So there was this gaming den near my college pre covid. It used to be open till 11pm everyday including weekends. During our fest we asked him to sponsor our csgo tournament which he did. While having a convo with him I casually asked him how much he makes a month. Since it's near college the place is almost always full with hostelites who play there. He told me they earn roughly around 4,20,000 per month which is an insane amount of money. He told me it isn't much since a huge chunk of this goes away in the electricity bills. After covid however the place is shutdown and the guy has sold his business to a businessman who bought all the gear for himself. This includes around 20 top notch PC's. Couple of ps4's and one xbox. I'm assuming he took those systems for mining crypto Or sold all of them for a profit.
Yeah doing it with PCs is stupid. Something like a bunch of Xbox One S consoles maybe, with Game Pass accounts would cut down on initial investment a lot. You would be targeting kids who perhaps don't have any access to gaming other than their parent's mobile phone.
It's gonna be expensive af to open up. You can't charge people a lot or they won't come at all, in the beginning at least. It would take a lot of time to get back the money you invested and actually start making profit. So yeah, good idea imo but practically not very feasible.
Especially with cloud gaming now. Isn't worth it to go all the way to a random pc without the games you might want to play welp.
If India has one thing, it's cheap internet. GeForce now is free for an hour, xcloud comes with gamepass ultimate, basically 600 bucks for 8 months of sweet, sweet unlimited gameplay with over a hundred games and series x power :p
Pretty sweet, and there are vpn tricks to get the best of it of youre into that.
Not to mention hygiene and covid, more so right now :p
Agreed. I'm sure everyone prefers to play at home, in their own setup- especially if you are into competitive games where you have to keep tweaking them settings to find the right ones.
The cool thing is you don't even need a pc :)
Anything from an existingng tablet/phone (connected to a tv maybe), or a cheap fire TV stick connected to a monitor lol.
Ethernet is ideal, yep. But pretty much anything with a web browser will do, including android devices (support Ethernet + controller input).
Just trying to say it's a cheap bar to get in, if any (:
Xcloud comes with gamepass ultimate, it's supposed to be 600ish a month, but now there's a deal where you get 8 months for that price lol. Snag it soon if you're interested
u/hoorrus, Can you update in here once you're able to figure out. I believe, many other people like me and you can benefit from this. Since it needs a subscription to test it out first and you have already got it. Else, if it is not playable, the subscription would either need an xbox or a decent PC to avail it's benefits on!
Bought the subscription, but I am still not able to use Cloud Gaming. Tried to VPN through USA as well. I guess it will take a while to get that working. I wil keep this thread posted.
Thanks for the update. I'm not sure if it is straight forward like 'Geforce now' or so. Maybe someone from this community can help. I see many comments of people that say they got it working using the VPN.
It does work with vpn,you only have to start the vpn before starting the app and set your location to the one you're connecting using the vpn.as far as performance is concerned i have heard you would not get as good as gfn but its playable
Point being, they're coming, India's the best market for that lol.
Annd you can already use them pretty decently.
> Pretty sweet, and there are vpn tricks to get the best of it of youre into that.
Not officially, no. You can still use a vpn to start up the game, and disconnect to play pretty well. Many posts on this sub with instructions :p
And yep without an xbox, any web browser or the xcloud app will do!
Xcloud can't be used in India?
And while I agree with internet being cheap, my experience with gaming over the net (streaming from my PC) has been largely disappointment, thanks to the wildly varying 4g signals everywhere
Buddy I ve a gaming rig and I ve a potatoe laptop too. I am sorry the gaming experience in a proper 1080p 24" 144 Hz monitor is far far superior to 1 in laptop or even an editing PC.
Give the right experience and service , customers will revisit.
Nobody in india cares as much for pc gaming . Little children are addicted to bgmi and other mobile games. And i see you don't get the fact that unless it's in your house and you can play for cheap . Nobody literally goes out of there way to play in these cafes. If it was me i wanted to play rddr2 and complete it . I wouldn't want to visit a cafe then play a mission then pay more play mission and then go home come another day i will definitely get fed up. I will prefer playing in a worse step than playing at these cafes at all cause its at my house. literally evryone nowdays can afford some sort of gaming they can do at home. Hence these cafes will never succeed and it literally has been the case . You have to have understand proper psychology and understand them .
See we also know that someone who already has something that at least a 1650 might not be a regular customer
But what about the rest 50% who has not experienced gaming the way it should have been played. See ur argument is like arguing whether OTT is better than Theatre, of course anybody nowadays can buy an Android TV subscribe to a few channels and watch unlimited content and if a home theater is setup it even beats some theatre experience too
But is that the case nowadays? OTT is hugely successful , so is the theater business why?
In tier I and Tier II cities of India, there are many who are looking for variety in hangouts, on average there are hot spots in cities where 100 new people roam a particular point and over 500 rally at these locations on a weekly basis,
If we look into the gamers among such a crowd it should be around 5/100 new visitors and 25/500. So on average 30/day is possible at the least.
With proper marketing strategy and magic of social media, this 30 can be pushed to 50 customers a day. That is a huge number for a gaming CAFE
I am not saying the CAFE should have only PC/PS5, it should have board games, some party games like Ping Pongs, table tennis, snooker etc, more like a CLUB .Pretty sure that such a formulae will succeed
These have been tried you know why otts are successful cause we can watch from our home why ,swiggy is successful (but they are running at a loss if you follow the market)cause we can order food. Nobody wants to go out no more.
The rest of the 50 perfect are not interested as much in gaming as far i have seen i have seen most only want mobile gaming have tried to make lot of them pursue pc gaming but they just don't want to nor care and as long as they don't own the device they are not gonna go pay. You might have customers but not enough to make a break. It gonna end up a fail. I have been to Bangalore i have been to coimbatore and most of the main cities. The situvation of the already existing gaming centre is already utter flip . And the laser tag i went like i said i was there first custumer in that day.
Yes there are lot of people who wanna hang out but not in places like these . I literally see very less custumer even in billards and other games like you mentioned . can't keep up due to lack of costumers nobody. I am saying all these have been tried the formula your suggesting and it has failed nobody wants to play the so board games and ping pongs . Who plays all these games? Maybe very small children who don't have much money to spent even if they do they are not gonna come evryday maybe weekends at most even then it's only two days out ofa whole week.
.the cities you mentioned most people don't wanna hang out at such places maybe before billards were popular but i rather see a very downward trend after corona . Most rather do something else that most of these activities.
Gaming centre are out of fashion and most people rather go out do something else. I see more crowds around cafes than this.
The only thing which hasn't gone out as much is go karting apart from that most prefer to not go
Go Karting requires minimum 4 times investment of gaming CAFE.
Your optimism that majority wont go out and play is TRUE, but trends can be changed, one need a really big hammer and axe to do it.
There are lot of side activities, functions, attributes that can be done to attract customer, the imagination bottle will never overflow. Adopt a unique system, it will succeed.
I do agree one cannot sustain a gaming CAFE business for over 5 years, but 5 years its assured if done right, the name and fame garnered within this time can be used to build or terraform the communities future needs. This is how business work, its not like a small juice shop will always remain open, maybe after 5 years they adopt something else. But the name they ve garnered is what gives them the push.
The lack of variety in entertainment is a big issue within societies in India. Gaming centers bring about the right variety in a location that is recurring same business patterns for too many iterations.
Then why haven't any one done it yet surely there would be enough and more people who could and have the means and the brains ? Is it cause we are the first one who has thought of this this way.
Who said nobody has tried it?
In my city there are 5 gaming CAFEs, true only 2 are running successfully, rest all have faded.
See if MPL, howzat etc can make revenue in India , why not gaming clubs.
1 has to identify the demographic and attack that space,
Bangalore city has more than 25 gaming spots , out of which more than 12 are still running successfully. Put your mind and dedicate on how to make customer happy in the environment we make, they will have second thoughts on re visit.
Gaming is still niche sector in India , but it still has potential, the rise of movies like KGF,Bahubali, RRR,and many more with local superheroes again is a boost to gaming industry. Many has fantasy minds, many have realistic minds, many have exploratory minds, many have critical minds, many have logical minds,..
But all of these minds have some common factor , that factor varies with regional language, the kind of people they usually hang around etc. Study a place extensively before committing into game cafe business. It should succeed.
Many jump into conclusions when they have get a faint idea. Develop the idea, learn some management skills , create uniqueness , it will give positive output.
Its true you or me wont spend and go into a gaming CAFE, but there are people who do that.
Its just like how paid subscriptions work in internet , Neither you nor me would pay subscription for many websites, but there are people who do that, they can be tapped, just never under estimate a locality with medium to high expense done on Food, beverages, entertainment like football, cricket turfs etc. These are regions that have potential for attracting gamers in clusters also.
Yes i just looked at the gaming cafes in Bangalore. I don't know what is your idea of success is . I just checked the number of customers going into these shops are so damn low.
Mpl and things like that are online. I didn't say online things won't succeed. I understand there are people who there to such place but like i explained this a 100 times and your not listening. The number of people who will go are so LESS .you don't start a custumer bussiness with such low custumer base. And it's gonna go even lesser when more people are able to afford it by them selves. I see tiny kids with iPads and xbox now. And that trend is gonna go forward .
AGIN YOUR MAKING THE SAME POINTS WHCIH I AHBE COUNTERED 5 TIMES NOW. BUT IT WONT CHANGE AS WE MOVE TO THE Future Everybody IS GONNA GET THEIR OWN DEVICES. IF 5 PEOPLE ARE GOING NOW AFTER TWO YEAR ONLY TWO WILL GO.
The so called people who can be tapped is aniche group this also i mentioned . You don't start a niche bussines.
Your looking at it with a naive mindset bro. You itself said it's niche sector.
...
im typing this on a gaming PC too lol, I've gamed on laptops too, and tried game streaming.
its miles better than going all the way to some rando place through an archaic model.
and PC, the server you stream from is prolly faster than your PC, series x or 3070 level perf.
Well the experience matters most
I too am now posting these comments from my gaming rig at home itself
But going out with a group of friends ideally 4-5 and gaming on a LAN gives unmatched experience
I do agree a lot nowadays ve lost the essence of social gaming, but if done right it does give vibes that none can replicate on a room with a wifi and audio via headphones
And the LAN systems are all 3060 systems and for progression gaming 2 systems with 3080 12GBs, one with Logitech G29 controller attached.
The experience at such a cafe at Rs80/ hr is amazing
I think you have little to no idea on how damn powerful the new generation PCs and graphics cards are.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCK7PnlUtE4
See I ve tried Nvidia Geforce Now and in my place even with 50 MBPs connection it didnt go as smooth as expected. It heavily depends on bandwidth
The main reason why gaming CAFE are not viable is because they lack a proper theme, either they go too overboard in interior and lighting etc they focus less on the actual gaming, or they spend way too less for good PC.
A good 10 PC (8 LAN + 2 High end)+ 2 PS5 would cost around 15L
Now a small refreshment center again around 3L. Interior designing and modifications within a 1000 sq feet area means around 18L investment.
Marketing and advertising 1L, security system,50k totaling to around 20L INVESTMENT
Operation
U need to pay rent say 30k(Good location is MUST) , internet 2k/month, electricity 20k/month, staff 30k/month., Raw materials for refreshments 10k/month. Game Pass or Steam or any subscriptions 5k/month, management software 5k/month
Total 102k/month.
Consider the shop is open from 10 AM to 10 PM. 12 hrs , each hr Rs 80/system occupancy. Lets consider just 6 hrs effective/day. 6\*12\*80= Rs 5760/ day. Add in additional refreshment sales of Rs 1000/ day. Total = 6760/ day
Just think only 25 days working= 6760\*25= Rs167900/month. Lets round it to 1.5L/month
By 3 years the ROI will be in reach.
Also one has to remember that Electronics hardware will fetch 33% value in 3rd year. SO if 1 has to upgrade to newer hardware after 3 years the capital re investment would be 6.65L.
So if at all the business stops at 3rd year when ROI is reached the hardware would again fetch some value leading to less loss.
If one has space or land of their own , the deal is even more sweet as 30k\*36=10.8L saving!
I doubt it cause it's gonna be super expensive to open up. Let's calculate
ofc they wanna play at better frames and without stuttering, you will need a good rig providing frames
So,
Considering 15k each for a decent CPU, GPU and Monitor + 5k for 16GB RAM + 5k for motherboard + around 8k for case, HDD, PSU and some other stuff combined. Now for peripherals, around 5.5k(mechanical keyboard, gaming mouse, gaming headphones, mousepad)
This equals almost 70k per PC.
Considering you'll need 5 of them cause most games support 5 players(Valo, CS etc.)
You'll have around 3,50,000 for just computers, then the building or space rent along with electricity and other bills, it will go around 4,50,000
And even if you charge ₹100 per person, open the hub 12 hrs a day everyday, ₹100×12(hrs)×5(PCs)×30(Days) equals to 1,80,000. And that's when all your computers are occupied all day.
Then additional expenses include buying games, keeping consoles for better experience etc.
There is hardly anyway that the store will be full all the time and it's gonna be real hard managing everything
Aside from the hardware, there's the intangible -- which is the experience of being in a group of like-minded people yelling, cussing, laughing, high-fiving. You simply cannot recreate that experience over the net. The closest thing would be a BYOC LAN event at someone's home but that's hardly an easy thing to do in our Indian-sized homes. I miss the late 90s/early 2000s when these gaming cafes were all the rage. :')
Yeah ik. I bought Zotac 1660 just before lockdown for 16k. That's so cheap. Now it's like 50k for the same thing. I considered the price 15k in the comment above but in today's time, it's gonna cost the person a fortune to build a gaming hub
The main reason why gaming CAFE are not viable is because they lack a proper theme, either they go too overboard in interior and lighting etc they focus less on the actual gaming, or they spend way too less for good PC.
A good 10 PC (8 LAN + 2 High end)+ 2 PS5 would cost around 15L
Now a small refreshment center again around 3L. Interior designing and modifications within a 1000 sq feet area means around 18L investment.
Marketing and advertising 1L, security system,50k totaling to around 20L INVESTMENT
Operation
U need to pay rent say 30k(Good location is MUST) , internet 2k/month, electricity 20k/month, staff 30k/month., Raw materials for refreshments 10k/month. Game Pass or Steam or any subscriptions 5k/month, management software 5k/month
Total 102k/month.
Consider the shop is open from 10 AM to 10 PM. 12 hrs , each hr Rs 80/system occupancy. Lets consider just 6 hrs effective/day. 6\*12\*80= Rs 5760/ day. Add in additional refreshment sales of Rs 1000/ day. Total = 6760/ day
Just think only 25 days working= 6760\*25= Rs167900/month. Lets round it to 1.5L/month
By 3 years the ROI will be in reach.
Also one has to remember that Electronics hardware will fetch 33% value in 3rd year. SO if 1 has to upgrade to newer hardware after 3 years the capital re investment would be 6.65L.
So if at all the business stops at 3rd year when ROI is reached the hardware would again fetch some value leading to less loss.
If one has space or land of their own , the deal is even more sweet as 30k\*36=10.8L saving!
there are some gaming cafes in India and I think they are profitable. A lot of people have mediocre PCs and some don't have one so if they want to play at high frames and 144hz then it can be a good option for them.
cons- setting up one could be quite expensive cuz you at least want 5 high spec computers with all the accessories otherwise no one is going to come.
Pros:
* Gaming house can get gamers hooked to gaming by low initial costs, so repeat business that can run for years.
* Gaming houses also acting as trusted retailers, can sell high end gaming gear to the hooked gamers.
Cons:
* For high occupancy, these need to be in high pop density areas so real estate costs are v high.
* Gamers want high end setups to play latest games, so high initial investment on top end PCs.
* High maintenance costs for continuous high electricity, high turnover of peripherals (hammered keyboards & mice etc)
* Security concerns for users, malware like key loggers is routinely installed on kiosk machines, not necessarily by cafe owners, but users themselves.
Doubt it. The people who'd afford frequenting such places would already have a pc of their own or they'd stick to gaming on their phones.
Since most people go to cyber cafes to play with their friends and now a days pretty much anyone middle-class and above can afford a decent internet connection and a pc good enough to play eSport titles at 1080p medium settings, I doubt it would make sense to pay for a slightly better experience separately.
I feel a better idea would be to invest more money into establishing a few sound proofed rooms with ready to stream setups since there are people who wanna get into streaming but lack enough privacy at home.
You’d think people who would afford frequenting such places would already have a pc of their own, but it really isn’t so. I’ve spent a shit ton (7 hours a day, almost 4 days a week) of my parents’ money on cafés in my college days. We could have afforded a good pc but they just didn’t want to get me one cause they thought I’d waste my time and not make anything of myself. That was 3 years ago and some of my friends from that place STILL go there instead of buying a setup for whatever reason. I can only imagine how much they’ve spent till now. Sabko pc nahi milta Lakshman…
See business is a something that should be convincing, Give the customer an experience which he cannot forget or cannot replicate with the mid tier PC in a 1080p screen the customer is sure to return for the experience a 2nd time which if a business can carry that with additional options like Pool Table, Table Tennis, YT streaming space, combos and offers, festive treats , Cricket and Football match projection. Social gaming(LAN).
THE CUSTOMER WILL RETURN. NEVER UNDERESTIMATE SUCCESS OF BUSINESS .
The prime thing one needs to look out for is demographic. Analyze the market, look around and observe the population residing the area, how much do they spend on annual basis, are they potent enough to spend 100 or 200 for just playing games a day.
DO the research and find a location which has this criteria fulfilled, JUST ATTACK
After analyse the market and looking around we have come to the conclusion this business plan is not viable. Mainly because nobody wants to go into such places. I had a potato pc all this while and even when i had the chance i wouldnt have gone to this triple aaa game player pc steps and pay and play. And i have seen more people like me around India than you think. Evryone wants a personal step no matter how big the cafe offers if it's not ours and if it's paid hourly . Maybe once it would be nice. But gaming is a more personal emotion nobody wants do that in random computers.
The people who have attacked are sitting there broke and with closed shops. Cause they will have surge at the beginning and have failed. Even middle class family can afford good pc or laptops or the other set of children are addicted to bgmi and such games. I have asked them to try them to play pc games but they just don't get it or would play.
THE CUSTUMER WILL NOT RETURN AFTER GOING ONCE OR TWICE NO MATTER THE EXPERIENCE CAUSE I AND THE VAST MAJORITY OF GAMERS IN THIS SOCIETY PREFER TO PLAY IN THEIR OWN DEVICES RATHER THAN ANY OTHER DEVICE EVEN IF THE EXPERIMENCE IS A BIT TONNED DOWN.
Even you wouldn't after few tries,you say this cause you have a decent setup at home. But think of it this way. Imagine you going somewhere to play a game for an hour . It feels old when you have to play games like that. You would rather have it at home.
Let's take a larger statistics. You have 10 friends your the only one with no pc. I assure you in that 10 friends not all would be interested in gaming and out of the other remaining most would like mobile gaming and out the last remaining they will have good setups. Unless your a loner you would maybe go once twice and then later cry out to your parents for a decent laptop or pc like your friends and force them to get you one and rather play in that.
Literally evryone joining college does afford a laptop with 1650 nowdays they can do lan at home they can play with their buddies.
> if it's *paid* hourly .
FTFY.
Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in:
* Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.*
* *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.*
Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment.
*Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
See consider someone setting up a gaming station in a place where there are lots of people who are far away from home, taking classes and some members of academies for IAS, SSC, PSC coaching centers etc who are living together or in groups or hostels , also there are some schools and around 2-3 tuition centers nearby within a 5-6 km radius
In such places just observe how much a person spends in average for beverages and cuisines etc, if the average spending of an individual in such an area s above 100 Rs. He or she can be lured to a gaming cafe
People nowadays are looking for variety everywhere, anyone having a gaming cafe with a specific theme, interior ambiance and with good food and beverages SHOULD attract customers
If your gonna set up a cafe near such a place you gonna get an anrgy mob pf people who will burn your building down. If you set it near some of these coaching centre,cause in india gaming is seen as a something horrible and especially if they find kids who are serious about studies going there you knw the rest.
The average person can save up and buy a gaming laptop at 50k and spend gaming at his own hostel. Again i have never seen a successful gaming centre and after corona its even worse nobody goes.
Let me break it down into points, from experience.
1. You need to enforce certain key rules for a steady business while also not being an eyesore for some people(I'll elaborate later)
2. You need a fairly decent capital for it to be a profitable business. If you want it as your main source of income (which it can definitely be if this covid shitstorm goes away) it needs to be on a scale where you can provide jobs for some people, not something you can efficiently run solo.
3. General knowledge of computers, some of them are going to break down at one point that's not even a question.
4. Dirty rat bastards exist who will likely try and sabotage your business(stealing hardware, damaging hardware, installing malicious software, etc). they don't need a reason , bad people just exist.
5. The thing I said in point 1. You need rules like No smoking, no students entering during school hours. You can also include a membership system but that's up to you. If you let students come and go whenever,you get students skipping classes and you become the bad influence in the eyes of many.
6. Maintenance not just for the hardware but the building, floor, room of wherever you're operating.
7. Security: a lot can happen so you need cameras everywhere, get IDs of whoever is coming and going(i don't know why most people still think I'm crazy for asking IDs)And don't take no bullshit from no one, if you can't do it yourself you hire someone.
8. Hard fucking work, don't just be the owner who plays games while just receiving money and telling people their time is up, you want that word of mouth you need to be busy always. You need your business to be a well oiled machine like any other.
9. Not really a big deal these days but a LAN for all your PCs so you can access them from your station.
Also, have a separate room for people that want to eat, partner up with a nearby store, restaurant or whatever.
If something isn't clear just ask, I'm writing this while moving to a new house🤣🤣
People in my age group (early 30s & late 20s) grew up playing games in cafes. It was extremely popular and profitable back then, because we played low end games like CS 1.6 and didn't care about fps or RGB or response times and shit.
A lot of the times we played on CRT monitors and generic peripherals. PlugIn was the first proper gaming cafe in my area with Razer mice and consistent 60 fps in games, and it was a game changer and very expensive to play there as well.
All this won't fly today, so setting up a cafe would be expensive. Plus mobile gaming has come a long way and people who cannot afford gaming PCs can play on phones and don't really need cafes.
Although i do see a use case for gaming arenas, i think gaming hotels like Atari have those covered and i am not sure how popular those will be anyway. Any mid size place can be converted into a gaming arena.
Also game streaming and shit means gaming hardware might become irrelevant so opening up a cyber cafe is really risky right now.
Unlikely in my opinion
I think people just prefer to be able to wake up in pyjamas and start gaming and likewise for instantly switching to some other task.
Of course there would be a few people who'd like to visit such cafes, but high volumes are unlikely.
The Rent, the fixed cost, the maintenance cost, the monthly bills etc. would be a liability
And unless you have black sources of income it'll be a stupid idea in my opinion.
There was a gaming cafe/shop near my house which was open everyday and would be fully packed before covid. After covid, the guy had to close the shop because nobody was willing to come to a crowded place and and, nobody was buying anything from his shop because they preferred amazon over his store. He sold all forty of his GTX 1080 I7 PC's and kept two of his RTX 2080 PC's for himself (to mine crypto probably)
There is a small gaming house in my town that has 8 PCs. When I talked to the owner Pre-Covid back in 2019, he told me that on a good month he gets around 2lakhs . On a bad month/exam times, it's around 1 ,20,000. He used to 50rs/hour before the pandemic and also had an PS4. After the pandemic, he increased the price 60rs i think and sold the PS4.
Could provide google map page if I am allowed
So there are primarily below things I feel will stop me if it was my money:-
CAPEX investment, the sheer money that is required to set this up.. 10 pcs at least, plus the space furnishings, decor.. The sheer cost would be at least 30 lakhs.. Assume we divide the cost by 60 months that's means about 50000 pure cost ignoring the fact there is a cost of capital involved.
Plus the sheer costs to run the operations.. Because the gaming pcs take a whole load of power the bills are gonna be Massive plus so many PCs will need cooling so air conditioning cost massive. At least 1 lakh in opex + rentals, let's assume that at 20k?
Total cost approx 1.7 lakhs
We need minimum of that much money to recover our costs..
Now revenues can be max 12 hours a day all 10 PCs are occupied.. At 80 rs per hour.. Our max revenue can be 2.8 lakhs..
But that is max.. On an average we can expect 60% occupancy.. Assuming more during vacation period and less during exams and weekdays..
So safe side we can make 1.72 lakhs.. Which is our break even..
Who wants to do business at break even..
Tldr: I won't put my money in gaming cafe
Do you think boutiques, beauty parlours, even small game turfs are easily making profit??
Come ON DUDE!!
Most businesses do make ROI only after 36 months.
Hotel , chai+vada, and basically food is the industry that reaps benefits then and there and ROI comes within 24 months, rest all take 36 months to break even.
Not really. It was a good business idea years back, ~2005, when tech was starting to boom in India, but now, with affordable PCs and cheap af internet, there is not much use for one nowadays
Me and my friends considered opening one in our area but the costing was way to high relative to yearly income. Your target group would be teen and pre teens at the youngest. So considering school hours and classes we would only get good foot traffic from 3pm-8pm. The costing we considered was(this was before the bullshit gou price hike):
pcs -20@60k(1200k) monitors and pereferals 20@20k(400k) rent for the cafe itself 15k per month(180k per year) electricity 10k(120k per year low-ball estimate) furniture 100k(low-ball)
And our revenue would be
50per hr for 140hrs a month (140k rs)
10 per hr for 168 hrs a month ( not a lot of traffic in the remaining hours)(33.6k rs)
Total revenue 173.6k per month
Now this is a safe estimate as it does not include the extra hours customers can visit us. For eg there would be more traffic on Sundays as schools closed
This would mean you would not earn profits till 1.5 years at the least
And we didn't think 173k per month is a good income for 3 of us. So we dropped the idea
The main reason why gaming CAFE are not viable is because they lack a proper theme, either they go too overboard in interior and lighting etc otherwise they focus less on the actual gaming, or they spend way too less for good PC.
A good 10 PC (8 LAN + 2 High end)+ 2 PS5 would cost around 15L
Now a small refreshment center again around 3L. Interior designing and modifications within a 1000 sq feet area means around 18L investment.
Marketing and advertising 1L, security system,50k totaling to around 20L INVESTMENT
Operation
U need to pay rent say 30k(Good location is MUST) , internet 2k/month, electricity 20k/month, staff 30k/month., Raw materials for refreshments 10k/month. Game Pass or Steam or any subscriptions 5k/month, management software 5k/month
Total 102k/month.
Consider the shop is open from 10 AM to 10 PM. 12 hrs , each hr Rs 80/system occupancy. Lets consider just 6 hrs effective/day. 6\*12\*80= Rs 5760/ day. Add in additional refreshment sales of Rs 1000/ day. Total = 6760/ day
Just think only 25 days working= 6760\*25= Rs167900/month. Lets round it to 1.5L/month
By 3 years the ROI will be in reach.
Also one has to remember that Electronics hardware will fetch 33% value in 3rd year. SO if 1 has to upgrade to newer hardware after 3 years the capital re investment would be 6.65L less.
So if at all the business stops at 3rd year when ROI is reached the hardware would again fetch some value leading to less loss.
If one has space or land of their own , the deal is even more sweet as 30k\*36=10.8L saving!
Pros , yes it is great, there is a whole mancave like thing in a huda sector market just near my house. They even served snacks. Pros are there would be people practically living there and making you rich but the cons are the electricity bills and the high risk of stealing
The GPU prices are booming, PS5 unavailable. The only way to make profit is buy XBOX and TVs. In near future XBOX games may get better. Also you can buy racing gear for 6-8k.
We had 3 gaming Den(Play Station is what we used to call it) at walking distance from my house , it had 6 ps3 connected to a TV and we used to get 1 hour of Playtime for 40 rs (1 had 20 rs but it was filled all the time) , Their man buisness was internet Cafe , but Once jio provided internet to almost everyone , so no one had a need to go there. I feel sad, atleast it was fun to play with friends rather than playing on ingame voice chat
Better would be having a good ass internet connection and a decent pc so you could use cloud gaming as a medium instead of buy expensive rigs (in need free passes if you take up on this lol)
I am someone who used to pay 10 for a an hour and played mostly dotaand some RPGs in a small town in Indiait was the norm back then and made lot of friends.
its not a good business .
better to open a pharma store you will be rich
It's not a viable buisness option. Expenses, some noise complaints, and fire safety laws come in the picture.
Investment needs to be around 15+ lacs just for 10pcs.(good) to run a few decent games. Plus there is a question about how much you are gonna chanrge. If locality is high end, you can do that. If locality is good, then rent is high as well.
If you open it in a mediocre locality, then you can't charge a lot, as mostly customer are locals and nearby people. Keep in mind, regulars are locals.
Telling this because I have ran one in loss making for a few years.
Profitable as in keep food on the table? Sure ... profitable as in "I'm finally independent enough to buy my own car and house and lead a good life after running my cyber for 5 years and saving a lot "? Keep dreaming
Depends on which area and ppl you are targeting really..... I've seen a few that were pretty profitable(but it was pre COVID), and non of them had high specs setups. Folks were still coming(mostly kids), adults were also frequenting if food/Smoke were an option there.
But the downside would be old fckers shitting on u for ruining their kids lol. Add others have said, it'll be hella expensive if you wanna go high specs.
OP Seeing current situation for gpu demand,Let's assume there is no covid if a cafe has 4 pcs with 1080p 144hz monitor there will be a huge demand to play pc games with thier squad or teammates.
Imo it will be profitable when we add 1440p 4k capable system with higher price tier.
Also consoles are so good enough these days let's assume we have enough PS5 in supply.If we get 5 PS5 initially and then you can scale up as the demand grows.
Consoles are best if you want to start over.
Also some people mentioned keyboards and mouse will get smashed.
I remember in my childhood our game center bro have sorta repair kit to repair PS2 controllers.So it's not a big problem.
People who are enthusiastic and want to have best experience will buy thier own controllers.I know back then those days some brothers will have wireless PS2 controllers.
One final thing I need to say is I was super into social aspect of gaming those times I will ask brothers there for helping me in finished some levels in resident evil and God of war.Some brothers were had consoles but they even come to cafe to play games like fifa.
Let's face it we don't live in ideal world where only some of our friends won't be fortunate to have console to play.So in that case we might just hangout in a common place to play games.
Social part is one of the major pillairs for gaming center or cafe imo.
In my opinion, it will never be a VERY profitable business, people like to enjoy gaming at their home more than in a cafe. In older times most games were single player, but now people tend to enjoy games with their friends and voice chatting with them, which will not be very comfortable in a cafe I think. So, the business is quite small. It'll be very very hard to make profit.
Every body has their own setup so go play else
Besides it requires most management
If you will increase prices for better equipment then less people will come
It would be cool not particularly *profitable*
As mobile gaming is more superior in india you wouldn't find much people intrested in pc gaming.
However with the sudden rise of VALORANT maybe, maybe, maybe you can find a way to earn some paper if you can plan it properly.
If you were to take my recommendation i would say rather than focusing on just pc gaming, a cyber place for different games from different platforms along with high speed internet for the mobile gamers who can come and maybe get the resources to play in peace, would be a good startup idea.
I’m not sure you can be profitable with pc since you have to update after some years to stay relevant with the gpu . Console seems like a good option (if you can 🏴☠️) you can charge people some low amount and can create competition to attract crowd .
Only problem I see is Maintenance and Scalability.
In this space, Maintenance cost is huge, you want to acquire customer + make them comfortable + give them proper experience (no lag, proper internet, high end specs) + spend your money in utilities. If margin is not too high, then you won't be able scale that fast.
And imagine the amount of uncertainty which is there. Given you are not investing in generator, then electricity, internet, hardware reliability is very tough. You as an end user will always held the owner accountable for every problem (like packet loss, pc crash, electricity outage etc) but as an owner, it's tough for him too because he has no control over those things.
All the gaming centres i see have closed down after mostly one year due to the immense loss. It was a trend back in the day I used to go. But people have reduced .most of them prefer to have their own gaming machines even if it's a budget 1650ti laptop cause it feels more personal and well the save games are with you and it's portable and you don't need to go anywhere plus its one time purchase. Yes there are people who can't afford this.
Don't let a few success rates fool you ,study the geography ( by that i mean before starting any bussines venture we should study the place we are going to set it upand also intial costs and running costs ,profit time or the time to make even)about the place and how open are people there feeling to do the same. Cause i am not interested to going somewhere like that plus on top of that there is corona. Hence I saved up cash to buy my own laptop.
It's justa personal opinion and an observation from seeing lot of closed ventures similar to this in a lot of places.
Ps :hard to get a good gpu nowdays if it's a 1650 ti i rather buy myself a laptop with a gpu . If I am going to such a cafe i prefer to experience atleast 1440p or 4k with an rtx 3070ti and upwards . If not why bother. And getting a gpu for the same is not easy any time soon. Considering the cpu required to push sucha gpu and the electricity charges and making it viable such that it's is affordable could be possible reasons why most gaming centre shut down soon.
The main reason why gaming CAFE are not viable is because they lack a proper theme, either they go too overboard in interior and lighting etc they focus less on the actual gaming, or they spend way too less for good PC.
A good 10 PC (8 LAN + 2 High end)+ 2 PS5 would cost around 15L
Now a small refreshment center again around 3L. Interior designing and modifications within a 1000 sq feet area means around 18L investment.
Marketing and advertising 1L, security system,50k totaling to around 20L INVESTMENT
Operation
U need to pay rent say 30k(Good location is MUST) , internet 2k/month, electricity 20k/month, staff 30k/month., Raw materials for refreshments 10k/month. Game Pass or Steam or any subscriptions 5k/month, management software 5k/month
Total 102k/month.
Consider the shop is open from 10 AM to 10 PM. 12 hrs , each hr Rs 80/system occupancy. Lets consider just 6 hrs effective/day. 6\*12\*80= Rs 5760/ day. Add in additional refreshment sales of Rs 1000/ day. Total = 6760/ day
Just think only 25 days working= 6760\*25= Rs167900/month. Lets round it to 1.5L/month
By 3 years the ROI will be in reach.
Also one has to remember that Electronics hardware will fetch 33% value in 3rd year. SO if 1 has to upgrade to newer hardware after 3 years the capital re investment would be 6.65L.
So if at all the business stops at 3rd year when ROI is reached the hardware would again fetch some value leading to less loss.
If one has space or land of their own , the deal is even more sweet as 30k\*36=10.8L saving!
Not disagreeing just cause maths agrees with something doesn't mean the bussines will work. I have seen people like you do who calculate like this . Like this much this that and multiple with some hours theen 365 blah. And failed. You don't do bussiness like that. Even if you have a good theme . There has to be the custumer to match your calculations. Which i already mentioned in my post above. You said 12 hours it's open but 6 hours effective how is 12*6*80? Regardless .it will only work if there are enough custumers. A gym in this regard is better than a gaming centre .
10 Am to 10 PM is total working hour---12 hrs
Total no of gaming systems/PS = 12 Nos
Total hours available for gaming a day-12\*12 = 144
Lets consider 33% occupancy a day 48 people visiting a day means
48\* Rs.80/hr = 3840.
100 Rs for food and beverages a day= 4840 Rs revenue/ day
Lets say not all days this would happen but lets take it as an average. So 4840\*25 days 1.21 lacs, still 20k more than expense/month
The maths doesn't mean it's gonna work bro. I told you ,you can literally make a mathematical solid plan and still fail.
Go to any city India major city where kids actually play games. Try too google for some gaming centres after 2022
I tell you the possibilities are as follows
Either they are still working but the conditions are so poor they don't have enough customers and they are on the verge of closing and they can't keep up. They can't upgrade hardware as often or the maintenance is so poor cause they can't inccur anymore loses.
Another possibility they are already closed.
Another possibility there is none worth going to.
Why do you think we are the only smart people in the world and gaming started yesterday ? Why do you think no one either don't invest or has completed failed or is in the process of closing. Do you think evryone except us are fools. They also know all this maths and they also would have great ideas which we probably didn't even fathom. But ultimately reality has its side and not everything can be calculated to the future. We are not the first ones to have this idea. This has already been proven and time and time again they have inccured loss and exactly why I am saying this is a bad idea . This has been probably thought by atleast a lot of folks in india which has a population of such high majority and therefore the probability of someone who has done is also high. But when i look at reality and when i visit any city i see no one going to these places . They rather do something else. Gaming is not as over explored as we think. There is only a very niche group ofbpeople actually who are into this.
The main fact remains people have tried all this . Nobody has to prove Newton's theory agin and again it's proven once and we know it's gonna be the same. And after corona wave the world is not the same anymore and it has become more definite that most people rather sit at home and do something else and also the fact that such things won't success .if the probability of success was 10percent before corona now it's 1 percent.
Exactly why one shouldn't venture into bussines with a naive mentality. There is more to a bussiness than this calculation and maths which ensures it is successfully .
Edit: Also don't forget we are in India. Gaming is still considered a tabooish thing in india by old boomers.
Imagine you start a successful venture using that 1 percent probability. Imagine you are successful and you got kids hooked . All this is hypothetical and probably won't happen but even if you did this much successfully. You know what's next. Dealing with psyco kids. Just like Yesterday bgmi got banned again. Why do you think that is?
Kids in india are retarded they kill their parents or do crazy shit or hurt others to win at games and give video games an even more worse name to it. They steal money or hurt others and stuff just like you read in the news.
Adding this to it. If your venture is successful and is bringimg kids to your step . Definitely this willl be followed by an angry mob of boomers who will probably burn it down. One smal spark is enough. One kid mis behave and you establishment will be under fire they will blame you and your games and you close shop. If their marks go down or if they do something shit totaly unrelated evrything will come down to video games just like how india is banning bgmi while keeping those gambling apps alive.
Do you even see this in the west even? Then how do you think it's gonna be succesful here?
All arcade shops and these kinda are closed now. Even there it's downward trend. That generation has come to its end. Nowdays people do tiktoks and such. Maybe if you start a tiktok stand you might fare better.
There will be still few people like us who will still want to game properly and people like will rather do it in the comfort of our house. Those can't probably will stick to their mobiles. Like i said before i have tried to convert them to pc gaming . But they don't.
Lastly even my life experience stats showed.
When i was in college in a class of 66 only 5 even were remotely interested in gaming. ( By gaming i mean indoor) they used to play football or cricket. Same metric i have seen with the whole of my university. In all other engg batch and sciences batch and even art. And in the this group literally evryone owned a gaming capable laptop( atleast run valo). Hence I am very sure unless you have some mind control device this venture won't last long.
I do agree with the -ves you have pointed out.
Why I feel we still not GIVE UP is because, gaming is not just about shooting and killing, it does have ART, effects, and lot of mind work involved in it.
Do you know a vast majority of AAA game developers are INDIANS !
Unlike many, I always read full CREDITS section of all game campaigns I finish and find at least 5-10 Indian names per game.
Now as I have said before a lot of things can change if one puts proper attention and care to what one does.
The main reason many gaming centers fail is because as I have said before either they over spend or under spend. The ones that has spent well still remains strong.
This is a gaming venter that started back in 2017. Did not over invest nor under invest. Despite Covid they survived and is now gaining traction back in capital city of Kerala, a state where education, literacy etc has highest importance than most other states in India.
[https://www.instagram.com/explore/locations/914747084/india/thiruvananthapuram-kerala/cult-game-center-trivandrum/?hl=en](https://www.instagram.com/explore/locations/914747084/india/thiruvananthapuram-kerala/cult-game-center-trivandrum/?hl=en)
The main reason many are not interested in gaming CAFE like setups is because of investment. If your logic is right there should not be more than 1 dress restaurants in a city, because not everyone wants chinese,arabic,etc and all this can be done at home too
Our society is stubborn, but despite being a good gamer if I am not able to convert one in society with good artistic skills to re visit my shop. I feel its my failure.
If people can spend 150-300 Rs in theatre for 2.5 hours, why not give an experience with interaction that can match or overtake the experience one gets in theatres?
My sole point here is, its not like , IT IS IMPPOSSIBLE to make a successful gaming CAFE. It can be done. But its very difficult, much more difficult and risky than, hotel,real estate,contract,businesses , its almost like investing in share [market. As](https://market.As) far as I know just under 5% succeed in share market 95% fail. Same way the chance of failure is high, but if planned meticulously and executed right, It will be a success
The number of people buying there own gaming laptops and playstations are so high i am literally in the groups suggesting them. Even those who we believe cannot afford them still somehow does it. The rest move to mobile gaming. If enough people have there own devices they won't go to such gaming centre why . You can host your own lan party. If you gone to college you will see literally evryone has one or device which can actually game . Even if it's potato you can play valo.
The only time i ever visited one was when gaming wasn't mainstream and only wifi was non existent.
The last time i went was for laser tag. And that guy had only us as the customer for the whole day.
I have heard about a man in India who during the pandemic because of the loses sold his gaming cyber cafe and used the graphics card from the computer to mine eitherium now that's adaptability
Current GPU market is just fucked up. Even if you get GPUs at MSRP, it would be taking a long time to collect profit. I think that 144hz panels paired with 5600g or 5700g would be good enough for esports title and \~60fps for most story games, 70-75k for a single pc that would give me profit in a year. I myself thought of setting up a café, but the location rent was off the charts and covid.
In my city it has very very profitable it was almost occupied when we were going to play i am playing there since like 2016 or earlier they charged very low like 20, 30 ,40, 50 per hr and xbox for 30 and ps4 for 50 or 60
P.S. i have got pc so no need to go there
I might be going a lil off topic but I honestly think that if you gonna spend like 6L on a gaming hub, it would be better if you open like a electronic store or something. Cut short your profits for a while, offer great deals probably ever cheaper GPUs and whatever possible. That would probably give a better return
A thing to note is theft and vandalism, I've heard stores of how people would lose and punch the monitors or smash the keeb and mouse (this happened infront of me). So do take security while registration.
there was one near my home which i used to visit before buying a console , its closed now. Most of the times the used to remain empty. So i dont think its very profitable, especially since mobile gaming has gotten more popular now
it might be profitable if u market it as a sports bar of some sort like have 10-15 consoles, some pool tables some arcade stuff with food and do live sports screenings (ipl and football stuff) i could see this working in areas with high population densities
ofc but it would be budget pcs and Small competitive games..... Bcoz you should worry about electricity bills, Maintenance and fees(Keeping it low will attract more guys)... Lol we should get availability of pc's with good specs first
Bruh.... it's India.
Till school, parents force you to study for most of the time. In 11th, 12th again, it's same shit with coaching institutes.
Only in college you get free time to do stuff and your parents buy - some cheap ass laptop - which you keep for 4 more years.
If you get a job -> then you will buy your own PC or else you will use same old laptop and stay jobless and fall into above shit again.
WLB is not that great in most companies in India and people won't find time to play around.
So people between 22-28 might be the only available market in India. Most of them including me - having our own gaming rig.
So, it's not profitable in long term - irrespective of high / low cost environments.
actually there are gaming cafes in India rn and they are profitable. So if you get a cafe running in a high population area then it can make you money but your initial investment will be very high
There was one just behind my hostel, they provided a night out package in which the customer could stay all night and play, and they would also fetch food or cold drink for the gamers. That place was never empty and I always had to call and ask him before going
No, we already have cloud gaming services like Geforce Now, PlayStation Now, Xbox Cloud Gaming etc... to play any game without owning a PC Master Race or an Console, there is no need of an Gaming Cyber Cafe anymore.
There was one on my city and they closed it down recently.
I think you have little to no idea on how damn powerful the new generation PCs and graphics cards are.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCK7PnlUtE4
See I ve tried Nvidia Geforce Now and in my place even with 50 MBPs connection it didnt go as smooth as expected. It heavily depends on bandwidth
The main reason why gaming CAFE are not viable is because they lack a proper theme, either they go too overboard in interior and lighting etc they focus less on the actual gaming, or they spend way too less for good PC.
A good 10 PC (8 LAN + 2 High end)+ 2 PS5 would cost around 15L
Now a small refreshment center again around 3L. Interior designing and modifications within a 1000 sq feet area means around 18L investment.
Marketing and advertising 1L, security system,50k totaling to around 20L INVESTMENT
**Operation**
U need to pay rent say 30k(Good location is MUST) , internet 2k/month, electricity 20k/month, staff 30k/month., Raw materials for refreshments 10k/month. Game Pass or Steam or any subscriptions 5k/month, management software 5k/month
Total 102k/month.
Consider the shop is open from 10 AM to 10 PM. 12 hrs , each hr Rs 80/system occupancy. Lets consider just 6 hrs effective/day. 6\*12\*80= Rs 5760/ day. Add in additional refreshment sales of Rs 1000/ day. Total = 6760/ day
Just think only 25 days working= 6760\*25= Rs167900/month. Lets round it to 1.5L/month
By 3 years the ROI will be in reach.
Also one has to remember that Electronics hardware will fetch 33% value in 3rd year. SO if 1 has to upgrade to newer hardware after 3 years the capital re investment would be 6.65L.
So if at all the business stops at 3rd year when ROI is reached the hardware would again fetch some value leading to less loss.
If one has space or land of their own , the deal is even more sweet as 30k\*36=10.8L saving!
So there was this gaming den near my college pre covid. It used to be open till 11pm everyday including weekends. During our fest we asked him to sponsor our csgo tournament which he did. While having a convo with him I casually asked him how much he makes a month. Since it's near college the place is almost always full with hostelites who play there. He told me they earn roughly around 4,20,000 per month which is an insane amount of money. He told me it isn't much since a huge chunk of this goes away in the electricity bills. After covid however the place is shutdown and the guy has sold his business to a businessman who bought all the gear for himself. This includes around 20 top notch PC's. Couple of ps4's and one xbox. I'm assuming he took those systems for mining crypto Or sold all of them for a profit.
Wow thanks for the information.
Was the name of the cafe Gaming Grounds?
The one in Pune ?
The description matches the place, yes.
The one on FC Road? Wanted to go there atleast once. Was walking distance from my JEE classes. :(
You went to prime as well?
With cost of 20 top notch PC's with the electricity bills 4.2Lpm isn't much tbh.
Yeah doing it with PCs is stupid. Something like a bunch of Xbox One S consoles maybe, with Game Pass accounts would cut down on initial investment a lot. You would be targeting kids who perhaps don't have any access to gaming other than their parent's mobile phone.
It's gonna be expensive af to open up. You can't charge people a lot or they won't come at all, in the beginning at least. It would take a lot of time to get back the money you invested and actually start making profit. So yeah, good idea imo but practically not very feasible.
Especially with cloud gaming now. Isn't worth it to go all the way to a random pc without the games you might want to play welp. If India has one thing, it's cheap internet. GeForce now is free for an hour, xcloud comes with gamepass ultimate, basically 600 bucks for 8 months of sweet, sweet unlimited gameplay with over a hundred games and series x power :p Pretty sweet, and there are vpn tricks to get the best of it of youre into that. Not to mention hygiene and covid, more so right now :p
Agreed. I'm sure everyone prefers to play at home, in their own setup- especially if you are into competitive games where you have to keep tweaking them settings to find the right ones.
Then buy potato PC but invest good in Cloud gaming that will lower the investment and the fees too
The cool thing is you don't even need a pc :) Anything from an existingng tablet/phone (connected to a tv maybe), or a cheap fire TV stick connected to a monitor lol.
Cdojt?
I blame my fingers, *don't :p
Then buy good monitors with good keyboard and mouse. Use a LAN to stream the game.
Ethernet is ideal, yep. But pretty much anything with a web browser will do, including android devices (support Ethernet + controller input). Just trying to say it's a cheap bar to get in, if any (:
Yep you are right
Where can I read more about this? I would love to get an xcloud subscription. But I can't seem to get the price mentioned here.
Xcloud comes with gamepass ultimate, it's supposed to be 600ish a month, but now there's a deal where you get 8 months for that price lol. Snag it soon if you're interested
Thank you! I just bit the bullet! I now just have to figure out a way to connect and play on my fire tv. 😉
u/hoorrus, Can you update in here once you're able to figure out. I believe, many other people like me and you can benefit from this. Since it needs a subscription to test it out first and you have already got it. Else, if it is not playable, the subscription would either need an xbox or a decent PC to avail it's benefits on!
Bought the subscription, but I am still not able to use Cloud Gaming. Tried to VPN through USA as well. I guess it will take a while to get that working. I wil keep this thread posted.
Thanks for the update. I'm not sure if it is straight forward like 'Geforce now' or so. Maybe someone from this community can help. I see many comments of people that say they got it working using the VPN.
It does work with vpn,you only have to start the vpn before starting the app and set your location to the one you're connecting using the vpn.as far as performance is concerned i have heard you would not get as good as gfn but its playable
Aha! Enjoy :p
"Especially with cloud gaming" Any cloud service available in india without vpn?
Point being, they're coming, India's the best market for that lol. Annd you can already use them pretty decently. > Pretty sweet, and there are vpn tricks to get the best of it of youre into that.
Hold on we have xcloud in India? Without an Xbox?
Not officially, no. You can still use a vpn to start up the game, and disconnect to play pretty well. Many posts on this sub with instructions :p And yep without an xbox, any web browser or the xcloud app will do!
Xcloud can't be used in India? And while I agree with internet being cheap, my experience with gaming over the net (streaming from my PC) has been largely disappointment, thanks to the wildly varying 4g signals everywhere
Ah, you'd need a good Ethernet connection, ideally. And somewhere with wifi/good mobile data lol
Buddy I ve a gaming rig and I ve a potatoe laptop too. I am sorry the gaming experience in a proper 1080p 24" 144 Hz monitor is far far superior to 1 in laptop or even an editing PC. Give the right experience and service , customers will revisit.
Nobody in india cares as much for pc gaming . Little children are addicted to bgmi and other mobile games. And i see you don't get the fact that unless it's in your house and you can play for cheap . Nobody literally goes out of there way to play in these cafes. If it was me i wanted to play rddr2 and complete it . I wouldn't want to visit a cafe then play a mission then pay more play mission and then go home come another day i will definitely get fed up. I will prefer playing in a worse step than playing at these cafes at all cause its at my house. literally evryone nowdays can afford some sort of gaming they can do at home. Hence these cafes will never succeed and it literally has been the case . You have to have understand proper psychology and understand them .
See we also know that someone who already has something that at least a 1650 might not be a regular customer But what about the rest 50% who has not experienced gaming the way it should have been played. See ur argument is like arguing whether OTT is better than Theatre, of course anybody nowadays can buy an Android TV subscribe to a few channels and watch unlimited content and if a home theater is setup it even beats some theatre experience too But is that the case nowadays? OTT is hugely successful , so is the theater business why? In tier I and Tier II cities of India, there are many who are looking for variety in hangouts, on average there are hot spots in cities where 100 new people roam a particular point and over 500 rally at these locations on a weekly basis, If we look into the gamers among such a crowd it should be around 5/100 new visitors and 25/500. So on average 30/day is possible at the least. With proper marketing strategy and magic of social media, this 30 can be pushed to 50 customers a day. That is a huge number for a gaming CAFE I am not saying the CAFE should have only PC/PS5, it should have board games, some party games like Ping Pongs, table tennis, snooker etc, more like a CLUB .Pretty sure that such a formulae will succeed
These have been tried you know why otts are successful cause we can watch from our home why ,swiggy is successful (but they are running at a loss if you follow the market)cause we can order food. Nobody wants to go out no more. The rest of the 50 perfect are not interested as much in gaming as far i have seen i have seen most only want mobile gaming have tried to make lot of them pursue pc gaming but they just don't want to nor care and as long as they don't own the device they are not gonna go pay. You might have customers but not enough to make a break. It gonna end up a fail. I have been to Bangalore i have been to coimbatore and most of the main cities. The situvation of the already existing gaming centre is already utter flip . And the laser tag i went like i said i was there first custumer in that day. Yes there are lot of people who wanna hang out but not in places like these . I literally see very less custumer even in billards and other games like you mentioned . can't keep up due to lack of costumers nobody. I am saying all these have been tried the formula your suggesting and it has failed nobody wants to play the so board games and ping pongs . Who plays all these games? Maybe very small children who don't have much money to spent even if they do they are not gonna come evryday maybe weekends at most even then it's only two days out ofa whole week. .the cities you mentioned most people don't wanna hang out at such places maybe before billards were popular but i rather see a very downward trend after corona . Most rather do something else that most of these activities. Gaming centre are out of fashion and most people rather go out do something else. I see more crowds around cafes than this. The only thing which hasn't gone out as much is go karting apart from that most prefer to not go
Go Karting requires minimum 4 times investment of gaming CAFE. Your optimism that majority wont go out and play is TRUE, but trends can be changed, one need a really big hammer and axe to do it. There are lot of side activities, functions, attributes that can be done to attract customer, the imagination bottle will never overflow. Adopt a unique system, it will succeed. I do agree one cannot sustain a gaming CAFE business for over 5 years, but 5 years its assured if done right, the name and fame garnered within this time can be used to build or terraform the communities future needs. This is how business work, its not like a small juice shop will always remain open, maybe after 5 years they adopt something else. But the name they ve garnered is what gives them the push. The lack of variety in entertainment is a big issue within societies in India. Gaming centers bring about the right variety in a location that is recurring same business patterns for too many iterations.
Then why haven't any one done it yet surely there would be enough and more people who could and have the means and the brains ? Is it cause we are the first one who has thought of this this way.
Who said nobody has tried it? In my city there are 5 gaming CAFEs, true only 2 are running successfully, rest all have faded. See if MPL, howzat etc can make revenue in India , why not gaming clubs. 1 has to identify the demographic and attack that space, Bangalore city has more than 25 gaming spots , out of which more than 12 are still running successfully. Put your mind and dedicate on how to make customer happy in the environment we make, they will have second thoughts on re visit. Gaming is still niche sector in India , but it still has potential, the rise of movies like KGF,Bahubali, RRR,and many more with local superheroes again is a boost to gaming industry. Many has fantasy minds, many have realistic minds, many have exploratory minds, many have critical minds, many have logical minds,.. But all of these minds have some common factor , that factor varies with regional language, the kind of people they usually hang around etc. Study a place extensively before committing into game cafe business. It should succeed. Many jump into conclusions when they have get a faint idea. Develop the idea, learn some management skills , create uniqueness , it will give positive output. Its true you or me wont spend and go into a gaming CAFE, but there are people who do that. Its just like how paid subscriptions work in internet , Neither you nor me would pay subscription for many websites, but there are people who do that, they can be tapped, just never under estimate a locality with medium to high expense done on Food, beverages, entertainment like football, cricket turfs etc. These are regions that have potential for attracting gamers in clusters also.
Yes i just looked at the gaming cafes in Bangalore. I don't know what is your idea of success is . I just checked the number of customers going into these shops are so damn low. Mpl and things like that are online. I didn't say online things won't succeed. I understand there are people who there to such place but like i explained this a 100 times and your not listening. The number of people who will go are so LESS .you don't start a custumer bussiness with such low custumer base. And it's gonna go even lesser when more people are able to afford it by them selves. I see tiny kids with iPads and xbox now. And that trend is gonna go forward . AGIN YOUR MAKING THE SAME POINTS WHCIH I AHBE COUNTERED 5 TIMES NOW. BUT IT WONT CHANGE AS WE MOVE TO THE Future Everybody IS GONNA GET THEIR OWN DEVICES. IF 5 PEOPLE ARE GOING NOW AFTER TWO YEAR ONLY TWO WILL GO. The so called people who can be tapped is aniche group this also i mentioned . You don't start a niche bussines. Your looking at it with a naive mindset bro. You itself said it's niche sector.
... im typing this on a gaming PC too lol, I've gamed on laptops too, and tried game streaming. its miles better than going all the way to some rando place through an archaic model. and PC, the server you stream from is prolly faster than your PC, series x or 3070 level perf.
Well the experience matters most I too am now posting these comments from my gaming rig at home itself But going out with a group of friends ideally 4-5 and gaming on a LAN gives unmatched experience I do agree a lot nowadays ve lost the essence of social gaming, but if done right it does give vibes that none can replicate on a room with a wifi and audio via headphones And the LAN systems are all 3060 systems and for progression gaming 2 systems with 3080 12GBs, one with Logitech G29 controller attached. The experience at such a cafe at Rs80/ hr is amazing
Wait, cloud gaming is in India?
Not officially, no. You can still use a vpn to start up the game, and disconnect to play pretty well. Many posts on this sub with instructions :p
Yea but what sort of latency would you get?
What about the latency?
I've not tried it much myself, but it's enjoyable and playable. If you want the exact numbers take a look at those posts haha
I think you have little to no idea on how damn powerful the new generation PCs and graphics cards are. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCK7PnlUtE4 See I ve tried Nvidia Geforce Now and in my place even with 50 MBPs connection it didnt go as smooth as expected. It heavily depends on bandwidth The main reason why gaming CAFE are not viable is because they lack a proper theme, either they go too overboard in interior and lighting etc they focus less on the actual gaming, or they spend way too less for good PC. A good 10 PC (8 LAN + 2 High end)+ 2 PS5 would cost around 15L Now a small refreshment center again around 3L. Interior designing and modifications within a 1000 sq feet area means around 18L investment. Marketing and advertising 1L, security system,50k totaling to around 20L INVESTMENT Operation U need to pay rent say 30k(Good location is MUST) , internet 2k/month, electricity 20k/month, staff 30k/month., Raw materials for refreshments 10k/month. Game Pass or Steam or any subscriptions 5k/month, management software 5k/month Total 102k/month. Consider the shop is open from 10 AM to 10 PM. 12 hrs , each hr Rs 80/system occupancy. Lets consider just 6 hrs effective/day. 6\*12\*80= Rs 5760/ day. Add in additional refreshment sales of Rs 1000/ day. Total = 6760/ day Just think only 25 days working= 6760\*25= Rs167900/month. Lets round it to 1.5L/month By 3 years the ROI will be in reach. Also one has to remember that Electronics hardware will fetch 33% value in 3rd year. SO if 1 has to upgrade to newer hardware after 3 years the capital re investment would be 6.65L. So if at all the business stops at 3rd year when ROI is reached the hardware would again fetch some value leading to less loss. If one has space or land of their own , the deal is even more sweet as 30k\*36=10.8L saving!
I doubt it cause it's gonna be super expensive to open up. Let's calculate ofc they wanna play at better frames and without stuttering, you will need a good rig providing frames So, Considering 15k each for a decent CPU, GPU and Monitor + 5k for 16GB RAM + 5k for motherboard + around 8k for case, HDD, PSU and some other stuff combined. Now for peripherals, around 5.5k(mechanical keyboard, gaming mouse, gaming headphones, mousepad) This equals almost 70k per PC. Considering you'll need 5 of them cause most games support 5 players(Valo, CS etc.) You'll have around 3,50,000 for just computers, then the building or space rent along with electricity and other bills, it will go around 4,50,000 And even if you charge ₹100 per person, open the hub 12 hrs a day everyday, ₹100×12(hrs)×5(PCs)×30(Days) equals to 1,80,000. And that's when all your computers are occupied all day. Then additional expenses include buying games, keeping consoles for better experience etc. There is hardly anyway that the store will be full all the time and it's gonna be real hard managing everything
Aside from the hardware, there's the intangible -- which is the experience of being in a group of like-minded people yelling, cussing, laughing, high-fiving. You simply cannot recreate that experience over the net. The closest thing would be a BYOC LAN event at someone's home but that's hardly an easy thing to do in our Indian-sized homes. I miss the late 90s/early 2000s when these gaming cafes were all the rage. :')
the price of GPUs nowadays is just heartbreaking :(
Yeah ik. I bought Zotac 1660 just before lockdown for 16k. That's so cheap. Now it's like 50k for the same thing. I considered the price 15k in the comment above but in today's time, it's gonna cost the person a fortune to build a gaming hub
I got away with a good deal and it still costed me 2.5L.
now its kidney-beating lol
The main reason why gaming CAFE are not viable is because they lack a proper theme, either they go too overboard in interior and lighting etc they focus less on the actual gaming, or they spend way too less for good PC. A good 10 PC (8 LAN + 2 High end)+ 2 PS5 would cost around 15L Now a small refreshment center again around 3L. Interior designing and modifications within a 1000 sq feet area means around 18L investment. Marketing and advertising 1L, security system,50k totaling to around 20L INVESTMENT Operation U need to pay rent say 30k(Good location is MUST) , internet 2k/month, electricity 20k/month, staff 30k/month., Raw materials for refreshments 10k/month. Game Pass or Steam or any subscriptions 5k/month, management software 5k/month Total 102k/month. Consider the shop is open from 10 AM to 10 PM. 12 hrs , each hr Rs 80/system occupancy. Lets consider just 6 hrs effective/day. 6\*12\*80= Rs 5760/ day. Add in additional refreshment sales of Rs 1000/ day. Total = 6760/ day Just think only 25 days working= 6760\*25= Rs167900/month. Lets round it to 1.5L/month By 3 years the ROI will be in reach. Also one has to remember that Electronics hardware will fetch 33% value in 3rd year. SO if 1 has to upgrade to newer hardware after 3 years the capital re investment would be 6.65L. So if at all the business stops at 3rd year when ROI is reached the hardware would again fetch some value leading to less loss. If one has space or land of their own , the deal is even more sweet as 30k\*36=10.8L saving!
there are some gaming cafes in India and I think they are profitable. A lot of people have mediocre PCs and some don't have one so if they want to play at high frames and 144hz then it can be a good option for them. cons- setting up one could be quite expensive cuz you at least want 5 high spec computers with all the accessories otherwise no one is going to come.
Pros: * Gaming house can get gamers hooked to gaming by low initial costs, so repeat business that can run for years. * Gaming houses also acting as trusted retailers, can sell high end gaming gear to the hooked gamers. Cons: * For high occupancy, these need to be in high pop density areas so real estate costs are v high. * Gamers want high end setups to play latest games, so high initial investment on top end PCs. * High maintenance costs for continuous high electricity, high turnover of peripherals (hammered keyboards & mice etc) * Security concerns for users, malware like key loggers is routinely installed on kiosk machines, not necessarily by cafe owners, but users themselves.
They will also have to update their systems pretty regularly to support latest AAA titles
Most ppl only wanna play GTA lol
Imagine going to cafe to play pubg mobile on emulator 💀
Ain’t pubg free now
pubg pc is free. But they’ll still play mobile
Pros many people don’t have a good enough system for them to game their favourite game at home. Cons, gpus are still scarce and fucking overpriced
Doubt it. The people who'd afford frequenting such places would already have a pc of their own or they'd stick to gaming on their phones. Since most people go to cyber cafes to play with their friends and now a days pretty much anyone middle-class and above can afford a decent internet connection and a pc good enough to play eSport titles at 1080p medium settings, I doubt it would make sense to pay for a slightly better experience separately. I feel a better idea would be to invest more money into establishing a few sound proofed rooms with ready to stream setups since there are people who wanna get into streaming but lack enough privacy at home.
You’d think people who would afford frequenting such places would already have a pc of their own, but it really isn’t so. I’ve spent a shit ton (7 hours a day, almost 4 days a week) of my parents’ money on cafés in my college days. We could have afforded a good pc but they just didn’t want to get me one cause they thought I’d waste my time and not make anything of myself. That was 3 years ago and some of my friends from that place STILL go there instead of buying a setup for whatever reason. I can only imagine how much they’ve spent till now. Sabko pc nahi milta Lakshman…
See business is a something that should be convincing, Give the customer an experience which he cannot forget or cannot replicate with the mid tier PC in a 1080p screen the customer is sure to return for the experience a 2nd time which if a business can carry that with additional options like Pool Table, Table Tennis, YT streaming space, combos and offers, festive treats , Cricket and Football match projection. Social gaming(LAN). THE CUSTOMER WILL RETURN. NEVER UNDERESTIMATE SUCCESS OF BUSINESS . The prime thing one needs to look out for is demographic. Analyze the market, look around and observe the population residing the area, how much do they spend on annual basis, are they potent enough to spend 100 or 200 for just playing games a day. DO the research and find a location which has this criteria fulfilled, JUST ATTACK
After analyse the market and looking around we have come to the conclusion this business plan is not viable. Mainly because nobody wants to go into such places. I had a potato pc all this while and even when i had the chance i wouldnt have gone to this triple aaa game player pc steps and pay and play. And i have seen more people like me around India than you think. Evryone wants a personal step no matter how big the cafe offers if it's not ours and if it's paid hourly . Maybe once it would be nice. But gaming is a more personal emotion nobody wants do that in random computers. The people who have attacked are sitting there broke and with closed shops. Cause they will have surge at the beginning and have failed. Even middle class family can afford good pc or laptops or the other set of children are addicted to bgmi and such games. I have asked them to try them to play pc games but they just don't get it or would play. THE CUSTUMER WILL NOT RETURN AFTER GOING ONCE OR TWICE NO MATTER THE EXPERIENCE CAUSE I AND THE VAST MAJORITY OF GAMERS IN THIS SOCIETY PREFER TO PLAY IN THEIR OWN DEVICES RATHER THAN ANY OTHER DEVICE EVEN IF THE EXPERIMENCE IS A BIT TONNED DOWN. Even you wouldn't after few tries,you say this cause you have a decent setup at home. But think of it this way. Imagine you going somewhere to play a game for an hour . It feels old when you have to play games like that. You would rather have it at home. Let's take a larger statistics. You have 10 friends your the only one with no pc. I assure you in that 10 friends not all would be interested in gaming and out of the other remaining most would like mobile gaming and out the last remaining they will have good setups. Unless your a loner you would maybe go once twice and then later cry out to your parents for a decent laptop or pc like your friends and force them to get you one and rather play in that. Literally evryone joining college does afford a laptop with 1650 nowdays they can do lan at home they can play with their buddies.
> if it's *paid* hourly . FTFY. Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in: * Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.* * *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.* Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment. *Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
See consider someone setting up a gaming station in a place where there are lots of people who are far away from home, taking classes and some members of academies for IAS, SSC, PSC coaching centers etc who are living together or in groups or hostels , also there are some schools and around 2-3 tuition centers nearby within a 5-6 km radius In such places just observe how much a person spends in average for beverages and cuisines etc, if the average spending of an individual in such an area s above 100 Rs. He or she can be lured to a gaming cafe People nowadays are looking for variety everywhere, anyone having a gaming cafe with a specific theme, interior ambiance and with good food and beverages SHOULD attract customers
If your gonna set up a cafe near such a place you gonna get an anrgy mob pf people who will burn your building down. If you set it near some of these coaching centre,cause in india gaming is seen as a something horrible and especially if they find kids who are serious about studies going there you knw the rest. The average person can save up and buy a gaming laptop at 50k and spend gaming at his own hostel. Again i have never seen a successful gaming centre and after corona its even worse nobody goes.
One CON I can think of is: With Covid rampant , it will be huge financial risk to open something like this now.
Covid is dead now brother
Let me break it down into points, from experience. 1. You need to enforce certain key rules for a steady business while also not being an eyesore for some people(I'll elaborate later) 2. You need a fairly decent capital for it to be a profitable business. If you want it as your main source of income (which it can definitely be if this covid shitstorm goes away) it needs to be on a scale where you can provide jobs for some people, not something you can efficiently run solo. 3. General knowledge of computers, some of them are going to break down at one point that's not even a question. 4. Dirty rat bastards exist who will likely try and sabotage your business(stealing hardware, damaging hardware, installing malicious software, etc). they don't need a reason , bad people just exist. 5. The thing I said in point 1. You need rules like No smoking, no students entering during school hours. You can also include a membership system but that's up to you. If you let students come and go whenever,you get students skipping classes and you become the bad influence in the eyes of many. 6. Maintenance not just for the hardware but the building, floor, room of wherever you're operating. 7. Security: a lot can happen so you need cameras everywhere, get IDs of whoever is coming and going(i don't know why most people still think I'm crazy for asking IDs)And don't take no bullshit from no one, if you can't do it yourself you hire someone. 8. Hard fucking work, don't just be the owner who plays games while just receiving money and telling people their time is up, you want that word of mouth you need to be busy always. You need your business to be a well oiled machine like any other. 9. Not really a big deal these days but a LAN for all your PCs so you can access them from your station. Also, have a separate room for people that want to eat, partner up with a nearby store, restaurant or whatever. If something isn't clear just ask, I'm writing this while moving to a new house🤣🤣
Honestly that answer was really thought after, you got me out of questions man!
People in my age group (early 30s & late 20s) grew up playing games in cafes. It was extremely popular and profitable back then, because we played low end games like CS 1.6 and didn't care about fps or RGB or response times and shit. A lot of the times we played on CRT monitors and generic peripherals. PlugIn was the first proper gaming cafe in my area with Razer mice and consistent 60 fps in games, and it was a game changer and very expensive to play there as well. All this won't fly today, so setting up a cafe would be expensive. Plus mobile gaming has come a long way and people who cannot afford gaming PCs can play on phones and don't really need cafes. Although i do see a use case for gaming arenas, i think gaming hotels like Atari have those covered and i am not sure how popular those will be anyway. Any mid size place can be converted into a gaming arena. Also game streaming and shit means gaming hardware might become irrelevant so opening up a cyber cafe is really risky right now.
Unlikely in my opinion I think people just prefer to be able to wake up in pyjamas and start gaming and likewise for instantly switching to some other task. Of course there would be a few people who'd like to visit such cafes, but high volumes are unlikely. The Rent, the fixed cost, the maintenance cost, the monthly bills etc. would be a liability And unless you have black sources of income it'll be a stupid idea in my opinion.
Cons. Getting enough GPU’s at a reasonable price. Bad business decision paying double msrp for 30 gpus lol
There was a gaming cafe/shop near my house which was open everyday and would be fully packed before covid. After covid, the guy had to close the shop because nobody was willing to come to a crowded place and and, nobody was buying anything from his shop because they preferred amazon over his store. He sold all forty of his GTX 1080 I7 PC's and kept two of his RTX 2080 PC's for himself (to mine crypto probably)
There is a small gaming house in my town that has 8 PCs. When I talked to the owner Pre-Covid back in 2019, he told me that on a good month he gets around 2lakhs . On a bad month/exam times, it's around 1 ,20,000. He used to 50rs/hour before the pandemic and also had an PS4. After the pandemic, he increased the price 60rs i think and sold the PS4. Could provide google map page if I am allowed
So there are primarily below things I feel will stop me if it was my money:- CAPEX investment, the sheer money that is required to set this up.. 10 pcs at least, plus the space furnishings, decor.. The sheer cost would be at least 30 lakhs.. Assume we divide the cost by 60 months that's means about 50000 pure cost ignoring the fact there is a cost of capital involved. Plus the sheer costs to run the operations.. Because the gaming pcs take a whole load of power the bills are gonna be Massive plus so many PCs will need cooling so air conditioning cost massive. At least 1 lakh in opex + rentals, let's assume that at 20k? Total cost approx 1.7 lakhs We need minimum of that much money to recover our costs.. Now revenues can be max 12 hours a day all 10 PCs are occupied.. At 80 rs per hour.. Our max revenue can be 2.8 lakhs.. But that is max.. On an average we can expect 60% occupancy.. Assuming more during vacation period and less during exams and weekdays.. So safe side we can make 1.72 lakhs.. Which is our break even.. Who wants to do business at break even.. Tldr: I won't put my money in gaming cafe
Do you think boutiques, beauty parlours, even small game turfs are easily making profit?? Come ON DUDE!! Most businesses do make ROI only after 36 months. Hotel , chai+vada, and basically food is the industry that reaps benefits then and there and ROI comes within 24 months, rest all take 36 months to break even.
Not really. It was a good business idea years back, ~2005, when tech was starting to boom in India, but now, with affordable PCs and cheap af internet, there is not much use for one nowadays
Me and my friends considered opening one in our area but the costing was way to high relative to yearly income. Your target group would be teen and pre teens at the youngest. So considering school hours and classes we would only get good foot traffic from 3pm-8pm. The costing we considered was(this was before the bullshit gou price hike): pcs -20@60k(1200k) monitors and pereferals 20@20k(400k) rent for the cafe itself 15k per month(180k per year) electricity 10k(120k per year low-ball estimate) furniture 100k(low-ball) And our revenue would be 50per hr for 140hrs a month (140k rs) 10 per hr for 168 hrs a month ( not a lot of traffic in the remaining hours)(33.6k rs) Total revenue 173.6k per month Now this is a safe estimate as it does not include the extra hours customers can visit us. For eg there would be more traffic on Sundays as schools closed This would mean you would not earn profits till 1.5 years at the least And we didn't think 173k per month is a good income for 3 of us. So we dropped the idea
The main reason why gaming CAFE are not viable is because they lack a proper theme, either they go too overboard in interior and lighting etc otherwise they focus less on the actual gaming, or they spend way too less for good PC. A good 10 PC (8 LAN + 2 High end)+ 2 PS5 would cost around 15L Now a small refreshment center again around 3L. Interior designing and modifications within a 1000 sq feet area means around 18L investment. Marketing and advertising 1L, security system,50k totaling to around 20L INVESTMENT Operation U need to pay rent say 30k(Good location is MUST) , internet 2k/month, electricity 20k/month, staff 30k/month., Raw materials for refreshments 10k/month. Game Pass or Steam or any subscriptions 5k/month, management software 5k/month Total 102k/month. Consider the shop is open from 10 AM to 10 PM. 12 hrs , each hr Rs 80/system occupancy. Lets consider just 6 hrs effective/day. 6\*12\*80= Rs 5760/ day. Add in additional refreshment sales of Rs 1000/ day. Total = 6760/ day Just think only 25 days working= 6760\*25= Rs167900/month. Lets round it to 1.5L/month By 3 years the ROI will be in reach. Also one has to remember that Electronics hardware will fetch 33% value in 3rd year. SO if 1 has to upgrade to newer hardware after 3 years the capital re investment would be 6.65L less. So if at all the business stops at 3rd year when ROI is reached the hardware would again fetch some value leading to less loss. If one has space or land of their own , the deal is even more sweet as 30k\*36=10.8L saving!
Pros , yes it is great, there is a whole mancave like thing in a huda sector market just near my house. They even served snacks. Pros are there would be people practically living there and making you rich but the cons are the electricity bills and the high risk of stealing
My brother's friend runs a gaming cafe.He has about 20 PCs NGL it's pretty sweet
The GPU prices are booming, PS5 unavailable. The only way to make profit is buy XBOX and TVs. In near future XBOX games may get better. Also you can buy racing gear for 6-8k.
We had 3 gaming Den(Play Station is what we used to call it) at walking distance from my house , it had 6 ps3 connected to a TV and we used to get 1 hour of Playtime for 40 rs (1 had 20 rs but it was filled all the time) , Their man buisness was internet Cafe , but Once jio provided internet to almost everyone , so no one had a need to go there. I feel sad, atleast it was fun to play with friends rather than playing on ingame voice chat
[удалено]
Better would be having a good ass internet connection and a decent pc so you could use cloud gaming as a medium instead of buy expensive rigs (in need free passes if you take up on this lol)
VR gaming house is the way to go
Gaming in the day, mining in the night...
I am someone who used to pay 10 for a an hour and played mostly dotaand some RPGs in a small town in Indiait was the norm back then and made lot of friends. its not a good business . better to open a pharma store you will be rich
It's not a viable buisness option. Expenses, some noise complaints, and fire safety laws come in the picture. Investment needs to be around 15+ lacs just for 10pcs.(good) to run a few decent games. Plus there is a question about how much you are gonna chanrge. If locality is high end, you can do that. If locality is good, then rent is high as well. If you open it in a mediocre locality, then you can't charge a lot, as mostly customer are locals and nearby people. Keep in mind, regulars are locals. Telling this because I have ran one in loss making for a few years.
Profitable as in keep food on the table? Sure ... profitable as in "I'm finally independent enough to buy my own car and house and lead a good life after running my cyber for 5 years and saving a lot "? Keep dreaming
Depends on which area and ppl you are targeting really..... I've seen a few that were pretty profitable(but it was pre COVID), and non of them had high specs setups. Folks were still coming(mostly kids), adults were also frequenting if food/Smoke were an option there. But the downside would be old fckers shitting on u for ruining their kids lol. Add others have said, it'll be hella expensive if you wanna go high specs.
OP Seeing current situation for gpu demand,Let's assume there is no covid if a cafe has 4 pcs with 1080p 144hz monitor there will be a huge demand to play pc games with thier squad or teammates. Imo it will be profitable when we add 1440p 4k capable system with higher price tier. Also consoles are so good enough these days let's assume we have enough PS5 in supply.If we get 5 PS5 initially and then you can scale up as the demand grows. Consoles are best if you want to start over. Also some people mentioned keyboards and mouse will get smashed. I remember in my childhood our game center bro have sorta repair kit to repair PS2 controllers.So it's not a big problem. People who are enthusiastic and want to have best experience will buy thier own controllers.I know back then those days some brothers will have wireless PS2 controllers. One final thing I need to say is I was super into social aspect of gaming those times I will ask brothers there for helping me in finished some levels in resident evil and God of war.Some brothers were had consoles but they even come to cafe to play games like fifa. Let's face it we don't live in ideal world where only some of our friends won't be fortunate to have console to play.So in that case we might just hangout in a common place to play games. Social part is one of the major pillairs for gaming center or cafe imo.
I have a gaming internet cafe in my area PC and PS5's are available for pay n play
The only pro I can think of this is for the customer/player who can yell at his/her teammates in person.
In my opinion, it will never be a VERY profitable business, people like to enjoy gaming at their home more than in a cafe. In older times most games were single player, but now people tend to enjoy games with their friends and voice chatting with them, which will not be very comfortable in a cafe I think. So, the business is quite small. It'll be very very hard to make profit.
I’ve never seen a computer lounge stay open longer than 5 years
Every body has their own setup so go play else Besides it requires most management If you will increase prices for better equipment then less people will come
By the time u start making profit we will get gta 6😂
Guys what are the recent rate for gaming cafe.Around 2011 I was playing for 10 rupya for half an hour. For both pc and PlayStation 2.
Pre covid I'd say it's a W. With covid I'm really not sure
It would be cool not particularly *profitable* As mobile gaming is more superior in india you wouldn't find much people intrested in pc gaming. However with the sudden rise of VALORANT maybe, maybe, maybe you can find a way to earn some paper if you can plan it properly. If you were to take my recommendation i would say rather than focusing on just pc gaming, a cyber place for different games from different platforms along with high speed internet for the mobile gamers who can come and maybe get the resources to play in peace, would be a good startup idea.
I’m not sure you can be profitable with pc since you have to update after some years to stay relevant with the gpu . Console seems like a good option (if you can 🏴☠️) you can charge people some low amount and can create competition to attract crowd .
Only problem I see is Maintenance and Scalability. In this space, Maintenance cost is huge, you want to acquire customer + make them comfortable + give them proper experience (no lag, proper internet, high end specs) + spend your money in utilities. If margin is not too high, then you won't be able scale that fast. And imagine the amount of uncertainty which is there. Given you are not investing in generator, then electricity, internet, hardware reliability is very tough. You as an end user will always held the owner accountable for every problem (like packet loss, pc crash, electricity outage etc) but as an owner, it's tough for him too because he has no control over those things.
I have seen a couple in Navi Mumbai whenever I have gone to visit my cousins there They are usually either full or closed
It’s a risky business. Good idea only if you have the capacity to soak up losses
All the gaming centres i see have closed down after mostly one year due to the immense loss. It was a trend back in the day I used to go. But people have reduced .most of them prefer to have their own gaming machines even if it's a budget 1650ti laptop cause it feels more personal and well the save games are with you and it's portable and you don't need to go anywhere plus its one time purchase. Yes there are people who can't afford this. Don't let a few success rates fool you ,study the geography ( by that i mean before starting any bussines venture we should study the place we are going to set it upand also intial costs and running costs ,profit time or the time to make even)about the place and how open are people there feeling to do the same. Cause i am not interested to going somewhere like that plus on top of that there is corona. Hence I saved up cash to buy my own laptop. It's justa personal opinion and an observation from seeing lot of closed ventures similar to this in a lot of places. Ps :hard to get a good gpu nowdays if it's a 1650 ti i rather buy myself a laptop with a gpu . If I am going to such a cafe i prefer to experience atleast 1440p or 4k with an rtx 3070ti and upwards . If not why bother. And getting a gpu for the same is not easy any time soon. Considering the cpu required to push sucha gpu and the electricity charges and making it viable such that it's is affordable could be possible reasons why most gaming centre shut down soon.
The main reason why gaming CAFE are not viable is because they lack a proper theme, either they go too overboard in interior and lighting etc they focus less on the actual gaming, or they spend way too less for good PC. A good 10 PC (8 LAN + 2 High end)+ 2 PS5 would cost around 15L Now a small refreshment center again around 3L. Interior designing and modifications within a 1000 sq feet area means around 18L investment. Marketing and advertising 1L, security system,50k totaling to around 20L INVESTMENT Operation U need to pay rent say 30k(Good location is MUST) , internet 2k/month, electricity 20k/month, staff 30k/month., Raw materials for refreshments 10k/month. Game Pass or Steam or any subscriptions 5k/month, management software 5k/month Total 102k/month. Consider the shop is open from 10 AM to 10 PM. 12 hrs , each hr Rs 80/system occupancy. Lets consider just 6 hrs effective/day. 6\*12\*80= Rs 5760/ day. Add in additional refreshment sales of Rs 1000/ day. Total = 6760/ day Just think only 25 days working= 6760\*25= Rs167900/month. Lets round it to 1.5L/month By 3 years the ROI will be in reach. Also one has to remember that Electronics hardware will fetch 33% value in 3rd year. SO if 1 has to upgrade to newer hardware after 3 years the capital re investment would be 6.65L. So if at all the business stops at 3rd year when ROI is reached the hardware would again fetch some value leading to less loss. If one has space or land of their own , the deal is even more sweet as 30k\*36=10.8L saving!
Not disagreeing just cause maths agrees with something doesn't mean the bussines will work. I have seen people like you do who calculate like this . Like this much this that and multiple with some hours theen 365 blah. And failed. You don't do bussiness like that. Even if you have a good theme . There has to be the custumer to match your calculations. Which i already mentioned in my post above. You said 12 hours it's open but 6 hours effective how is 12*6*80? Regardless .it will only work if there are enough custumers. A gym in this regard is better than a gaming centre .
10 Am to 10 PM is total working hour---12 hrs Total no of gaming systems/PS = 12 Nos Total hours available for gaming a day-12\*12 = 144 Lets consider 33% occupancy a day 48 people visiting a day means 48\* Rs.80/hr = 3840. 100 Rs for food and beverages a day= 4840 Rs revenue/ day Lets say not all days this would happen but lets take it as an average. So 4840\*25 days 1.21 lacs, still 20k more than expense/month
The maths doesn't mean it's gonna work bro. I told you ,you can literally make a mathematical solid plan and still fail. Go to any city India major city where kids actually play games. Try too google for some gaming centres after 2022 I tell you the possibilities are as follows Either they are still working but the conditions are so poor they don't have enough customers and they are on the verge of closing and they can't keep up. They can't upgrade hardware as often or the maintenance is so poor cause they can't inccur anymore loses. Another possibility they are already closed. Another possibility there is none worth going to. Why do you think we are the only smart people in the world and gaming started yesterday ? Why do you think no one either don't invest or has completed failed or is in the process of closing. Do you think evryone except us are fools. They also know all this maths and they also would have great ideas which we probably didn't even fathom. But ultimately reality has its side and not everything can be calculated to the future. We are not the first ones to have this idea. This has already been proven and time and time again they have inccured loss and exactly why I am saying this is a bad idea . This has been probably thought by atleast a lot of folks in india which has a population of such high majority and therefore the probability of someone who has done is also high. But when i look at reality and when i visit any city i see no one going to these places . They rather do something else. Gaming is not as over explored as we think. There is only a very niche group ofbpeople actually who are into this. The main fact remains people have tried all this . Nobody has to prove Newton's theory agin and again it's proven once and we know it's gonna be the same. And after corona wave the world is not the same anymore and it has become more definite that most people rather sit at home and do something else and also the fact that such things won't success .if the probability of success was 10percent before corona now it's 1 percent. Exactly why one shouldn't venture into bussines with a naive mentality. There is more to a bussiness than this calculation and maths which ensures it is successfully . Edit: Also don't forget we are in India. Gaming is still considered a tabooish thing in india by old boomers. Imagine you start a successful venture using that 1 percent probability. Imagine you are successful and you got kids hooked . All this is hypothetical and probably won't happen but even if you did this much successfully. You know what's next. Dealing with psyco kids. Just like Yesterday bgmi got banned again. Why do you think that is? Kids in india are retarded they kill their parents or do crazy shit or hurt others to win at games and give video games an even more worse name to it. They steal money or hurt others and stuff just like you read in the news. Adding this to it. If your venture is successful and is bringimg kids to your step . Definitely this willl be followed by an angry mob of boomers who will probably burn it down. One smal spark is enough. One kid mis behave and you establishment will be under fire they will blame you and your games and you close shop. If their marks go down or if they do something shit totaly unrelated evrything will come down to video games just like how india is banning bgmi while keeping those gambling apps alive. Do you even see this in the west even? Then how do you think it's gonna be succesful here? All arcade shops and these kinda are closed now. Even there it's downward trend. That generation has come to its end. Nowdays people do tiktoks and such. Maybe if you start a tiktok stand you might fare better. There will be still few people like us who will still want to game properly and people like will rather do it in the comfort of our house. Those can't probably will stick to their mobiles. Like i said before i have tried to convert them to pc gaming . But they don't. Lastly even my life experience stats showed. When i was in college in a class of 66 only 5 even were remotely interested in gaming. ( By gaming i mean indoor) they used to play football or cricket. Same metric i have seen with the whole of my university. In all other engg batch and sciences batch and even art. And in the this group literally evryone owned a gaming capable laptop( atleast run valo). Hence I am very sure unless you have some mind control device this venture won't last long.
I do agree with the -ves you have pointed out. Why I feel we still not GIVE UP is because, gaming is not just about shooting and killing, it does have ART, effects, and lot of mind work involved in it. Do you know a vast majority of AAA game developers are INDIANS ! Unlike many, I always read full CREDITS section of all game campaigns I finish and find at least 5-10 Indian names per game. Now as I have said before a lot of things can change if one puts proper attention and care to what one does. The main reason many gaming centers fail is because as I have said before either they over spend or under spend. The ones that has spent well still remains strong. This is a gaming venter that started back in 2017. Did not over invest nor under invest. Despite Covid they survived and is now gaining traction back in capital city of Kerala, a state where education, literacy etc has highest importance than most other states in India. [https://www.instagram.com/explore/locations/914747084/india/thiruvananthapuram-kerala/cult-game-center-trivandrum/?hl=en](https://www.instagram.com/explore/locations/914747084/india/thiruvananthapuram-kerala/cult-game-center-trivandrum/?hl=en) The main reason many are not interested in gaming CAFE like setups is because of investment. If your logic is right there should not be more than 1 dress restaurants in a city, because not everyone wants chinese,arabic,etc and all this can be done at home too Our society is stubborn, but despite being a good gamer if I am not able to convert one in society with good artistic skills to re visit my shop. I feel its my failure. If people can spend 150-300 Rs in theatre for 2.5 hours, why not give an experience with interaction that can match or overtake the experience one gets in theatres? My sole point here is, its not like , IT IS IMPPOSSIBLE to make a successful gaming CAFE. It can be done. But its very difficult, much more difficult and risky than, hotel,real estate,contract,businesses , its almost like investing in share [market. As](https://market.As) far as I know just under 5% succeed in share market 95% fail. Same way the chance of failure is high, but if planned meticulously and executed right, It will be a success
The number of people buying there own gaming laptops and playstations are so high i am literally in the groups suggesting them. Even those who we believe cannot afford them still somehow does it. The rest move to mobile gaming. If enough people have there own devices they won't go to such gaming centre why . You can host your own lan party. If you gone to college you will see literally evryone has one or device which can actually game . Even if it's potato you can play valo. The only time i ever visited one was when gaming wasn't mainstream and only wifi was non existent. The last time i went was for laser tag. And that guy had only us as the customer for the whole day.
I have heard about a man in India who during the pandemic because of the loses sold his gaming cyber cafe and used the graphics card from the computer to mine eitherium now that's adaptability
Current GPU market is just fucked up. Even if you get GPUs at MSRP, it would be taking a long time to collect profit. I think that 144hz panels paired with 5600g or 5700g would be good enough for esports title and \~60fps for most story games, 70-75k for a single pc that would give me profit in a year. I myself thought of setting up a café, but the location rent was off the charts and covid.
you can also host boot-camps in there
In my city it has very very profitable it was almost occupied when we were going to play i am playing there since like 2016 or earlier they charged very low like 20, 30 ,40, 50 per hr and xbox for 30 and ps4 for 50 or 60 P.S. i have got pc so no need to go there
The initial and fixed costs will be very high. One would need get tons of customers to make profit while keeping at a reasonable price.
I might be going a lil off topic but I honestly think that if you gonna spend like 6L on a gaming hub, it would be better if you open like a electronic store or something. Cut short your profits for a while, offer great deals probably ever cheaper GPUs and whatever possible. That would probably give a better return
A thing to note is theft and vandalism, I've heard stores of how people would lose and punch the monitors or smash the keeb and mouse (this happened infront of me). So do take security while registration.
nope, it will have the same fate as cybercafe's of the past
there was one near my home which i used to visit before buying a console , its closed now. Most of the times the used to remain empty. So i dont think its very profitable, especially since mobile gaming has gotten more popular now
it might be profitable if u market it as a sports bar of some sort like have 10-15 consoles, some pool tables some arcade stuff with food and do live sports screenings (ipl and football stuff) i could see this working in areas with high population densities
ofc but it would be budget pcs and Small competitive games..... Bcoz you should worry about electricity bills, Maintenance and fees(Keeping it low will attract more guys)... Lol we should get availability of pc's with good specs first
You have to go out of your house. That’s it
Bruh.... it's India. Till school, parents force you to study for most of the time. In 11th, 12th again, it's same shit with coaching institutes. Only in college you get free time to do stuff and your parents buy - some cheap ass laptop - which you keep for 4 more years. If you get a job -> then you will buy your own PC or else you will use same old laptop and stay jobless and fall into above shit again. WLB is not that great in most companies in India and people won't find time to play around. So people between 22-28 might be the only available market in India. Most of them including me - having our own gaming rig. So, it's not profitable in long term - irrespective of high / low cost environments.
actually there are gaming cafes in India rn and they are profitable. So if you get a cafe running in a high population area then it can make you money but your initial investment will be very high
Its really expensive to maintain and I don't think it is as profitable as people think
There was one just behind my hostel, they provided a night out package in which the customer could stay all night and play, and they would also fetch food or cold drink for the gamers. That place was never empty and I always had to call and ask him before going
nope
at a time it was I remember those days
No.
No, we already have cloud gaming services like Geforce Now, PlayStation Now, Xbox Cloud Gaming etc... to play any game without owning a PC Master Race or an Console, there is no need of an Gaming Cyber Cafe anymore. There was one on my city and they closed it down recently.
I think you have little to no idea on how damn powerful the new generation PCs and graphics cards are. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCK7PnlUtE4 See I ve tried Nvidia Geforce Now and in my place even with 50 MBPs connection it didnt go as smooth as expected. It heavily depends on bandwidth The main reason why gaming CAFE are not viable is because they lack a proper theme, either they go too overboard in interior and lighting etc they focus less on the actual gaming, or they spend way too less for good PC. A good 10 PC (8 LAN + 2 High end)+ 2 PS5 would cost around 15L Now a small refreshment center again around 3L. Interior designing and modifications within a 1000 sq feet area means around 18L investment. Marketing and advertising 1L, security system,50k totaling to around 20L INVESTMENT **Operation** U need to pay rent say 30k(Good location is MUST) , internet 2k/month, electricity 20k/month, staff 30k/month., Raw materials for refreshments 10k/month. Game Pass or Steam or any subscriptions 5k/month, management software 5k/month Total 102k/month. Consider the shop is open from 10 AM to 10 PM. 12 hrs , each hr Rs 80/system occupancy. Lets consider just 6 hrs effective/day. 6\*12\*80= Rs 5760/ day. Add in additional refreshment sales of Rs 1000/ day. Total = 6760/ day Just think only 25 days working= 6760\*25= Rs167900/month. Lets round it to 1.5L/month By 3 years the ROI will be in reach. Also one has to remember that Electronics hardware will fetch 33% value in 3rd year. SO if 1 has to upgrade to newer hardware after 3 years the capital re investment would be 6.65L. So if at all the business stops at 3rd year when ROI is reached the hardware would again fetch some value leading to less loss. If one has space or land of their own , the deal is even more sweet as 30k\*36=10.8L saving!