How much should I charge an hour at my gaming cafe?

[metalgear332001]

I am in the process of starting a gaming cafe. It took me almost 2 years of vigorous work to raise money for the project, financial advice, coming up with a business plan to put this in motion. Currently, I Brought the following merchandise for the gaming cafe...

18) gaming pc all with the following specs...

CASE: Hot !!! Apevia X-Telstar Aluminum Full Tower 420W Case w/ Temp Display and Fan Control (Black Color)

Quad-Core)Intel® Core? 2 Extreme QX9770 @ 3.20GHz 1600FSB 12MB L2 Cache 64-bit

MOTHERBOARD: (3-Way SLI Support) Asus Striker II Extreme nForce 790i SLI Mainboard FSB1600 DDR3 3 x PCIe X16 SATA RAID w/ USB2.0, IEEE1394, & 7.1Audio

MEMORY: (Req.DDR3 MainBoard) 8GB (2GBx4) DDR3/1800MHz Memory Module OCZ-Platinum

VIDEO CARD: NVIDIA GeForce GTX280 1GB 16X PCI Express (Major Brand Powered by NVIDIA)

VIDEO CARD 2: NVIDIA GeForce GTX280 1GB 16X PCI Express (Major Brand Powered by NVIDIA)

VIDEO CARD 3: NVIDIA GeForce GTX280 1GB 16X PCI Express (Major Brand Powered by NVIDIA)

HARD DRIVE: Single Hard Drive (2TB (1TBx2) SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 16MB Cache 7200RPM HDD)

Data Hard Drive: 2TB (1TBx2) SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 16MB Cache 7200RPM Hard Drive

Data Hard Drive: 2TB (1TBx2) SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 16MB Cache 7200RPM Hard Drive

Optical Drive: Sony Optiarc BR-5100S 2X Blu-Ray Player (Black Color)
COMBO DRIVE (16X DVD-ROM & 52x32x52 CD-RW
3 Vigor iSURF II Hard Disk Drive Cooling System

Creative Labs X-FI XtremeGamer Fatal1ty Pro 24-BIT PCI Sound Card
Killer M1 10/100/1000 Gigabit High Speed Online Gaming PCI Network Interface Card.

Microsoft® Windows Vista? Ultimate w/ Service Pack 1 64-bit Edition

18) Samsung LN40A630 40" 120hz 1080p LCD HDTV + 5 year warrenty
18) Logitech G25 Racing wheels
18) Logitech G51 Surround Sound Speaker System
18) XBOX 360 wireless controller for the PC.

The pcs have the following games preinstalled on them...
crysis
Crysis Warhead
Bioshock
Unreal Tournament III
COD 3 and 4
Dark Horizen
Frontlines
Farcry 2
Brother in Arms: Road to Hill
25 to Life
3d Ultra Minigolf Adventures
Alone in the Dark
Aces of the Galazy
Alpha Prime
area 51
Assasins creed
Attack of pearl Harbor
Battlestations Midway
Blazing Angels 1 and 2
Call of Cthulhu: Dakr corners of the earth
Clive barker's Jericho
Cold Fear
Conflict: Denied ops
CRC 2005
Dark Messiah of might of maggic
Dynasty Warriors 4 Hyper
Grand Theft auto collections
Grid
Hitman bundle
Infernal
Gears of War
Mass Effect
Jade Empire
Fahrenheit
NeverWinter Nights 2
silver fall
elder scroll Oblivion 4
The Witcher
Kings bounty
Dawn Of War
Commandos 3 Destination
company of Heros
Down in Flames
Final Fantasy 7 Wings of the Goddess
Final Fantasy 7 Vana'diel collection
Guild Wars (All series)
War hammer online
Age of Conan
Devil May Cry 4
city of Hereos
City of Villians
Saga
War of Warcraft
Eve

Judging by the equipement I have to offer.. How much do you think The rate per hour should be? I am looking to rent a space inside the mall... I just haven't decided whi mall I want to operate out of...

[x6Bx]

Word? If this is around me, Kentucky, I'd love to see this.

There is a small gaming cafe that charges, I believe, $8 an hour?

But they just closed a few days ago so I guess there prices aren't that great Lol.

If you rent in the mall, try and ask a few stores to run a poll and see what people would be willing to pay in order to play on top of the line PCs.

[seanl]

Wow. Well, the average kid probably doesn't have the income to purchase those games and secure a PC capable of running them. This is why consoles are so popular. However, that is a conversation for a different time. If there are any cafe's near your location, or even in neighboring states, you should contact them and get a feel for their equipment, rates, and demographic. Also, releasing some sort of survey to local High Schools and universities will be a huge help. Ideally, you want to get them in the door and keep them there. Aim for $6-$9, depending on the economy and how much disposable income parents and children have.

Of course, it's ideal that you make this payable in credit or debit. Kind of how a bar tab keeps building up. People tend to loose track of time, especially with the repotorie of games you're offering. It's easy to spend 3-5 hours and not realize it, so capitalize on that.This will also prove useful for checking out equipment. Just in case something comes up lost, you can charge them for it.

Food for thought.

[kevin140]

I owned two large gaming cafes and after a great start they went downhill and closed after 3 years. The best thing we EVER did was give away the first week free at one of the locations. This location did 4 times the biz of the other one because we primed the pump. This may be hard to swallow but without an addicted following of hardcore gamers your business will NEVER get off the ground. you will find that 90% of your income will come from 10% of your regulars. The only way to get regulars is to get them there in the first place. We charged $10/hour for "non members" and $4/hour for members with a membership of $30. We also had lots of promotions when times were slow. It is better to get $2/hour per machine then Zero, especially if you will make extra money on food/drink which I hope it is or you will never make it. If you are not serving food make a deal with a pizza joint to sell pizza and split the profit. You may not want food and drink near your expensive computers but YOU WILL NOT MAKE IT without supplemental income other than gaming hours. At least sell energy drinks at 2-3 bucks a pop. I will say it again...You will not make it on gaming hours alone...No one can you are no different.