LaudJohn wrote:What about a computer server networked to individual computers in rooms throughout a complex so 20 kids could play the same or different games in their rooms instead of sleeping?

What you planning on opening? Sounds like it's going to be a scaled down version of Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch!

Rama wrote:

LaudJohn wrote:What about a computer server networked to individual computers in rooms throughout a complex so 20 kids could play the same or different games in their rooms instead of sleeping?

What you planning on opening? Sounds like it's going to be a scaled down version of Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch!

Do you have a monkey, perchance?

Funny you should ask. In fact my neighbor has got a supply of monkeys. If LaudJohn needs one I could ask?

Rama wrote:Funny you should ask. In fact my neighbor has got a supply of monkeys. If LaudJohn needs one I could ask?

Oh, he'll definitely need a monkey if he's setting up MichaelJacksonLand...

Honestly LJ, why would you even want to venture into a type of business which you know nothing about? How will you know which games to purchase on an ongoing basis? How do you plan on keeping up-to-date on current trends?

You always seem to be thinking of business ideas in the Kingdom, but you should probably stick to some who are within your realm of expertise and interests. By that I mean ideas or things you know a thing or two about. Things which you are actually passionate about. You don't necessarily need to know much about games to invest in a game center, but you shouldn't be asking about setting one up here. Makes you look totally clueless. Give me your money and I guarantee I'll find a wiser investment for you. If you're just a shrewd investor who wants to make money, then you should have a manager who breathes this shit day in and day out. Or at least hire someone to help you set it up effectively. I know a guy who recently lost a bit of cash on a similar game center (it was advertised on K440). He knew games... Maybe he didn't have the right business approach but at least he knew which computers and consoles to buy. Which games people were interested in etc.

I'm really not the type to put down other people's investment ideas, the Debbie-downer who says: "You'll never make it!". But this is kind of weird. You're not asking what games to buy for your son, you're asking about how to set up a type of business which you clearly know nothing about. Have you analyzed the market? Who is your target clientele? Which games are they most interested in? What bandwidth will they need? What processing power and video cards will you need? And so on and so forth... Sorry to rain on your parade.

Actually if you're looking for a money spinner, there's a place on the Goldcoast in Australia that has a networked racing game / VR (sort of) simulator, it has eight pods that are linked, I believe the pods have force feedback movement. They charge a bucket for an hour of racing, and do lock-out sessions for parties, never seem short of customers. Might be the new big thing for cashed up Khmer kids. Cut me in for 5% of turnover if you make a go of it, I'll do your tech support!

StroppyChops wrote:Actually if you're looking for a money spinner, there's a place on the Goldcoast in Australia that has a networked racing game / VR (sort of) simulator, it has eight pods that are linked, I believe the pods have force feedback movement. They charge a bucket for an hour of racing, and do lock-out sessions for parties, never seem short of customers. Might be the new big thing for cashed up Khmer kids. Cut me in for 5% of turnover if you make a go of it, I'll do your tech support!

I had the high score on Daytona as a high schooler. Never been a good driver though.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daytona_USA_(video_game)


But seriously LJ. If you want to run pc gaming your overheads will be far too high to make it sustainable. Gaming pc's cost a lot and become legacy very quickly. Also for online gaming using steam or origin you need licensed games per pc. Some games are popular for a year or two and some fizzle in a couple of months. Also you would need to look at the latency to the closest servers. Bad pings make online gamers cry...

A long time ago I was quite active in Australia's online gaming community. From the original Doom through to the death of RTCW in 2004. Our team even had sponsorship... sadly we were generally too drunk to be top rung.

I think a better bet would be getting a few consoles (Xbox one ps4) maybe even a few wii's for the younger crowd.

After I got out of the hospitality industry in Cambodia I was thinking of making some arcade machines like what the owner has at lone star. You can make a mame machine cheap. Would have pursued it but at the time I didn't see the market being worth while.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAME

Give me a call and if I can help out in any way I will.

I love the way people make an assumption then give totally unneeded advice, but thanks anyway. I shows genuine concern.

I am not opening a game centre per se as a business.

I just want a room where kids can have a great time occupying themselves whilst their parents have a quiet drink or swim or whatever.

The fact that I only want to spend $3-5K should be a dead giveaway here. This is just part of a business I intend to set up in a few months with a six figure investment. This business will have many facets/parts, many of which could run as individual businesses but a games centre is not one of them.

It is hospitality/tourism related, something in which I have a fair bit of experience. It will be positioned and structured differently to anything else in the market place in which it will operate/compete, targeting an untapped market with strong spending potential.

All I am doing here is a bit of research so I get the set up acceptable to my target users. I realise this may be an alien concept amongst many business experts in Cambodia but I believe it is important. Buying/downloading the right games is just a matter of asking the kids what they want to play, getting it and developing a library that way or looking at lists of top sellers.

For example, entertainment will not be restricted to a games centre. I already have a music collection of nearly half a million songs including lots of hip hop, rap. techno. trance, dub etc (much of which I would never listen to) as well as tons of Indie music. This is music that the kids would like. However I will also need some help with set up of this but I am not opening a disco. I have over 1,000 TV series and mini series, most movies released on DVD etc since 1950 to present day and a massive amount of children's shows but I am not opening a Cinema/Entertainment complex. I did not need help on what to download, I just got it all, but I will need advice on set up, just like the games centre.

This has been in the planning for a couple of years and will be sufficiently capitalised, however like any investment in Cambodia it is money I am prepared to loose, but hopefully it should work. Worst come to worst I am going to have one hell of a place to live in for the next decade and a half.

So thanks for the advice on my inability to run a games centre, I appreciate your concern but it is a little bit off the mark.

Something to consider, you're talking about multiple sources playing from a single IP address... many online games prohibit this to prevent cheating.

Another issue will be latency... with that many systems sharing a connection for what's essentially real time stream traffic you'll have switching lag. You'll have potential port conflicts as well. All kinds of fun complicated stuff in that kind of a setup.

If it's all local games, with no online play, you're fine... but trying to play online could end up being problematic. Especially if one of these kids starts getting your playstation accounts banned for using profanity/etc on them.