My boyfriend and I are working towards getting an internet café/gaming center opened up here in our town. For all the technology available here, there isn't either of these things in Redmond.
So far, we've been looking at locations and going to Seattle to check out other cafés. The closest gaming center is a 25 minute drive from downtown Redmond, and the closest cyber café - around 40. We both have agreed that something like this should do well in Redmond...
I'm sure alot of you have experience with either an internet café or gaming center. So, this is what I want to hear from you guys:
- what do you look for in one of these places?
- What kind of atmosphere do you like?
- Do you want coffee/snacks available to you?
- Where would the shop have to be for you to want to go there often?
- What kind of prices have you paid in the past? What kind of prices do you want to pay?
- What would you want in an internet café that you havn't seen in others?
- Would an office suite be valuable?
- What kind of connection do you expect a place like this to have?
- What kind of machines do you expect? (café and gaming)
- For those of you with alot of experience, do you have any software recommendations?
So far, we've decided that services such as photocopying, faxing, printing etc would probably be a great idea as well as services such as cd copying. Food and drink (especially coffee, and espresso) would do well and keep people in the shop.
Some other ideas:
We're going to offer WIFI at a pay-per-use or monthly subscription cost. Along with this, our shop will have couches and a quiet "corner" idea, where people can bring in their laptop/PDA and sit and relax. We'll also offer laptops as well so people can "rent" the laptop and hangout using the AP.
As for the desktops, each terminal will have privacy, like a little seperator between each terminal. These will be removable so costumers that come in as groups can take them off if they want to be able to talk to each other etc.
Another far out idea we thought may or maynot do well...maybe offering a linux box or two? We'll of course stick mostly to windows other then this, since that is what people _know_.
Each terminal area will have a drawer and a cubby sort of idea, so people have somewhere to put their stuff. Headphones will be available to rent for each terminal also. (this will be more or less used in the gaming center)
As for the gaming section, we'll offer all of the popular games..RPG, FPS etc. And keep these terminals in another room off from the internet café as it will most likely serve a different demographic. Online gaming will be offered of course, but I want to push LAN tournaments etc so we get groups of people at once. We'll have some sort of prize and make a whole sha-bang out of the ordeal. We were even thinking of having an x-box or two and having a huge screen for them to play on. (projector)
Sorry for the long post...I'd really like to hear from you guys and your ideas. People like you are who we are going to be trying to serve and your opinions will help us.