Tag Archive for Business

Boardgame Cafes

May 4, 2014 Board Games, Business, Culture 2 comments

My impending unemployment, along with some recent provocation from a Board Game Breakfast video (#23) has got me thinking. Well, some might call it dreaming. Would a board game cafe be a feasible business in my home town? Could Wollongong support such a venture? I’l get it out on the table now, this would be so very could to have in Wollongong. Though every business has is risks. So I thought about this a little further…

 

Wollongong

Wollongong is a small town just an hours drive from Sydney with great ocean views. The population of Wollongong is just shy of 300,000 (according to Wikipedia). The demographics consist of a variety of cultures, with industry and the university being the largest causes of attraction residents.

So what is the gaming community of Wollongong like? Well, we do have a game store (Good Games Wollongong), which is more than some regional cities. Beyond that I know of a single Meetup group for board games (meets fortnightly), and a university club that plays host to an annual gaming convention (Gong-Con).

 

Board Game Cafes Generally

Board game cafes provide a place for people to come and play board games, obvious. It also is still a cafe and/or bar, which is an important part of the combo that shouldn’t be forgotten. Board game cafes are not a new concept. In fact we already have a few in Australia. Though the bigger name ones (within the board gaming community) can be found abroad. Korea seems to be the first recorded country with board game cafes.

Snakes and Lattes Board Games Cafe

Australian Board Game Cafes/Bars

International Board Game Cafes/Bars

 

The Talk

There has been a lot of talk about board game cafes and what they can do for a community, and the board game community (see here, here, and here). In some cases it can serve to draw new players into the hobby. There again there are also susceptible to the same risk as local game stores (LGSs), most complaints come from the toxicity of the CCG groups. The board game community occasionally have talks about there dreams, and ”must haves” for board game cafes and bars.

 

Board Game Cafe Pricing Structures

To accommodate the  additional maintenance and such of the games most cafes will have some sort of fee. The structure and amount of this fee differs wildly between cafes. Here are the common ones that I have seen:

Cover Entry/ Admission (per person) – One flat fee gets you “entry”, you can play as many games as you want that day all for one single cost. How each cafe deals with people coming and going during the day at this stage is unclear. This model is used by popular leader Snakes & Lattes, $5 (Canadian) gets you all day play.

Per Hour (per person) – This model charges per hour that you are playing a game. This is used by BootyBay (Sydney), and you pay before you leave the cafe. So essentially the patron pays $5 per hour, so for a 1.5 hours you will pay the rate for 2 hours.

Per Play (per person) – Each game fee per person, and the play is not time dependent. So the business still profits the same amount no matter how long it takes a game group to complete the game.

Per Play (per group)/ Rental – Each game essentially has a “rental fee”. The price doesn’t change for amount of player, or how long it takes the group to play the game. This is the model used by Board Room DC, with rental prices ranging from $1 – $5 (from a range of 30+). Interestingly Board Room DC also encourages its patrons to bring along their own games to play (that option is fee-free).

Free – There is no cost to playing the games, it comes as a free offering when enjoying time at the cafe. This model is offered by Board Game Island (Texas).

 

Funding

On challenge to the start of any new business venture is getting the capital. Popular crowd source funding platform Kickstarter has provided an ideal opportunity to raise the required capital to try a board game cafe. Some already have some capital, and just require a few more funds t finish the project, for example Gamehaus Cafe (who have just recently opened doors in LA). Other Kickstarter example include The Uncommons Board Game Cafe and Spielbound.

 

Feasibility & Business Model

While this idea, is exciting and all is it feasible? Could a Board Game cafe survive in Wollongong. There has been some talk on the internet about the ability of these kinds of businesses to survive generally (here and here). Though not all dreams succeed, for example Auckland’s 360 Board Game Cafe is up for sale.

Wollongong has the generation that could serve as a sustainable user base. With university there are a variety of low income people who would enjoy the use of a wide board game library. The already is some competition within Wollongong there is one local game store which would present some competition, and a Games Workshop. However both of these businesses appeal to a slightly different audience. Wollongong has a nice cafe atmosphere, where a cafe “with a twist” could have a lot of potential. The bigger question is will any of the above funding models provide enough profit to keep the business sustainable, given the volume of patronage.

Board Room DC

My First MOOC

August 16, 2013 Education, Online Resources, Research Journey No comments

Since finishing my degree I have felt this gap in my life. I think more so it’s the ways in which I now need to fill spare time I have. Spare time in previous years has been a somewhat foreign concept. Though now that I have no study commitments, I have no pressure to be spending spare moments researching, and reading. In saying that I feel like there is a small void that video games and leisure reading just isn’t filling. I have identified this as missing learning. I enjoy the process of learning and research, I enjoy acquiring new knowledge.

Image courtesy of lisamcalister.com

How do I address this insatiable desire to learn? I have no desire for another bachelors degree, and my university opportunities for further studies in my desired fields are slim, at best. So I have turned to the latest trend in education, MOOCs. A MOOC is a Massive Open Online Course. So its basically anyone in the world with an interest in a given topic connecting to the course. Why? many people have a variety of reasons to engage in online study.

I have enrolled in The Global Business of Sports, delivered by Penn, University of Pennsylvania, on Corsera. My course so far consists of lectures and discussion forums, with 2 assessible quizzes coming, one at the mid-point and one at the end. The lectures have been split up into modules, with a module released each week. The lectures are split up into nice digestible chucks, 20-25 minutes a piece. Then we have the forums. Coming in a little bit late to the course (mid-week 2) discussion had well an truly kicked off. This meant for some of the more interesting debate topics in the forums, postings had already reached beyond 300 posts. I found this a barrier to engaging with that particular topic since reading more than 300 posts and comments isn’t really my idea of a good time. So I sought out topics that I could jump into that hadn’t yet reached a such a size, and have had some great (almost academic) discussion. Though mostly so far it has been very low key, with most people offering their opions with no references and discussion about farourite sports and teams. I look forward to moving a little further beyond this.

Retention rates for students in MOOCs are generally pretty low. Many sources note that students will enroll but not complete the course. I need to find some good statistics for this. For the current course there is no way I can see to find out how many students are currently enrolled, and this is not something the teaching staff have shared yet. I can see many reasons for low retention rates, beyond the usual reason students may drop out of face to face style courses. There is the appeal of free, the ease in which to enroll, the seemingly low commitment required, and a dislike of the teaching method or style. I would imagine that for many it is combination of these.

This is week still week two of the course. I’m interested in if I manage to stick it out and complete the course, or whether I just become another statistic. Stay tuned.