Retro Gaming Idea - opinions please...

[cubik]

Whereabouts is this shop? Large city/small town?

 

Is it somewhere with a nightlife? Compare Manchester after 6pm (bustling) with somewhere like Blackburn after 6pm (dead).

Would you be looking at the usual 9-5:30 or going for the evening audience too?

[Rev]

It's a shame this thread has so few tags, people might miss it.

[ukmarkwilson]

@cubik- It's south London (Streatham). In terms of walk-up trade, it's by a huge common/park, between a couple of major supermarkets and a short walk from 2 overground stations, a bus terminus and a leisure centre.

 

In terms of a nightlife, there is a big, established but grotty-looking pub a stone's throw away and a newly renovated, pricey, gastropub a very short walk in the other direction. Both are open late (23:00-00:00) and occasionally have later events going on (02:00 onwards).  There is a late-night jazz venue that has been doing great business but, aside from that, everything else is a little further away. Streatham has regular events - ice hockey team, Food Festival, Culture Festival, Kite Day... - that attract visitors from further afield.

 

As a shop, it's a daytime crowd that has made it a success in the past - if it became more of a social venue, I'd be thinking about either daytime corporate events or evening social events.

[Swainy]

Retro Game Base?

[jdanddiet]

15 hours ago, Swainy said:

Retro Game Base?

Sounds like it. I noticed a few months ago it was up for sale, too.

Visited it twice and thought its stock was disappointing, especially on the sega platforms.

[Camel]

It's not a bad little shop but suffers from the same as all retro shops - the prices are higher than those you'd find online.  To be expected of course but does present a problem.

[strider]

On 13 September 2016 at 18:28, ukmarkwilson said:

If the shop became a venue for people to come and play games rather than buy them, do you think there's any interest in that? I'm thinking 90s tunes, big screen setups and sofas so it feels comfy and relaxed (not clinical like an Apple Store or fusty like an old boys club but clean, fresh and stylish).

 

(WARNING: Business Hat Firmly On) I'm waiting to see the financials as what it did in 2013-2014, before they turned their attention to their other business, is going to be a good indicator of the potential. However, my hunch is that the only real profit that can be made is through a) consumables such as food & drink and b) rental of games rather than sales to avoid long-term issues with supply. As has been mentioned, older games will wear out, Ebay and Amazon can offer outright purchases for widely available games more cheaply and new products like the Retron 5 can increase the risk to the venture. That rental could take place on the premises or off - they both have pros and cons of course.

 

You'll have a hard time keeping people out unless you employ a bouncer or something. Someone set up and excellent arcade in Southampton full of classic arcade games and it was just filled with the dregs of society who either hogged certain machines because they were amazing or just wanted a place out of the cold.

 

it can be done like arcade club but it takes a huge amount of work. Also, the casual buyers who come in are going to go mental when they see their beloved games costing silly amounts of money. The videogamecentre in Bournemouth was amazing before the internet came along, then people stopped buying games when they were available for half the price online.

 

have you considered tapping into the local magic the gathering market? A retro shop opened up locally here about two years ago and focused on retro but dropped it like a tonne of bricks when people refused to pay standard internet prices for stuff. They now making a killing selling board games and Magic the gathering.

 

unless you have a raiders of the lost arc styled warehouse filled with never before accessed classics you're going to struggle to secure stock to sell at a decent price and so on. I know this sounds massively mean, but I'm concerned you've missed the boat on this. It's the equivalent of getting to an amazing party the next day and stepping over sleeping drugged up revellers lying in their own vomit. I've seen loads of shops start up like this over the last 15 years and they all end in disaster. I just think you need to think of something else, it's a lot tougher to make money in retro than it was a decade ago, unless you've already got a massively popular brand and a strong user base. I think you'll get a shock when those figures eventually roll in...

[cubik]

Just one thing that @strider's comments re the dregs of society reminded me of:

 

If you're old enough, think back to the "glory days" of the arcade.

The ones at the seaside were full of a decent mix of holidaymakers, gamers and scrotes, the ones in the local towns were mostly full of scrotes. As much as I love arcade gaming, I don't miss chain smoking tracksuit wearers asking me constantly if I've got a spare 10p*, or standing over me prompting me to jump/shoot/smart bomb etc.

 

*replace 10p with your inflation adjusted figure of choice.