New Developments?, How are things going?

It`s been a while since the last update on the PC room. Are things picking up there at all? I`m curious to hear how this thing is doing after reading all about the construction.

Sunday, May 7



What if there was a tounament and no one came? Though the signup sheet lies, it's really a double elimination.



Not on my watch. Or something.



Win cash and prizes. Or a red beret and $250 inside an ammo box.



Get greeted by the lovely staff, though we are temporarily sold out of Koreans at the moment.



Gentlemen, to your computers!



Hot damn, those are nice monitors. Best of 14 wins!



But 14 is an even number you say? What if it's a 7/7 tie? In that case, I hope you've been exercising as it's a arm wrestle for the tie breaker. All told, four such matches ended this way.



Not everyone can win. I believe they were the first team outright eliminated. So they get a picture with me.



The local EB Games fielded a team. They made it near the end, and also helped to scorekeep the matches.



What's a tournament without a smoke grenade? Though the smoke in this case came from this computer where the speaker cable began to melt.

...image pending....

What's this? Hey, it's <name withheld> stealing Tyler's MP3 player. What's with kids these days stealing stuff right in front of the security cameras? Don't they teach them anything in school these days?

After being shown the video and politely explaining that we would be providing both the video and his address to the large and angry man whom he stole the MP3 player from, it was returned. The end.

...image pending...

Check out that dance number Rock on.



In the end, there was only one. Second place won a bottle of Coke each. Oddly, two of the three people on the second place team were quite upset and stormed out of my two-bit operation. Seems they thought they were worthy of being #1 despite having their asses handed to them quite soundly in the final rounds.



Good night, and good luck.

So do events like these bring in more revenue? Or was it just a big fun day at your expense?

(Don't shoot me, but we should have an AOG clan)

Looks pretty busy. How much did you charge to enter? How many hours did this thing go on for?

The actual tournament is a at a loss as I don't charge anything to enter it (other than dressing up or bringing a pizza) nor do I charge for any computer time for playing during it. The other place in town I'm told charges time which everyone sees as just a money grab and makes them look bad.

In addition to the prize money, props, and salaries for the staff working during the tournament, I also have to spend cash buying extra copies of the game as I don't have enough copies of whatever game will be played normally laying around. This time, it was only an extra $150 as I needed 21 copies of CounterStrike and I already had 18. Last tournament, I required 6 more copies of Battlefield 2 and the expansion which totalled nearly $700 (had 14, required 20). Though I really did need to buy the extra copies of CS anyway as I have been maxed out at 18 already.

And the plan is to publish the picture of the winning team in the newspaper when I get off my ass and set that up. Average cost per tournament: About $1500. Though in the future I will probably increase the sizes of of the prizes slightly (currently first is $250, second is a bottle of coke each, third is ten hours each). Probably $300, case of Coke, and 20 hours each. That way, third place is still larger than second.

The next tournament will probably be Call of Duty 2. I currently have 10 copies and it looks like I'll need to pick up at least a 15 more which will cost me around a thousand dollars.

On the flip side, because there is cash and prizes to be won, people generally stick around and play more of whatever game will be in the tournament so sales appear to go up. And during the tournament, drink sales spike which offsets the loss.

But mostly it's a good PR exercise. The winner gets a title belt which they defend in the next tournament. Basically whoever wins a tournament is automatically in the final round of the next tournament. Sort of old-school Wrestlemania style where everyone fights to see who challenges the champion. And since the game changes every time, there is no guarantee they will be any good at it.

This tournament was six hours long which was entirely too long. Issues came up which dragged out the tournament, though the biggest time sink was the decision to go with a double elimination so everyone gets a second chance. The next one I'm hoping to have done in 3 hours by limiting the team signups and just generally being more organized.

"you know, the less slummy one"

HAHAHA!! That's awesome.

Can't wait to see the PC Bang next week! It will be a fun adventure, I'm sure.

The world of cybercafés is depressingly masculine.

i will make this place one of my stops in mid june when i drive through there - this time i won't be on a schedule, so there will be no excuses for passing you by.

Surprisingly, I do get a lot of females in there. I expected 0%, and in reality I average around 10-20% female customers. Last night when I left, four of the fifteen people in the store were girls. One was playing WoW, another CS, and the last two were in CoD2.

Awesome, it's good to see that you're doing well.

Congrats, and it is nice to have the update. I am curious as to the daily business rather than the occasional tourny. Still packed I assume?

Actually I've always been interested in the type of clientele that goes to these places.
I always assumed they were young adult (15yo) upwards to college kids (25yo) to farther reaches to hardcore gamers (35yo).

I wonder how that breaks down statistically (do you take age down in membership to do stats?)

While I'm only employed part-time as a library clerk and just got an on-call librarian position (woohoo!), I find I don't have a whole lot of time to go out, find a cybercafe and play a few rounds of whatever is the latest rpg, fps, rts or whatever.
Of course gaming/computer rooms are now exactly plentiful in SanFrancisco....

Do you have more people coming in during day hours or night hours? ..hrm..

And, I'm sure you've already gone over your application list, but do you have any Productivity software suites running on the computers for the peeps who actually want to get things done?

This post has been edited by rabbitinpumpkin on May 14 2006, 05:25 PM

Thanks for the update and the photos, Gord. This set of pics gives us a good sense of what the interior looks like.

Those desks and chairs do look great. The glass surface is much better looking than the plain pressboard desks that most cafes are equipped with.

I remember that you said the desks were bigger than you had originally expected (intended?) and that it cut down a bit on your total stations you could set up, but I would think the "elbow room" gained is probably greatly appreciated by your customers.

Do you have joysticks already at the stations? If not, do you let people bring their own?

All the systems have front USB ports, and he lets people plug in their own keyboard, mouse, joystick, flash drive, etc. And in response to an earlier question, there's word processors there, and I think he installed the full Microsoft Office suite, but I could be wrong.

Gordo DUDE!!! You're not FAT anymore Good on ya, I'm a slim 150pds myself these days, actually probably unhealthy at my height but defentiley noticibly smaller than the 200pds I was back in Penticton. I am a sex machine now All the ladies can't get enough it's amazing and yes chicks dig video games, so many chicks do. I don't know when it happened but pretty much any girl I meet here is into one type of game or another, not hardcore generally but at least casual players with a genuine interest.

I'll defentiley have to come by and kick your ass at whatever game you think you rock at as soon as I get the chance to come back to Kelowna. Too bad it probably won't be for awhile, my job doesn't give any time off until a year of work. God damn slave labour. I will reclaim my crown and win all your tounaments as soon as I'm able

Gordo DUDE!!! You're not FAT anymore Good on ya, I'm a slim 150pds myself these days, actually probably unhealthy at my height but defentiley noticibly smaller than the 200pds I was back in Penticton. I am a sex machine now All the ladies can't get enough it's amazing and yes chicks dig video games, so many chicks do. I don't know when it happened but pretty much any girl I meet here is into one type of game or another, not hardcore generally but at least casual players with a genuine interest.

I'll defentiley have to come by and kick your ass at whatever game you think you rock at as soon as I get the chance to come back to Kelowna. Too bad it probably won't be for awhile, my job doesn't give any time off until a year of work. God damn slave labour. I will reclaim my crown and win all your tounaments as soon as I'm able

The best part about that line was that I got to read it twice.

(Sound of crickets)

Jeez, months with no activity. Even the cool photos are gone now.

Am I missing something? Is there a "new" Gord website (about the PC bang) that I'm not aware of? Any news?

These forums are no longer under his direct pervue, and apparently he's quite busy, or something. The forum computers are still in Korea, I believe, and he's in Canada, thus leading to issues like the missing pictures.

This post has been edited by Vash the Stampede on Sep 17 2006, 07:03 AM

Actually, everything is in Canada with Gord now.

This post has been edited by jessica on Sep 18 2006, 02:54 PM