Gaming store models
Seth M. Drebitko:
Hello folks so I have my thread on http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?action=post;board=12.0 in regards to intellectual property purchasing, but I also have a business model for development that I am looking to get together. The goal of the model would be to create an environment that did not depend on the sale of gaming materials to thrive, and also would not have to deal with undesired stock. The only thing I am not 100% sure about the idea so I wanted to get some opinions.
The core of the profit will revolve around a tea house/sandwich/soup deal with extra comfortable lounge like seats and tables where people can game. We would also have war game tables set up, and some computers. For internet and computer access I was thinking of doing what a fast food place in Manhattan did. When they sold things it created a unique code that people could enter when trying to access the internet or use the computers to get an allotted amount of time based on what they bought. If for what ever reason it was desired you could also save them.
The “gaming store” end would come from an online discount store which would make deliveries to the store of anything ordered twice a week without shipping and handling costs on the customers. The store website could be accessed from the actual shop without purchase of anything, while customers could also choose to purchase and have things ordered to the store and pick it up when their group goes in to game, or simply to get a cup of tea and a sandwich. I would also be possible to create separate online discount stores people could purchase other things than gaming material, for example electronics.
Ultimatley the desire for this would be to create an enviornment where I could work the store during normal business hours when it will be a bit slower and have time to work on my own material.
Any opinions, ideas, criticisms?
Regards, Seth
Eero Tuovinen:
Messed up the link to your other thread...
What sort of income structure do you have in mind for this idea? Would the gaming space have some some sort of rental fee, or would all income come from the cafe part of the operation? My first instinct tells me that in the latter case you'd end up with unsustainable pricing, considering the extra expenses of the gaming space. What's worse, you'd have constant strife with the customer base over the socially acceptable levels of freeloading - how many cups of tee a group should buy before they can concentrate on gaming with good conscience.
If you get the numbers to work, though, this is certainly interesting. I could easily imagine being a customer for something like this myself, if I were living down south in a big city again. Feasible, public gaming space is something that communities will have to start addressing sooner or later somehow. Here in Finland we're getting good results by playing in libraries and such public culture spaces, but a gaming cafe has lots of appeal as well, as long as you can build a regular enough customer base who are happy with your pricing and get along with each other socially. Should have no trouble out-competing the traditional game store in the public gaming space market; the only question at that point is whether that's a market that really sustains commercial rent levels on the space itself.
Seth M. Drebitko:
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=26904.0 fixed
Well I was kinda thinking that the gaming space would be a bit of a sacrifice could set up a tip system where people can donate to keep the space free or some such. Ultimately the two big things would be rented computer space and the café area. The extra space would earn its keep with hosted events and tournaments primarily.
We definitely have the gaming community to support it, two stores one with a large yet overpriced selection and little play space, and another with better prices and game space but no selection have good customer bases that are both not please with the stores set up. With use people would have a wide selection at very competitive prices, and a nice relaxing hang out.
One of the stronger points I see is that we are a spitting distance from three colleges which means we would have locals who make up a good portion of consistent customer base and “pass-through” customers who after three to four years of patronage and getting good deals may even continue to purchase from the online end of things even after moving.
Our goal would be to purchase one of the very numerous buildings that has the large store on the bottom and housing above it as a starter home/business space.
Eero Tuovinen:
Hey, I seem to have replied to that particular thread. Wonder why I missed your answer...
As for the game store thing here, I'm skeptical of the market wisdom of making the gaming space free of charge. Of course, if you get the numbers (rent of space vs. projected tips & value add for the main products) to match comfortably and are confident that the locals wouldn't respond well to straight pay-to-play type arrangements, then that's some basis for the decision. What I'm worried of most (aside from the high cost of business space) is the social atmosphere that develops in game stores that have this sort of service that is essentially coupled into a package deal with the overpriced secondary produce sold there - I don't feel myself comfortable with gaming regularly somewhere when I'm either socially pressured into buying a tie-in product, or the business owner is fucked over by his own generousity. I'd much prefer paying some fair price for the space I'm taking at the store and buying my beverages and whatnot at something close to reasonable prices. Then there'd be less pressure from the proprietor to limit bringing your own snacks, too, as he wouldn't be so dependant on selling refreshments to the gamers. And nobody would need to be uncertain about whether they're carrying their weight in keeping the system afloat, too, which would be important for me, at least.
But that sort of thing is highly cultural, so individual opinions are probably the wrong thing to go by there - if the rest of your business idea is agnostic to how the game tables support themselves, I suggest canvassing the local gamers about this and going with the dominant preference; this happens to be an issue where anybody who could be in your potential audience can easily tell you what sort of payment scheme they'd prefer for the service of public game space. I can totally understand that when we move away from the individual level into how the masses think, the benefits of "free" space paid for by donations and higher pricing of other items might become more attractive. One of the major benefits in the donations & surcharges plan is the social flexibility it offers for genuinely poor gamers and the damaged tightwads that seem to be so common to the gamer culture in places: when the cost of gaming space is covered by voluntary donation, the more fair-minded fraction of the customer base can essentially pay for everybody, which could be easier socially on everybody involved than having the individual game group argue among themselves about how the venue fee should be divided.
Also - I'm harping on the cost of space, but if hosted events and tournaments bring in a lot of money on the space, then of course that part of the equation is moot. How does that sort of thing work? We don't have a lot of game store culture around here to begin with, so I'm pretty vague on how you leverage hosted events and tournaments into money. Do you charge admission fees like a small convention, or is it just that you get more people into the store to buy things with a MtG tournament or whatever?
One thing to consider would be to go for close cooperation with the university rpg club(s). If I were doing something like this in Helsinki, I'd make a point of investigating the costs of basically offering the space as a club room for the university club with some very attractive terms - their needs are really just to have some closet to store their stuff in, and being able to hold club meetings for 10-20 people once a week, which basically means that they're going to be playing something 80% of the night, anyway. The particulars of something like this would depend on the local history and circumstances, but getting a rpg club to exclusively support your store could make for some serious inflow of customers. In Helsinki I'd look into getting the University student body to subsidize this sort of arrangement, too, on the basis of helping them with their ever-present club-housing problems.
--
What sort of property market do you have in your town currently? You seem to have a rough idea worked up about the location, so perhaps that's something to base further research on when canvassing the customer base. I also like the idea of combining home ownership with the shop space, as that helps control the risks somewhat - home owning is a very secure investment (inherently lossy in monetary terms, of course), which balances nicely with speculative enterpreneurship, at least if you don't have to put the home part on line in the business plan.
More generally on the topic of starting a game store - I'm sure you've thought about this stuff a lot, but if you're seriously doing this sort of high-investment project, you need to think like an enterpreneur. And that means thinking of what money is used to pay for the project and what alternative needs for that same money there might be. Furthermore, think up risk-control strategies: if one or more of the initial projections fail, how does the plan cope and shift to recover? Is there sensible ways of estimating the risks and dividing them into smaller parts, perhaps by separating the singular vision into smaller, self-sustaining steps or portions?
That's all most likely self-evident to you, but those following along at home should remember that game stores are far from low-risk enterpreneurship.
jag:
A few years ago, Eudemia (www.eudemonia.net) opened in Berkeley CA, with a very similar model (plus an extra bank of pay-as-you-go bad-ass gaming computers). The owners are quite nice and accessible (I rented it out one night for a party), and it might be helpful to talk to them about what they've learned, what's worked, and what hasn't -- assuming you aren't close enough to be competition, of course.
I always thought their profit model should use food more. Come to an agreement with neighboring restaurants to offer delivery of pizza, burritos, thai, etc, as well have a decent snack-food and soda selection will allow you to tap into the gamer need for food while playing.
As a gamer, i like the model a lot, but i've always wondered about their profit model. They've been in business for several years, so it's worked that long at least.
James
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