How's the arcade business? Ive been looking for updates on it lately. You have a blog or something on it? Better or worse then you thought?

I've been needing to post an update.

So far it's been slow going due to a number of factors.

1) My advertising has been limited so far to the internet and word of mouth. I have used Facebook advertising and Youtube along with the website and that has brought in a few people but my local advertising will only kick in starting Tuesday and run for 12 weeks. It will be good to see how that turns out. Also I am still waiting on my primary sign since the makers 'forgot' about the project, delaying it for a time. It should be installed by Friday and when that's up it will help a great deal.

2) Construction in the area. As the mall is undergoing a renovation project, they have made the parking lot a mess which is certainly turning potential customers away. They have huge holes dug up in the parking lot and they have shut down two primary roads in front of my place since I opened. One is back open, the other, directly in front of my shop is supposedly going to reopen tomorrow but I don't see that happening considering there are still holes in the ground there. That and they have made the street more inconvenient to drive one by putting in worthless road bumps and curbs. I guess they feel that it will feel 'higher class' due to that but really it's idiotic.

3) My air conditioning has not worked since I opened. This is probably the worse thing that I could have happen. When people come into my store and it's 90F, they don't stay for long or at all. I have been waiting and waiting for the mall to get this fixed and apparently the entire HVAC unit needs to be replaced which is why it's taking so long but I was promised that it will be fixed this week. We'll see.

Those are the three major obstacles I've had to face. If everything goes as planned or I am told then it should all be resolved this week. But so far if you combine the money I made between June and July, I still have not made enough to pay one month's rent. June did suffer more as the PC LAN was pretty much non-existent that month.

However, things are looking up. Despite these problems we made twice as much in July as we did in June and this past week was the best week ever and yesterday was our best day for earnings yet. I have a small group of dedicated players coming in and they overlook the heat. It also helped that we had a competition yesterday with a decent turnout. Now I just need to resolve some hardware problems - HOTD4 has a malfunctioning I/O gun board (replacement should be here tomorrow), TMNT needs some proper coin mechs, I need to get the boards for Warlords and Asteroids fixed or replaced and I need to figure out how to fix the controls on T-Mek. The computers also have some occasional problems but I have those under control.

I remain optimistic because it takes time for a business to grow, especially where I'm on a shoestring budget compared to other startups that have many more thousands of dollars in backing. I see growth, we just need to hang on long enough for that to become self-sustainable.

I was wondering the same thing and I thought you had a blog somewhere where you did daily updates....but the forum is good enough

Im sure it will all work out. As I have said i'm looking to start my own arcade either in NYC or PA and there are ALOT of idea killers out there. No one i have spoken to has anything positive to say about starting an arcade. But as I learned from a business book i've read "Ignore the idea killers".

I have faith in the business and I really think your business will take off as well as mine once I get started. If you need anything let me know I'll help as much as I can (from NY lol.)

The reason why there's nothing positive to say about arcade because in a way arcades in America hit a dry spell. What do I mean by dry spell? Basically you have a bunch of games that came out outside of the U.S. that never seen the light of day in America and arcade owners not having a club what's in and what's hot.

I believe if your place can stand out deliver something the others don't have anybody, and I mean anybody, can run a successful Arcade. I think it takes about a good 6 to 8 months to get your name out there. If you can start tournaments or have some kind of event

I have a few ideas to get them in which I truly believe will get attention. I usually second guess myself but this time im really confident it will work and well. Ive been following Shaggys progress and just getting more motivated to it.

My biggest problem now is once its up and running I have to dedicate all my time to it which means ill be there full time. Right now the wife is pregnant and I have to have medical insurance when the baby is born, if not for me then just my wife and child. Lots of stuff still to look into.

I know the feeling Pat - I have a two year old boy and a wife to take care of as well. She works part-time as do I beyond the store. Fortunately I have my younger brother working at the store voluntarily at the moment and he is able to be there for all the hours I am working elsewhere. He really has been a lifesaver as I can trust him. It's also been helpful that I've had some extra investment to come along and help me stay afloat while things pick up. I'm definently going to be coming up with a competition schedule. You need money, patience and optimism. Things will go wrong on occasion but you need to look beyond that and work around it when such things occur.

I do have a place where I have been updating my progress with news and such, the Gamegridarcade Forums. I only have two other people signed up at the moment but that will grow with time.

http://z4.invisionfree.com/GameGridForums/index.php

I know this thread is WAAAYY old but i like to gravedig ;P haha, i am also intrigued by what you guys are doing. mostly because I am an arcade fiend mainly for 2d fighting games but i enjoy shmups and point blank/HOD, and ive always wanted to get into the videogame business. Within the last few years after watching all the arcades and LANs either die or completely fallout i am still planning to open a arcade. Anyway what im trying to get at is i have come up with alot of great ways to promote business, in a cost effective manner.

So shaggy if you have not already considered this you may want to. there are a ton of cork boards in businesses and other places such as universities and dorms where you can basically do "free" advertising. You will see many flyers posted most of which people are trying to give away dogs or whatever. But if you do have any universities, grocery stores, or malls around you (even if they are not in the immediate area) i would consider posting and handing out flyers or coupon vouchers. This would work great for tournaments, seeing as how most of the tournaments around here are set up by college students. And every college kid i know plays games when they are not in class.

You could also take full advantage of your pc lan set up by organizing weekly tournament ladders for COD4 and WoW arenas, this could possibly bring in more players regularly and possibly open more doors for you than you thought. I have actual experience with those types of ladders so if you need some insight i can go into details later.

Whatever flyer you make the more color and creative they look the better, people are more apt to look at something that you took time to create in photoshop rather than something you typed up and printed off your pc. Most of the time they will toss it in the garbage but you WILL get people that will see them and that is half the battle. Because as long as people know you exist they will check you out. I travel 45 mins+ to go to the arcades still surviving in michigan. I heard about the arcade from word of mouth concering a what?............a tournament flyer