Decided that all games at Rusty Quarters to be 25¢

I think that's awesome, and if/when I open an arcade that's the way I want it to be... but how on earth are you going to be profitable? Do you have free/really cheap rent? Everywhere I looked near me wants upward of $700/month for rent in any place large enough to have an arcade, and as I crunched the numbers I couldn't see even breaking even. Granted, I'm in a somewhat urban area, but I imagine you'd need to have it in a dense area in order to bring in enough people to stay open.
 
The $700/month spaces are small - intended for boutique retail, I believe - and currently unoccupied. There's a lot unoccupied. It seems to me like the owner would think they should reduce their rates even more to try and attract business, but no dice. Granted, this is Cleveland, which has a pretty low cost-of-living/real estate in general.
 
That pricing was competitive from 1978 to 1987.

FACTS:
A Hershey bar in 1982 was 30 cents.
A Hershey bar in 2011 is 95 cents.

People stood in lines to play pac-man then, too.
Nowadays, not so much. It's nostalgic, not so sure it's profitable.
You can lower prices, as needed, adjust lives/timers, but once
you're open for a while, you can't really raise prices if it's not
working out. That'll just piss off the customer following you obtain.
Just take your time and look at it from all angles. Talk to other owners.
Your player base will applaud you for pricing games at a nickel, but
won't be there for you when the rent check needs to be written.
 
That pricing was competitive from 1978 to 1987.

FACTS:
A Hershey bar in 1982 was 30 cents.
A Hershey bar in 2011 is 95 cents.

People stood in lines to play pac-man then, too.
Nowadays, not so much. It's nostalgic, not so sure it's profitable.
You can lower prices, as needed, adjust lives/timers, but once
you're open for a while, you can't really raise prices if it's not
working out. That'll just piss off the customer following you obtain.
Just take your time and look at it from all angles. Talk to other owners.
Your player base will applaud you for pricing games at a nickel, but
won't be there for you when the rent check needs to be written.

Very much agree with Yaggy here. If you want to do the quarter play thing, why not have a "nostalgia night", on some off night like a Tuesday for example, where all games are 25 cents? As an operator and arcade owner, I fear the day I have to seek $2 per play to make money in this biz. It is tough enough right now getting 50 cents or $1. At 25 cents, your volume will not increase.

Otherwise, you will fail with the 25 cent model. Do you realize how many "net PAID plays" you will need just to pay rent???

Mike
 
There's people who play at my place for hours at a quarter a play. If it was fifty cents, they wouldn't do that. You make the most off the people who sit there for hours, not the curiosity seekers who pay once and leave. For those people, fifty cents would be fine... But wouldn't make you anything. I convinced a quarter is right.
 
There's people who play at my place for hours at a quarter a play. If it was fifty cents, they wouldn't do that. You make the most off the people who sit there for hours, not the curiosity seekers who pay once and leave. For those people, fifty cents would be fine... But wouldn't make you anything. I convinced a quarter is right.

What about 50 cent to start, 25 cent to continue?

Not all games have this option, but for the ones that do, I think it's the best way to go about it.
 
Even newer games? I agree with making the classics a quarter, as well as older fighting games, light gun games, etc. But it would be hard to make your money back on a new/newer machine at a quarter per play.
 
there are plenty of perspectives and opinions. IT's your business, make the right choice for you.


I paid .25c to play tron
I paid .50c to play dragons lair

if I showed up and paid .25 to play dragons lair at your place it wouldn't feel right.
price them at original pricing.

part of the nostalgia
 
When I was looking into starting an arcade a few months ago , I came to the conclusion that classics on 25c makes sense but you'd need to put newer games on 50c to stay afloat.

Paying 50c for Pac Man in this economy, when the majority of your base could play it on any port or online, will discourage playing. People who aren't experts already aren't going to want to put the effort in for 50c a pop to learn. It's sad, but the classics are seen as not being worth as much per play as newer games, and you'll get more activity on them--and more repeat plays from kids who have never played one of them before--by keeping it at 25c.

But for bigger and newer titles, 50c makes perfect sense. Guitar Hero arcade for example? At Flipper McCoys in VA Beach, you're lucky to see one person all day give up a single quarter for Dig Dug, but the Guitar Hero Arcade is CONSTANTLY having dollar after dollar pumped into it at a dollar a play per person, two dollars for 'long' songs. The more showy and modern a cabinet is, the more folks will think it's worth to put in it. By that same token, having some titles set up for more gives the impression that they're more 'luxury' titles, and psychologically that makes them more desirable to play. I'm not saying to charge a dollar for every modern title, but a lot more people are going to expect to put 50c in Street Fighter than would be willing to pay that much to play, say, Galaga. By the same token (pun intended), I know that as a player I at least expect more from a game that costs 50-75c and will be more likely to try it out than the other, less-flashy cabinets. I agree with the above post, paying more--or less--for a game than they were originally is a little unsettling and detracts from the nostalgia. Putting them all on an equal plane monetarily gives the impression that there is no one mega game that is worth more to play than the others, which is often the game that would become the biggest moneymaker.

Of course, I've never actually run an arcade before, so I'm probably way off on all of this, but as a player in arcades and from watching trends at all the ones I frequent, that's the conclusion I came too. Good luck with your new arcade! You're a saint for even trying to open a new one in this economy IMO, best of luck with making it a hit.
 
there are plenty of perspectives and opinions. IT's your business, make the right choice for you.


I paid .25c to play tron
I paid .50c to play dragons lair

if I showed up and paid .25 to play dragons lair at your place it wouldn't feel right.
price them at original pricing.

part of the nostalgia

heh heh, you don't have to worry about Dragon's Lair ever being 25 cents--the game doesn't allow you to price it that cheap! Check out the dip switch settings here:

http://www.dragons-lair-project.com/tech/dips/dl.asp
 
Do you realize how many "net PAID plays" you will need just to pay rent???

think it works out to about 10 plays an hour, all day long. every day of the week/month and you still arent breaking even, all for the landlord

that's not including electricity, wear and tear on the games, cost of the games themselves, gas to/from location and the most important part, you get paid !


not to be a debbie downer but not sure you could make money even if you had free rent
 
my perspective is to keep people playing my games as long as they can so that the coins continue to drop. If it feels expensive, no one will play. Quarters feel right... I don't care about plays as much as monitor wear and it's on anyways. Might as well try to keep the machine occupied.
 
I'd never be able to find commercial space available for anywhere near as cheap as $700/month anywhere near me.

Right off a major highway in Mounds View, MN, near where Rusty Quarters is going to have their arcade, there is a strip that has about 20 spots for retail space and literally 3 of them are occupied. They were advertising retail space at $.25 / sq ft and are now willing to go even cheaper. I spoke with them and I have seriously thought about putting my games in there and doing something more along the lines of a co-op where people could put games they don't have room for and play games with other like minded people. One of their 3 tennants is a Dominos Pizza, so we would be good to go for food too! :)
 
Back
Top Bottom