One Game Ends, Another Begins

The arcade that never was, and the lessons learned.

About a half year ago I had an idea. It started when I visited the first “barcade” (a combination of a bar and an arcade) in my community.

It was a lively occasion. Food, drinks, and the sounds of classic arcade machines in all their flashing glory. Then I noticed something a bit strange, amid the largely adult crowd a few small faces could be seen.

Children. While this is commonplace in an average arcade, it was actually a bit odd inside a building with a bar taking up 50% of the space. As the night went on, it got even stranger as the children were asked to leave because of the late hours and alcohol mixing together.

This was the seed of my idea. Traditional arcades are all of but a memory to those who experienced them. Replaced by a changing video game landscape focusing more and more on in-home gaming. Now the idea of the “retro” arcade is back in full swing, but being that the nostalgia appeals to an adult audience, bar and food options are now the norm inside these establishments.

My idea was to bring back a true arcade. No frills, no fuss, just games and players coming together to share an experience. Obviously, these retro games simply would not do. I had no experience in obtaining and maintaining traditional cabinet machines, and I wasn’t going to start now.

Instead I thought: “What if we just brought all the home consoles built over the years into one place”. A “console” arcade designed to appeal to both retro and current gaming. I wanted to tackle a list of problems I saw with both home based gaming and gaming in general:

1. An all-ages environment: I wanted to appeal to every person who was interested in games, no demographic targeting whatsoever.
2. As affordable as rentals: I wanted to make sure that people we’re saving money as opposed to buying tons of games and consoles over the years.
3. Social and interactive: I wanted to bring back true, offline, multiplayer. I find online multiplayer lacks that genuine fun-with-others feeling.
4. Accessible and comfortable: Steering away from the dark, neon-lit arcades and making a place people actually enjoy being in.
5. Games and more games: Offering as many games and consoles as possible so people really get the most bang for their buck.

S0, I began work on a full business plan and the start of an online presence. I reached out to my peers and commercial space partners to gauge interest. Everyone seemed to be quite interested in the idea, but I knew a significant roadblock was coming.

Financing. Simply put, financing the business directly was impossible in terms of my budget. Going the traditional route (getting a business loan) was simply too much of a risk to myself and my family. Needless to say, I ended up focusing on crowdfunding the business. This created a risk-free environment and allowed the community to have a direct impact in creating a brand new interactive space. It seemed like a win-win.

Sadly, the arcade was never able to come into fruition.

This was not only my first foray into business, but also my first crowdfunding campaign. I thought I would share a few things I learned along the way, and where I could have done things better.

Networking and Feedback are the hardest things about starting anything.

This was the most difficult part of my experience. Before launching my crowdfunding campaign I had spoke with a few friends and attempted to connect with a few more via social channels, but it felt like I was having a nice conversation with myself more than anyone else. Almost no one gave me any indication of thoughts, ideas, or even criticism about the arcade.

Even when I tried to reach outside of my friend group on social media, the response was nearly identical. It seemed like overall the response was positive, but during the campaign there was little financial help to be found.

Since I never got any feedback, I cannot in all honesty tell you (to this day!) if my business idea was good or bad. I figure it was somewhere in-between.

Crowdfunding is exciting, strange, and carries stigmas.

I had no idea what to expect going into crowdfunding. I ended up choosing Indiegogo as my platform, which I didn’t have any particular problems with.

Well, except for the spam. Apparently crowdfunding promotion is a highly lucrative business, or so I was led to believe in the spam emails and comments I got on a daily basis.

Speaking on promotions, I did not spend any money on advertising, promoting, or marketing the campaign. I think of this as both a positive and a negative of the campaign as a whole. It’s a positive because I didn’t lose any money on an unsuccessful campaign, but it’s a negative in that I don’t know if I could have succeeded through it.

What I found really interesting was that most press-related outlets do not take kindly to crowdfunding. I believe there are some troublesome campaigns to blame for that. I had multiple media outlets tell me that they “have a policy against promoting crowdfunding campaigns”. Most times this actually equated to “having a policy about promoting campaigns that aren’t buzz-worthy”.

All-in-all, crowdfunding is still an unpredictable territory. The media coverage of failures in the space outmatches the successes. This makes most of the public uneasy about contributing their money towards a cause.

Unless of course that cause is some ridiculous, unnecessary, tech device.

Direction, details, and going against the grain.

One of the things I think I missed the mark on most was being able to nail down a quick, directional pitch of the business. I thought people would like to know every in-and-out I had planned (since they were giving their hard earned dollars toward it). What I forgot is that people have a short attention span (thanks internet!). I needed to get to important details and make it easy enough that my cats could understand what I was going for.

Eventually, I ended up calling the failure “a misread on the audience”. I was going against the grain with my idea. Focusing on spinning the idea of arcade and console gaming while the industry focuses more an more on PC gaming and online play.

I personally don’t like that the industry is turning this way, but I’ve come to accept that markets and feelings change. I think most people are already too comfortable with their home gaming set-ups to bother with an arcade. If they can play on their favorite chair or couch, they don’t mind shelling out hundreds to thousands a year on games and the like.

Lessons Learned and Moving Forward.

While I look back on the project as a whole, I find it to be an interesting glimpse into uncharted territory. I learned a lot along the way, and just as I realized the campaign was going to be unsuccessful another idea had already began to form in its place.

While this is the end for Checkpoint: Console Arcade it is a new beginning for a bigger, brighter idea to come.

Thank you to all those who supported me in this amazing endeavor!