Although; you chose a location for your arcade in a shopping mall, or a dedicated building what you are renting, or owned altogether. Choosing a location is always a great thing to do first. Location plays a key role for your arcade what you are running.
You got to have customers in order to make money with your arcade. And you got to have games and rides in your arcade to be functional.
Many Of These New Arcade Owners Still Don’t Understand A Strategic Way To Set Up New Arcades
You were just brainstorming your new arcade, and choosing a location, however; you are designing your own arcade layout from scratch,–instead of using existing plans that don’t go to plan. You spent hours, or even years planning out your new arcade what you want to start. Typically, arcades need a proper location, and a proper audience group,–and even a set theme (optional). Arcades can come in many shapes and sizes,–and other forms.
If you don’t set your arcade correctly; your arcade may be a mess,and your customers may have a bad experience with your establishment, that can cause them to NOT visit your place in the future,–causing your revenue to tank.
In some cases; your arcade may be cluttered with irrelevant games or rides what some of your audience may experience difficulties with.
However; your arcade requires upkeep, and proper licensing and permits,–and even insurance for the best results. Most arcade owners kept predicting gamers will come to this place. However; advertising costs go up each year, and some owners often forget to show instructions to reach their establishments.
Even if they chose a proper location; they have these following questions that aren’t answered, or in some cases… haven’t asked these questions yet… but later. This is a sign of develop, and ask questions later!
[FAQ] Where Should I Place My Game Or Ride In My Arcade?
Many arcade owners don’t understand where they should place their arcade games,–after they first own/rented/developed their machines. Most os these arcade owners often get their machines mixed up, and put ALL of the eggs in just one basket! That caused some customers to use more time to find a game or ride to play/ride.
Choose Between A City Or A Small Town
If you are starting an arcade from scratch, and you have the required permits, insurances, licenses,–and even your preferred form of an arcade; you may need to choose either to run it in a city, or a small town. However; you need to ensure your arcade is diversified and easy to navigate. Small arcades are ideal for small towns where people like travelers can go play games. However; having a contingency plan is very important to ensure your arcade is running smoothly. For this instance; having a green roofing over your arcade doesn’t just help keep the arcade cool, that will also help retain heat during the cold days,–even if you have a conventional electric boiler to keep your arcade warm.
The City
The city that is big plays a key role for people to find jobs with ease. However; if you have a dedicated arcade that requires to run outside city limits; you may need to have your arcade connected to relevant services that are necessary to keep your arcade functioning.
Big cities have more people in it. You can have customers come to your arcade with ease via a subway train, or a city bus.
This is the most easiest of generating revenue!
The Small Town
Small towns are towns with few people. Typically, they don’t have arcades to go to. However; you can help small towns have jobs for people who live in this town. However; if you have an arcade that is using multiple locations, you can use this strategy to extend your reach of your product or service.
In order for a small town to be stable; it must have a stable community.
Your arcade can be sized to a desired size to meet your arcade requirements. For example; you have an arcade that requires a high surface area for large machines for your customers to play games, or ride any of these rides what you offer. Your arcade has a 5-story building that is capable of handling heavy gaming machines; you can sort out games that are relevant via a genre.
Small arcades can be used for restaurants that needs extra revenue for reducing costs of food and drinks. For example; pizza restaurants use this strategy to help gain more customers who are gamers. However; placement for an arcade must require strategy, and a plan when running any size. Small arcades are kind of easy to maintain because, you only have a small amount of machines,–depending on your theme.
With a small town; your arcade can have a yard with trees planted as a way to give your arcade an exclusive feature for your gamers to enjoy outdoor sections of your establishment. This is useful if you have nature as your theme. For this instance; you have an establishment with 400 trees planted around your yard, or inside it as a way to attract visitors. Trees do play a key role of keeping our environment cool, and giv us fresh air to breathe.
In order for your patrons to reach your arcade; they need to take a bus to reach it.
If your arcade includes a used farm where you allow people to ride animals; you must ensure your establishment meet minimum requirements to keep your animals in good shape. For example; you offer goats to ride for children, and you offer dogs to ride,–instead of having them being walked via a leash only. However; your large field must be maintained 24/7 with staff who must undergo training with a timely fashion. The slower training method; the better. Your animals needed to be trained to be ridden.
If your arcade in a small town includes a hedge maze; your hedges must be tall enough to ensure sunlight can be minimal. Also; it must have a widepath for the best results; useful for allowing children to ride goats, dogs, ponies, or donkeys.
If your arcade uses a campus format; you must have paths that will make it easy for patrons to navigate, tunnels are needed to offset traveling through ice and snow.
Your arcade can have a dormitory, just like a fire hall in your city, that’s the place where employees who put out fire lives. With this strategy, you can offset costs of employees requiring a separate home or apartment. However; your place ust meet fire and other code requirements. If you chose to have a “smoke-free” and “gun-free” zone as your safety plan; you can prevent gun violence from happening.
An arcade can have a large building for hundreds or thousands of machines.
If you set this up correctly; your arcade can have thousands of employees working daily.
Standalone Building
A standalone building is a recommended setup for your arcade. You can have series of games and rides for your customers.
With this strategy, your arcade will stand out with other arcades in your neighborhood. This is useful if you want to have a fully-staffed arcade 24/7; and enable gamers to come, play games, and go after that. If you include a restaurant; you can have more people eat here too! This is useful for helping to reduce costs of food and drinks in your arcade. The more games to play; the more of the selection.
You can have large rides for both children and adults per each ride. For example; a carousel can be ridden without needing to have children with them!
If you included a green roof as your exclusive feature of your arcade; you can enable customers to tour your garden. This is useful for blending in with nature and reduce climate change and CO2 levels.
If you have a large lot of some sort; you can plant a garden with essential plants for nature. Useful for arcades with multiple buildings like a campus. Also; if you have plants on each balcony; you can make it pleasing for your visitors. Plants can reduce the negative levels outside. Most arcades are windowless because, most establishments use this strategy to retain more players, and make more money.
Game Development Studio (optional)
With a standalone building; you can have a studio upstairs for developing games,–useful for developing independent arcade games without relying on third parties who run monopolies. If you port your games to physical media like DVDs, CDs, ROM cartridges, and other media… you can expand your reach of your audiences,–as long you don’t gouge prices. Distributing your published games to public libraries (including digital copies) should be a priority, that way; your customers don’t need to keep paying for your work. Digital copies are volatile… and they can be end up gone, if a developer goes bankrupt or out of business.
If your arcade is dedicated to have 75% open-source games; and your arcade relies on your support like any other arcade; you can have lower costs of running these games on these machines.
Having plants indoors can be a great way to calm your gamers who are overwhelmed. Also, removing CO2 levels. Typically, choosing essential plants is important because, you can ensure your place is free of fights, and other issues. However; that depends on which people are at your arcades.
If you have more arcade services like playing games on standalone consoles; you can have dedicated gaming rooms with windows for letting lights in. However; arcade owners must be careful when offering this features. Some gaming giants often sue for their greed. Licensing plays a key role for collecting royalties on a regular basis. However; if you offer independently developed games what you and your team made; that shouldn’t be a problem!
If you are enforcing a “no plastic” policy, you can help reduce plastic waste.
You can keep your designs like your work of art.
If you are an owner; you need to maintain your structure and have inspections on a regular basis. To ensure your customers are supporting your business properly, you can ask your customers to leave optional tips in jars to help offset costs. However; if you are setting aside games that will be used for raising funds for inspections, and other factors; you can put a reminder for your customers who play your arcade games.
Having a reserve of $200,000 or more is necessary to ensure you do proper maintenance, and other necessary repairs, that way; your structure, and your equipment will run smoothly. Profits are the last parts of a business to receive,–after expenses are addressed. Choosing customers over profit is a necessary strategy when you run your arcade.
If you choose to replace your electrical service with green energy; you can help reduce your impact of our ecosystem. This is useful for running your arcade off the grid, or helping to avoid volatile sources of energy. Coal, crude oil, natural gas, and other volatile sources of energy are known to damage our planet each day.
If you rent; a building is implemented by an owner, or a landlord. However; you should always ask questions about a structure, such systems that will prevent fire risks, proper insurance, etc. Although; rent prices go high,–due to price gouging, or other factors. If a building contain harmful materials, don’t rent it.
Business owners must be careful NOT to rent buildings that are once used by illegal drug activities, sex trafficking, etc. Former night clubs, and other businesses that went bankrupt are known for illegal activities. If you believe a landlord is NOT doing his/her job; you can always report a problem immediately!
Inside An Existing Mall Or Hotel
This is useful for people who has a gaming lifestyle. However; that depends on where you are going to implement your arcade. If you owned a standalone version of an arcade; you can add an expansion to your arcade infrastructure,–useful for expanding your audience.
If a shopping mall experiences a financial problem; you need to have a contingency plan,–even if you are a supporter of a mall. However; you still have an option to keep your arcade running, or you can own the entire mall altogether,–if needs should arise!
If you kept these prices low; and you avoid these myths of running this arcade; you can ensure your customers are coming back.