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opening up a computer gaming store, need advice

I

imported_CyberWire

Senior member
I had a client approach me about opening up a computer gaming store and he asked me for a quote for all the computers. I spent some quick research time and came up with the list below. I'm looking to get an idea of what the community thinks of these machines. Also what other games would be good to have in a place like this? questions/comments/warnings/anything?


STATION HARDWARE
Qty Description Unit Price TOTAL
10 DFI Lanparty UT NF3 250GB $ 129.00 $ 1,290.00
10 MGE Viper Black/Blue ATX Mid tower w/ 500W PS $ 88.88 $ 888.80
20 Crucial Ballistix 512 DDR PC-3200 $ 149.00 $ 2,980.00
10 AMD Athlon 64 3200+ retail box $ 204.00 $ 2,040.00
10 Lite-on 52x CD-rom $ 19.00 $ 190.00
10 Western Digital Raptor 74GB 10,000RPM SATA HD, model wd740gd $ 182.00 $ 1,820.00
10 logitech black optical desktop keybd/mouse combo $ 19.00 $ 190.00
1 linksys 16port workgroup switch model ezxs16w $ 63.99 $ 63.99
1 linksys 4port firewall router model befsx41 $ 62.99 $ 62.99
10 ag neoco f-419 19" LCD flat panel monitor $ 514.00 $ 5,140.00
5 belkin 7 outlet surgemaster power strip f9h710-12 $ 12.99 $ 64.95
1 hp psc 2510 multi function printer, network ready $ 327.00 $ 327.00
10 labtec elite-835 stereo headphones $ 15.00 $ 150.00
10 evga nvidia geforce 6800 GT 256MB w/ FREE DOOM3 $ 420.00 $ 4,200.00
12 arrow micro 25ft. Cat 5e network cable (grey) $ 2.99 $ 35.88

SubTotal $ 19,443.61
Shipping ??????????????
Tax Rate(s) 7.75% $ 1,506.88
TOTAL $ 20,950.49

SOFTWARE:
Qty Description Unit Price TOTAL
4 windows xp pro (3-pack) = 12 copies $ 439.00 $ 1,756.00
10 unreal tournament 2004 $ 29.99 $ 299.90
10 warcraft 3 battlechest(includes frozen throne expansion) $ 29.99 $ 299.90
10 farcry(free with processor/motherboard purchase) $ - $ -
10 doom3(free with video card purchase) $ - $ -
10 half life 2 $ 47.99 $ 479.90
10 battlefield vietnam $ 31.99 $ 319.90
10 tribes: vengeance $ 44.99 $ 449.90
1 mircosoft small business server 2003 w/ 5CAL $ 499.00 $ 499.00

SubTotal $ 4,104.50
Shipping ??????????????
Tax Rate(s) 7.75% $ 318.10
TOTAL $ 4,422.60

SERVER HARDWARE:
Qty Description Unit Price TOTAL
1 supermicro "SUPER X5DPA-TGM+" E7501 CHIPSET for dual 604 xeon $ 232.00 $ 232.00
2 Kingston ValueRam 184pin 1gb ecc registered ddr333 pc-2700 $ 265.00 $ 530.00
2 intel xeon 2.4a GHz 533FSB 1MB L3 Cache, Hyperthreading $ 275.00 $ 550.00
2 western digital raptor 74gb 10,000rpm SATA, model wd740gd $ 182.00 $ 364.00
1 ASPIRE X-SuperAlien aluminum server case 500W PS(atxa6sw/500) $ 139.00 $ 139.00
1 logitech black optical desktop keybd/mouse combo $ 19.00 $ 19.00
1 ag neoco f-419 19" LCD flat panel monitor $ 514.00 $ 514.00
1 belkin universal series 1200VA UPS model F6C120-UNV $ 129.99 $ 129.99

SubTotal $ 2,477.99
Shipping ??????????????
Tax Rate(s) 7.75% $ 192.04
TOTAL $ 2,670.03



OVERALL TOTAL: $28,043.12 + shipping
 
I think it's an overkill for his needs. People who come in just want something efficient to game with friends. Plus, to attract customers, he could only charge $5-6 an hour. At that rate, it would be a long time before he breaks even.
Just a thought.
 
well hes trying to get up ahead on hardware now so he wont have to upgrade anytime soon, also its good to have the dream machines that everyone wishes they had at home or else theyd just play them at home. i believe hes thinking about going $10/hr or so.. and with 10 stations full thats $100/hr income. Any other games that ppl would like to play in this environment? what kind of "station" machines would you recommend?
 
That's assuming that all stations are filled all the time.
I work with youth (which will be his target audience) all the time, and they won't do anything for $10 an hour. The place which they go to has a happy hour every Sunday night ($7 for 3 hours), and their machines are just ok. People would rather pay $5/hour for decent gaming machines than $10/hr for top of the line.
 
It's funny this would come up as I am inking a deal with a client now to open a LAN Cafe. She is closing on the space in January but she needs 12-20 gaming rigs set up an networked. When she first came to me she gave me a budget of 10k and I laughed and said Dell... she didn't like what they had to offer so she came back and asked for a realistic price.

With so much changing right now and an expected open date of sometime in March I told her we could discuss it after the first of the year. A good idea is about $1500 a set up for the gaming rigs. So thats $18k for 12 and 30K for 20. In all seriousness 30k is A LOT of money but 18k for the 12 will do nicely to start out.


From there I will build a server probably around $1600-2k for that and then labor and parts for networking.


Does that help at all? Maybe.... a little..... I don't know.
 
maybe go for the bfg 6800 gt that way if one of them goes bust its got that lifetime warranty and they do come with doom 3 now so...
 
keep in mind that i have 19" flat panels eating up alot of the $$.. would 17" suffice?

also, is onboard sound sufficient for something like this? everyone will be using headphones..
 
I was thinking large CRT's instead of LCD's to save cost.
Also, you have CD-ROM drives in all the machines, I'd suggest DVD-ROM for when a game is available on DVD. Certainly a lot easier than using 4 or 5 cd's.
 
Originally posted by: MustISO
I was thinking large CRT's instead of LCD's to save cost.
Also, you have CD-ROM drives in all the machines, I'd suggest DVD-ROM for when a game is available on DVD. Certainly a lot easier than using 4 or 5 cd's.
Click to expand...

or just a DVD burner and nothing else.
they can do everything.

play CD's
play DVD's
burn CD's
burn DVD's
 
Well for the sake of sustainability you will always need to be upgrading. SO I think you may want to have half of the pcs that are top of the line and half that are "high performance value." Then a year from now upgrade your value set to top of the line and your top of the line becomes your value. You could also then charge $7/hr for the best 5 boxes and $5/hr for the value machines. or $10/$7.

Thisa also has the added effect of somehting being "new" more often. This will keep the gamers coming to check out your latest and greatest. Then if they seem to only play the value or always want the top of the line you adjust the number of machines accordingly.
 
seems like overkill in a lot of cases for computers that are likely to be slighty abused...

LCDs are nice because they will help keep electric bill down.
you could maybe get 3100+ Semprons
and non-raptor hard drives
and a cheaper video card

you can also see the most popular online games by checking
Although a lot of games are not included in this list
www.gamespy.com/stats

 
you dont need raptors, get a nice 7200 rpm 8mb drive. seagate is probably best because of the 5 year warranty.

as for the LCDs, leave that decision to your client. get price quotes for 17" and 19" lcds and ask her which one she wants. if you get a 17", make sure that they run 1280x1024, i would assume that it would be the resolution of choice for games/etc.

you can save some money by buying twin packs of ram... 2x512 kits cost 160-200ish from newegg

get dvdroms too...

you should also look into some sort of software for managing sessions/etc.

try ordering out of state to avoid tax 😉

 
ok, so ive switched to 19" crt's.. and 7200rpm HDD's.. Cut costs by a little bit 😉
I'm not totally sure about the cases I've chosen, anyone have any other suggestions? I do like the 500W PS, but that is the only thing I was really looking for.
 
You really need better cases, and NOT a generic PSU. I would go antec 3700 BQE (has a 350 watt good PSU) or a 1040awg or a 1080awg(430 true power in that one) They will more than pay forthemselves if even one of the cheap ones blows up and takes the contents with it.
 
Originally posted by: CyberWire
ok, so ive switched to 19" crt's.. and 7200rpm HDD's.. Cut costs by a little bit 😉
I'm not totally sure about the cases I've chosen, anyone have any other suggestions? I do like the 500W PS, but that is the only thing I was really looking for.
Click to expand...

good switch on those, it is what I would have suggested...

Get twin packs on the memory, in fact, you don't even need crazy expensive RAM, it will barely make a different, go with 1 gig of value RAM... around 160-170 a gig, that saves almost 150 a machine...

make sure you buy all retail so they have warranties...

Also, you could go with the Soltek Mobo, save 30 bucks a mobo, it's not like you are going to overclock those computers, you will want them running for a long time...

Also for the server, I would def go with Opteron, IMO they are better, and cheaper...

post up your new findings, with prices so we can see the difference..

BTW, I would say keep with the good video card, even though they are so expensive, and come with Doom 3, maybe look around to find one that comes with more bundled games, people love variety.
 
you could also contact Newegg or someone and see if they will give you a discount on something for a huge order like that, just call, see what happens, you'd be amazed what you can get if you ask!
 
Instead of getting all 6800GT's, maybe get some Vanilla 6800s. Anyways, I knew someone who opened up a gaming lan center about 4-5 years ago, I used to go there frequently & even worked there for a bit. For the first 6 months it was really doing well, I think CounterStrike was still in beta at the time & Starcraft was immensly popular (especially with the korean customers). I think it succeeded at the time because Broadband wasn't as common back then & the games were really addicting so it was full 24/7, even at 3 AM the place would be packed. He charged I think 4 or 5 bucks an hour, and had about 40 computers in total. There would be at least an hour wait for customers to get a computer. He also sold canned drinks for $1 a piece. Business was doing so well that he used to buy everyone pizza, no-charge. His initial investment was I think 100K, but I think he made all that back & then some after the first 6 months. After that, Diablo 2 was also released around that time, it got a few new customers but he would never see the profits of his initial 6 months. When his computers were outdated he would sell them to random customers (Sometimes 40-60% of what he initially built it for - more tech savvy customers. Sometimes 90-100% or more of what he initially built it for, earn profit - less tech savvy customers.) Even selling at 50% he could get more power for the money (ie at the time: selling riva tnt2 computer & in turn with that money & then get radeon le & registry mod computer - which was the craze at the time, newegg was still very small back then. On the computers he sold & got actual profit from he would build geforce2 gts computers which were the best video cards then). I don't know why, maybe because a lot of the kids who came started getting broadband at home & felt no obligation to go (they used to always complain I hate playing on my 56k at home but loved the T1 at the gaming center), got tired of the games, and didn't feel like spending all their money & time anymore (lots of people literally spent thousands of dollars from spending all their time there)... a good portion of the customers would just stop coming over time. At one point the place would be almost empty half the day. At this point, he wanted to sell but no one wanted to buy a failing business. So he just sold the building he bought & sold all his computers. In the end he gained money overall & had a good time doing it as well. He's doing some restaurants now but he's always talking to me about trying to reopen a gaming center again.
 
Stick with the GTs, you get a free copy of doom 3, great performance and great value.

edit: i second the request for an updated component list
 
updated list....


SERVER
Qty Description Unit Price TOTAL
1 supermicro "SUPER X5DPA-TGM+" E7501 CHIPSET for dual 604 xeon $ 232.00 $ 232.00
2 Kingston ValueRam 184pin 1gb ecc registered ddr333 pc-2700 $ 265.00 $ 530.00
2 intel xeon 2.4a GHz 533FSB 1MB L3 Cache, Hyperthreading $ 275.00 $ 550.00
2 western digital raptor 74gb 10,000rpm SATA, model wd740gd $ 182.00 $ 364.00
1 ASPIRE X-SuperAlien aluminum server case 500W PS(atxa6sw/500) $ 139.00 $ 139.00
1 logitech black optical desktop keybd/mouse combo $ 19.00 $ 19.00
1 samsung syncmaster 997DF 19" flat(screen) CRT monitor $ 219.00 $ 219.00
1 belkin universal series 1200VA UPS model F6C120-UNV $ 129.99 $ 129.99
SubTotal $ 2,182.99
Shipping ??????????????
Tax Rate(s) 7.75% $ 169.18
TOTAL $ 2,352.17

SOFTWARE
Qty Description Unit Price TOTAL
4 windows xp pro (3-pack) = 12 copies $ 439.00 $ 1,756.00
10 unreal tournament 2004 $ 29.99 $ 299.90
10 warcraft 3 battlechest(includes frozen throne expansion) $ 29.99 $ 299.90
10 farcry(free with processor/motherboard purchase) $ - $ -
10 doom3(free with video card purchase) $ - $ -
10 half life platinum edition 2 $ 19.99 $ 199.90
10 battlefield vietnam $ 31.99 $ 319.90
10 tribes: vengeance $ 44.99 $ 449.90
1 mircosoft small business server 2003 w/ 5CAL $ 499.00 $ 499.00
SubTotal $ 3,824.50
Shipping ??????????????
Tax Rate(s) 7.75% $ 296.40
TOTAL $ 4,120.90

STATIONS
Qty Description Unit Price TOTAL
10 DFI Lanparty UT NF3 250GB $ 129.00 $ 1,290.00
10 ANTEC Life Style Series Black Case With 380W PS, Model "SONATA" $ 98.00 $ 980.00
10 Corsair (Dual Pack) 184 Pin 512MBx2 DDR PC-3200 - OEM $ 163.00 $ 1,630.00
10 AMD Athlon 64 3200+ retail box $ 204.00 $ 2,040.00
10 SONY 16X DVD-ROM Drive, Model DDU1613, OEM $ 23.99 $ 239.90
10 Seagate 80GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive, Model ST380013AS-RK, Retail $ 98.00 $ 980.00
10 logitech black optical desktop keybd/mouse combo $ 19.00 $ 190.00
1 linksys 16port workgroup switch model ezxs16w $ 63.99 $ 63.99
1 linksys 4port firewall router model befsx41 $ 62.99 $ 62.99
10 samsung syncmaster 997DF 19" flat(screen) CRT monitor $ 219.00 $ 2,190.00
5 belkin 7 outlet surgemaster power strip f9h710-12 $ 12.99 $ 64.95
1 hp psc 2510 multi function printer, network ready $ 327.00 $ 327.00
10 labtec elite-835 stereo headphones $ 15.00 $ 150.00
10 evga nvidia geforce 6800 GT 256MB w/ FREE DOOM3 $ 420.00 $ 4,200.00
12 arrow micro 25ft. Cat 5e network cable (grey) $ 2.99 $ 35.88
SubTotal $ 14,444.71
Shipping ??????????????
Tax Rate(s) 7.75% $ 1,119.47
TOTAL $ 15,564.18

OVERALL TOTAL: $22,037.25
 
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