basically starter kits for each and a few expansion things. Just enough to hit every kind of gamer. Next, above the counter in front of you, you'll see two television screens. On the left, you'll see a screen with several different boxes for spectator viewing (I'll explain later) and on the right, you'll see more boxes for Xbox/PS3/Wii tournaments that are either currently going on, or that have been recently played and recorded. To the right of those, you'll see a large full wall length quark board with names on it with a rank next to it. Each rank will have a certain amount of points needed to obtain, and along with each rank, the player/competitor/member gets a patch (Rob is in the National Guard, so they'll be professional grade ranking patches. Woot!) Just a simple way to show off the best of the best.
To the left and right of you are two doors and large glass windows that allow you to peer into to decent sized rooms filled with couches, chairs, bean bags, or whatever else we find. On one side of the room will be a large flatscreen tv with several different consoles hooked up to it, playable by members at anytime. (Two rooms make system linked console tournaments a great possibility. We'd like to do 4 consoles, all system linked, for larger tourneys, but the building only has 2 offices at the moment. Maybe a divider and making two more doors would help, or just a curtain and a tv on opposite sides of the room. We'll see...)

Behind the counter are two different hallways. The right hallway leads to a storage room, but before that is a small kind of lounge room where tabletop games, arcade systems (Thanks to a certain suggestion on here) a pool table, or perhaps an air hockey, or even darts would be located.
The right hallway leads to a warehouse in the back. Now, when we first found the building we wanted to rent, we looked at each other in question, trying to decide what in the hell we'd do with 2400 sq ft. Then we realized that 1000 of it was a warehouse in back. That gave us an idea. We've decided to build a replica of the "villa" map (The most popular) in Rainbow Six for X360. It will have two stories (Which the warehouse already has) and will be completely paintball ready/friendly. Paintball will be open for general play 7 days a week, but on weekends from certain times, ranked tournaments will be held allowing players to earn 5 points a kill, and after a certain amount of points, they will rank up on the wall in front. They also gain points playing the console tournaments, but closer to 1 point a kill, making the console games harder to rank on, but then again... easier to rank on due to the fact that it's easier to kill an enemy in halo than in a real game of paintball. (There may end up being two separate walls with two separate ranks for console gamers, and paintball enthusiasts. Maybe even some sort of system for tabletoppers and so on...)

(This idea needs some feedback please)

Next, you'll approach the counter. The cashier will ask you if you have your member's card, and if you don't, then he'll ask you to fill out a form. You choose from Bronze, Silver, or Gold membership cards. The bronze membership is free, silver is $25 a month, and gold is $50 a month. (I'd like to rename the memberships to something more interesting like... Grunt, Warrior, and Elite or something like that. Any suggestions would be very very welcome!)

No membership includes:
Paintball - $10 per person/20 minutes. (All day passes can be bought for $100 per person.
Paintball gear rentals - Standard gear rental pricing. Probably around $5 for the helmet, and an extra $3 for other gear (shirts, pants, etc.)
Paintballs - (I don't know the average price yet, so I'm not so sure yet. But it'll be the normal price.)

Bronze membership includes: - Free
Paintball - The same as no membership
Paintball tournament eligibility - $20 per person to enter a tournament
Paintballs - Standard price
Console playtime - Able to play a general game on any of the consoles set up in the game rooms at any time at no cost.
Console tournaments - $10 per person to enter a console tournament, no matter how big or small. (This is mainly to cover the cost of any broken controllers, or other console problems. Scratched games, lost/stolen controllers, etc.)
Game rentals - $1 per day for up to one weeks for any game currently available. You can choose any game available and keep it for UP to 2 weeks. After the one, you'll be charged a late fee, which could be up to $3 a day, and after two weeks, your account will be charged the cost of the game, most likely $60. (There are a lot of troublemakers in the town we live in... gotta play it safe.) Also, we're considering a suspension from rentals and console interaction for up to three months if a game is stolen or lost in this way.
If we don't have a game you want, you can fill out a card and we'll find and order the game so you can rent it as soon as it comes in. (Unless the game is impossibly hard to find, too expensive, or so unpopular that we'd be losing money. We'll siphon through the requests)

Silver Membership includes: - $25/month
Paintball - Same as no membership
Paintball gear rentals - The helmet comes with the silver package. Extra gear is the standard $3.
Paintballs - Standard price
Console playtime - Unlimited, same as bronze.
Console Tournaments - $5 per person to enter a console tournament. Team tourney's only pay $15 for a 4-man team. (even if the entire team has silver memberships, only one of them can enter the team, and only that one gets the $5 discount.
Game rentals - Free for up to TWO weeks for any one game currently availabe.

Gold Membership includes: - $50/month
Paintball - $5 per person/20 minutes $75 for the whole day pass
Paintball gear rentals - All rentals are free. (This can include the gun and protection)
Paintballs - Buy one get one price.
Console playtime - Unlimited, same as Bronze and Silver.
Console Tournaments - $5 per person to enter a console tournament. Team tourney's only pay $10 for a 4-man team, $5 for a 2-man team. (Even if the entire team is gold membership, only one person can enter the team, and only that one gets the $10 discount.)
Game rentals - Free for up to TWO weeks for any TWO games currently available.


Game rental notes: Just like gamefly, but faster, if you bring in a game you don't like, beat, are bored with, or for ANY other reason, you can swap it for another and renew the rental period of one or two weeks depending on the membership.
The reason for the rental time, we decided, was because we don't want a mass quantity of each game. Perhaps only two or three of each title, and more of the most popular or new titles. If the game is rented for six months and someone has been waiting, we'd probably lose a customer. So a one or two week rental period seems to be a good time per game. Obviously, if the game isn't being asked for, you can bring it in, we'll check the requests, and if you're clear, then you can take it for another week or two depending on your membership card.

The point system: Everything you do in the store earns you points. You spend the points just like cash, and if you want, you can spend cash to get the points.
There are two types of points:
House Points: These points are gained by spending money in the store.
Kill Points: These points are gained by competing in tournaments. Paintball or console.
To earn Kill points:
5 points per kill in Paintball tournaments (general games are not ranked, and do not give points.)
1 point per kill in console tournaments (general games are not ranked, and do not give points. Some titles may give more or less points depending on the difficulty, and the owners' judgment)
Kill points CAN be spent, but a total point score will be saved to determine the ranking of the competitor.
To earn House points:
1 point will be given for every $5 spent in the store. Be it on card games, board games, books, game rentals, or even just playing cards.
House points CAN be spent, but a total will not be recorded. House points will not attribute to the rank of competitors. House points and kill points can be combined, or used separately to spend.

Point redemption:
1 point: 1 token for the arcade, pool table, air hockey, and perhaps the vending machines.)
20 points: 5% off of an in-store purchase.
50 points: 20% off of an in-store purchase.
100 points: $10 gift card for in-store purchases.

10 house points: 1$ off next purchase.

100 Kill points: Free console tournament entry (voids silver and gold entry discounts)
500 Kill points: Free paintball round or free pointball tournament entry.



Favors to be asked:

We need a name. Our only ideas have led us to...

The _____ Arena - Gulp... we need suggestions in the worst way.

We also need a graphic, logo, or design. We want to make some t-shirts and such, mainly for us and employees, or some to sell and such.

We definitely need ideas. Mainly, we're looking for a way to entertain the female audience as well. Not that I'm saying women don't like video games, but a lot of them around here don't. My girlfriend suggested computers with internet access.... That wouldn't be too hard to rig up.
We're also going to start hitting google for some grants. I know you can get them to start business', but I don't know where or how. But I'm guessing since this is mainly a teen center, and a place to get kids off the street and out of the bars, that we could find something. Unless we have to conform to some crazy ass fruit and veggie standards, then we might look more toward loans. We'll see what happens. Any suggestions would be nice though. If anyone has been down this road before.

I'm also considering taking some business courses in the nearby online community college deal. It's like $200 for a three week course, and if I take the next two after it, I can eventually get an associates in it. Which would look GREAT compared to my degreeless ass right now. Rob is also switching from web design to business. He's more excited than I am I think... lol

OH! That reminds me. We need a website. It doesn't need to be up right now, but we're definitely looking for web designers. The most complex part of the site will be signing up for tourneys and such. Meaning that we don't need to be ordering anything. And you'll pay the tourney fee on the day of the tourney, but to register a team and such it would be really nice to have a page on the website where you fill out your team name, your name, your team size, the games you play, and a bunch of other info we're still working on.

If anyone is interested in designing this. I think we've got a few hundred bucks in the budget if it looks WAY sweet. : ) If that's not enough then we can talk after a decent demo of the site is done and working.




Alright guys. Sorry that was SOOO damn long. I'm sure I forgot a LOT of stuff, but I'll probably be posting a less complicated revised version sometime in the next few days. Tomorrow we're going to go dicker with the people who own the building we want. Hopefully they don't mind us splattering paint all over their walls and drilling holes for surround sound everywhere. XD We'll see what happens!!

Cross your fingers everyone. This is really starting to become a reality.


Thank you!

 

[Mikee]

Hey everyone, here's another little update.

I printed off 20 copies of a poll for the store yesterday and brought them to work to hand out. We handed out 19 and then made four more copies. Two we're keeping to make MORE copies of, one we gave away, and another we sent to get even more copies of with a co-worker who is also really excited about our idea. She's still in high school which means that it'll hit the teenage population like a hurricane. Hopefully.

Most of the polls that went out stated that people ALL wanted to do the paintball, and a LOT of people played Call of Duty on X360 and Halo 3. Rob is a huge fan of Rainbow Six, which I've never even played, but like me, not many people are fans of it. But we'll still be incorporating it into the tourneys.

We've also decided to start writing up our business plan so we can get a business license, which we've learned isn't very tough to get around here. My uncle has one so he can inspect new homes before they're sold, and he only pays $25 a year. The two of us would probably pay up to $100, I doubt it would be more. We'll see.

I've pulled a few simple graphics together for advertisements and a logo. We've also decided on the name unless something much cooler just hits us and we can't do without it.

Here are the graphics:

The red splatter affect behind the title on the below image will probably eventually end up on the actual logo. It adds a nice theme I think.

Critiques would be cool!

 

[alaiin]

I personally think that it's too violent-looking. Most parents who see that will try to stop their kids from going - the background image, in particular, makes it look like a cult of gun-worshippers or something. Well, it actually depends how conservative it is around there.

 

[Mikee]

Well your right. But over 80% of the town hunts deer,elk, etc. So i'll tone it down a bit. Thanks.

Maybe I'll just take the background out.

 

[SolstICE]

don't recommend game rentals or selling new games part. not lot of money in them. too much risk too. some of rest of idea is great if theres a market for

start small see what works and branch out like growing tree. whoever said marketing to parents instead of kids is smart too unless theres a tons of bored teens in town. you need parents support to pay for kids memberships. might be easy if keeps them from other bad stuff in town and maybe under 25$ plans

 

[Mega Flare]

dude the first thing you should do... is figure out how many KIDS live in your town first... Also i don't see why kids or teens would go some were to play video games.... cause i bet most of them will have the game systems at home

 

[Mikee]

@ SolstICE: Actually, to get games, rent or buy, you have to drive 2 hours through two feet of snow so you can get to Idaho Falls. The closest thing to game rentals here is a little video store, but they only rent movies. The games aspect is going to be a huge selling point for younger kids. And that's where the "selling to the parents" idea comes in. I work at Maverik (A gas station) and last night we made it a point to ask everyone who looked to be from 15 to 20 what they do on friday nights. We asked over fifty kids and most of them said they go get drunk. The others said nothing. The game lounge, with tournaments, computers with internet access and other stuff like that SHOULD hopefully lure some of these kids in. And maybe their parents would be thankful that they had somewhere alcohol and drug free, along with a great environment that they could go to keep them out of trouble.

Also, we're already beginning to develop some really great ideas for the rental system. We're mainly going to buy a ton of games from eBay in bulk so we don't have to worry about losing brand new games. We'll buy brand new ones later one, but we won't rent them out to just anyone. They'll have to have a certain membership to rent from the "new releases" rack. That way they'll already be paying and we'll have their credit card info most likely so if they DO lose or damage the game, or just steal it, we can just charge them on the spot for the game. They won't like it, but we're offering one hell of a deal here. If they screw us over, we'll do the same.

UPDATE: The memberships were set WAY too high. Thanks to everyone who pointed that out. We've changed gold to $30 a month and silver to $15 (possibly $20 at a later date) These will be adjusted as we see fit, depending on what the reaction is from customers, and how many people change their mind when they find out how much it is.

@Mega Flare: Well I moved here when I was in second grade, about 8 years old, so I went to high school here, and just graduated in 06. There are plenty of gamers, and if they aren't gamers, then they play paintball, or hunt. Where we don't offer anything to hunt, obviously, paintball is the next best thing. We're also calling in some of Rob's National Guard friends to come "decorate" the warehouse for paintball. We'll give them a bit of a discount for helping us out. They'll put in places for training their recruits and such. Places like, doors, corridors, and so on for military tactics, like breaching and clearing doors. And a lot of other stuff. So that takes care of the ones who don't have game systems.

Next, if a kid DOES own a game system, they'll be coming here quite often to try new games, play with friends, or enter the tournaments. When you offer Xbox 360 Elite systems, you're bound to draw quite a crowd. Aside from that, we also plan to rent old console hits too, Snes, Nes, 64, Ps1, 2, gamecube, Sega, and many other things. Our main plan is to attract anyone who's interested in any kind of gaming system. Including PC. We'll set up house accounts for World of Warcraft and Guild Wars, maybe even Everquest and so on. We're just giving them something beside trouble to get into.

I'm sure there are at least 1000 kids in the valley who would be interested in this in one way or another. And even if they just came in to hang out, we'd at least make a buck off of them at the vending machines.

Thanks for the concern.

I'll keep you updated. We're in the process of trying to get a tour of the building, and finding grants before we go try for a loan. Wish us luck!

 

[Glitchfinder]

One suggestion: Laser Tag. It may be a pain to get a good system, but, once in place, it will most certainly be worth it. Laser tag is much more difficult to find than a paintball range, usually easier to play, and it can usually be played by a larger age range than paintballers. Plus, lasers don't hurt you nearly as much as painballs occasionally can.

 

[LegacyCrono]

Before even thinking on what services you'll offer at your store, you should first consider looking for a location. Sounds like you'll need a HUGE place to run that store, so it'll be very expensive.

@Glitchfinder:
Oh, long ago I had a (very cheap) Laser Tag kit... It's really preety fun to play, and really cheaper than paintball. I'm brazilian, and paint balls are expensive here. The Laser Tag kits uses batteries and lasts much longer. :wink:

By the way, how are you planning to pay for all this stuff? I mean, you need to worry with your budget. Are you going to pay it yourselves?

EDIT: Oh yeah. You you could try selling your own RPG Maker games there! :tongue:

SEE YA!!!!!

 

[Mikee]

Well....

We went and got some quotes for a few of the buildings we were looking at. The place we really wanted was TWELVE THOUSAND DOLLARS A MONTH. I talked to my aunt about it. She's a realestate agent here, and she told me that that price was absolutely ridiculous. She said that a place that size is maybe worth $3,000/month. So that place is out of the question. The other place we wanted doesn't have enough room for laser tag/paintball/airsoft but it has plenty of room for game rentals and tourny's. I don't know if this is going to work out though.

We got tons of interest for the paintball, but the games fell way short of what we thought they'd be. Out of 100 surveys, we got 90 saying they'd love paintball. And maybe 40 about the video games. It wasn't a very good ratio.

Aside from that.... I just got an offer from a band back in St. George for a lead singer position. It's one of those opportunities that I know I'll regret if I don't go.

I don't really know what to do though... SOMEONE HELP! Rob really wants to do this thing, but I'm really starting to have second thoughts because people want so much money for the places around here, and I don't want to be paying a loan for $2 mil off for the next 60 years after this place goes under. it would have worked if the lease wasn't so damn expensive. I don't know....

Any advice?

 

[candle]

If they want that much, then chances are it has either been vacant for a while, or nothing has been able to stay long in that location. If you can get your aunt to talk to them, you might be able to get them to lower the price considerably once they realize a lower price allows a business to stay in the building longer, and thus pay more in the long run. Also, see if utilities are included in that.