Ive opened up a board game/ Esports lounge with 2 other people roughly 2 months ago

Ive opened up a board game/ Esports lounge with 2 other people roughly 2 months ago.

Since our opening we've received lots of compliments and have even gained a few 'regulars' that come by once a week at least.

although were growing at a rapid rate, we don't have enough revenue coming in per month to support our expenses.

We believe the reason for this is because we put in very little into marketing and advertising our lounge.

So I humbly as the Veeky Forums family to help me out and give me some suggestions on marketing, advertising, and essentially getting the word out that we exist. We have a modest social media following (@goodgamesarcade) and we've tried to advertise locally by creating "meetups" on various platforms but it isn't producing a lot of results.

Here's some information for free:

'Good Games Arcade' is a terrible name, and the logo looks awful.

thanks, although completely irrelevant to the topic, I appreciate the opinion.

I can't find your twitter account

its @GGarcadelounge.

we assumed more users used Instagram and facebook so we've neglected twitter.

Personally, the other owners and I only have Facebook accounts and were social media cavemen so we just used the platforms we heard the most chatter about, which was Instagram, snapchat and Facebook

I recently discovered a similar place. The downside is few interested customers, the upside is they come in groups and are very loyal. I'd say it is a booming business enterprise so it should work. Maybe your expenses are too high. It also wouldn't hurt to organize some monthly some-game night tournaments, maybe set up a leaderboard with high scores as a replacement for handing out prizes.

currently we've set up tournament nights on Friday. we call it Fight Night Fridays but we have something for every day of the week. were using Street Fighter for now but it will be randomized once we pick up more steam.

$220, $150, $100, and $50 in store credit are the prize amounts and it allows each player to play atleast twice within the tournament.

Do you think that creating an event for Friday night might be too ambitious considering were fairly new?

look up obituaries of someone that just died but it was vague as to the reason
say that they died by playing 50+ straight hours in the cafe just like the korean starcraft boiler repairman
fame forever

I actually meant something around board games. Esports seems more focused on competition and shitposting online. Board games are more introductory to women.

We do have some gamer girls coming in but we have geared ourselves to catering to couples and small groups of friends.

nowadays you can't neglect any type of social media, especially if you wanna be in the top of google searches. I had a friend explaining it to me the other day.

Twitter is a must trust me. Just use some website to post to FB, IG and Twitter all at once.

Also make sure you have the same handle on each site.

In regards to your tournament idea. 90% of people that enter tournaments don't want to head into a place with an uncertainty. If I'm a Street Fighter player I want to know I'm able to have access to the tournament weekly.

Setup regular recurring tournaments for these fighting games. If you want to offer tournaments for more niche games only do it on a Biweekly or Monthly basis.

Both Smash 4 and Smash Melee are big right now. You can get in on that if you play your cards right. Note that competitive players for all fighting games NEED lagless BenQ or ASUS monitors or they'll immediately write off your tournaments if they're playing on TVs. Also note Melee players won't play on anything but CRTs

Contact this guy (twitter.com/TorontoJoe) if you're interested in doing this. He'll give you tips and make sure you aren't stepping on the toes of other nearby tournaments (big no no)

I'll also try to go into a little more detail if this interests you.

lol @ fighting game shits thinking they're hot
it's literally all the same facet of 12 year olds who can cream everyone in their family

everyone I've ever met into shit fighting games, within 5 minutes of playing I'd do something random and suddenly they'd say "oh shit that was an AT (advanced tactic) are you sure you're not pro?"

meanwhile, here's every FPS and RTS tournament. smash can't even exist without made up 12 year old forums banning 70% of the characters/stages

>Board games

And in comes the influx of hispters trashing your egaming lounge.

We are interested. We have LG 4k LED smart TV's that are attached to each console. Not sure how much lag that generates but we didn't want to limit people to those "briefcase consoles" that have a small monitor and console all within a tiny box. Is there a method to test the lag?

We have PC's to accommodate the "master race" but we've currently focused our tournaments for console users because they can lie back in our couches and be comfortable vs upright and infront of a screen. We did this to kind of trigger a nostalgic feeling when youre going head to head with someone of equal skill, like playing with your buddy when growing up.

if this doesn't bring in the cash tho were going to pivot ourselves to tournaments for FPS and RTS games. Which games would you suggest we focus on? preferably on console but PC is fine also

There's not any problem with console tournaments especially for casual play, this was not a response to your business, it was a response to the smashfag. I'm sure it will help to do this and get people in.

Anyway, let me properly take some time to shit on his post:

>same tournament place
so it can be the same people who can't play so you can know where to go and dominate the other 12 year olds

>smash 4 and smash melee are big right now
Big with 12 year olds and 20 year olds who are also 12 year olds

>competitive smash players
>competitive
>smash

>Mom you don't understand I NEED a CRT
>console outputs at sub 50hz with shit 480p
I'm sure dolphin is permabanned as well

>Make sure you aren't stepping on the other toes of nearby tournys
ha! wouldn't want to piss off those 12 year olds. See, smash isn't just a casual party game that manchildren pretend to be pro at for beating their parents, it's an entire underground cult, and if you don't go through the proper channels, we'll fucking shoot nerf missiles at you

>I'll try to go into more detail
3% accuracy or 30 APM take your pic

Actually I'll just direct you to contact @TorontoJoe as he has infinite more experience than me as he's the community leader on Toronto-area Smash and runs Canada's largest Smash tournament. He'll be more than happy to help you out. I'm not here to engage in a shitpost war with @P3Ev47Om

Take heed, smash bros is a serious business game. Only pro players allowed.

bump,

looking for anymore thoughts?

try hosting MTG, Warhammer, D&D, dorky stuff like that. there's not many places to play those games so people will come, especially if you can get some decent weekend tournaments. Sell snacks and soda to the hungry nerds, they'll be there for hours.

How are you guys making money? Do you sell trading cards, food,snacks charge for tournaments? Doesn't seem like there's too much money in that.

We considered that but we don't want to create the 'nerd cave' vibe that similar locations feel like. However, I'm going to look more into this. thanks.

Food, snacks, virtual reality and console time and we do also charge entry for tournaments

>Also note Melee players won't play on anything but CRTs

Holy shit, could Nintendo fanboys be bigger hipster douches if they tried.

OP: you need to identify and push your revenue streams. What people GO to a venue for and what they actually PAY for are often two very different things. Do you have an alcohol licence? What about merchandise? I'd say you have a prime location for vending machines - sell weeaboo shit, Japanese soda and candy at 300% markup, MTG cards, a Pokemon capsule toy machine or whatever the weebs are literally jacking off onto these days. Sell game guides, manga books, comics, warhammer figures - you get the idea. What about a coin - op pool table. Can you get a gambling licence and have a slot machine / coin pusher / pachinko machine / ufo catcher?

There's your ideas, man. Go go go.

Give them their own room, preferably the basement. Decorate it with a steampunk/olde worlde /piratical kind of vibe and sell them overpriced craft beer and rum. A hipster and his minimum wage are soon parted.

>won't play on anything but CRTs
Cringed

If you are growing at a rapid rate yet aren't getting enough revenue, then your problem is you aren't charging too much. This is basic finance. Consider selling your portion of the business until your IQ grows above 60 points.

flyers, google ads, facebook, social media, forums, radio ad