Lan Centers, are they really extinct?

Eshelmen

Eshelmen

Supreme [H]ardness
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Most of us have been to one or know of one.
Some of us have had multiple experiences at one.
Gaming Lan Centers were peaking around Battlefield 1942 and Counter-Strike days.
Now they are almost wiped out. (Atleast here in the Bay Area)
Of course, why pay $10 for 3 hours plus a membership when I could play at home for free?
It's quite simple, social interaction.

Of course there was always the type of gamer at a Lan Center who doesn't talk, or who's highly competitive. But it was no different in going to a bar with randoms, a concert, coffee shop, gaming convention or any other social gathering.

What do you think played the major role for Lan Centers not really popping and not really lasting as long as I'd hope for? Profit? Boredom? Not enough exposure?

Noone really needs a Lan Center, but noone needs half the crap we buy anyways. :p


Got any good Lan stories?
Share em!
 
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City I lived in down in CA banned them basically because they said they were causing students to miss school.
 
Never went to one, saw the back in the day, never saw the point since I had my own much faster pc's anyway. I guess I was too old by the time they showed up to care.

Now arcades? Fuck yes let me tell you about arcades...
 
I don't think they ever really made enough money. All of the ones I've seen were very short lived.

There were a couple I would go to whenever they had tournaments but they all went out of business after a few years. If they even made it that long.

I think cyber cafes are still pretty popular in Southeast Asia though.
 
schizrade said:
Never went to one, saw the back in the day, never saw the point since I had my own much faster pc's anyway. I guess I was too old by the time they showed up to care.

Now arcades? Fuck yes let me tell you about arcades...
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Again, like I said, we can all play at home.....alone...in the dark...being a creeper LOL jk.


Regardless of pc specs, it was more for enjoying a game together with people.

It is a truly different experience than being online with someone over a headset/voip program.

Most if not all PC lan centers have their games preloaded/installed, and most if not all lan centers have PCs that are more than capable of playing the games they have.
 
I think it comes down to building rental costs, and insurance. Neither are cheap. Back in the day there was a local "Cyber Café" that I used to hang out at (Sunrise Blvd in Citrus Heights CA) and they would have done well if it wasn't for people just being cheap asses. I like the owners, and would help out whenever I could (even brought my own hardware in to keep the lan going), but it died out after a couple years. It wasn't sustainable.
 
sharknice said:
I don't think they ever really made enough money. All of the ones I've seen were very short lived.

There were a couple I would go to whenever they had tournaments but they all went out of business after a few years. If they even made it that long.

I think cyber cafes are still pretty popular in Southeast Asia though.
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There was a place in Dallas called ShadowLan that seemed to be around for a few years at least. I'm fairly certain its gone now but it seemed to be mildly successful at least for a time.
 
we had one or two in my area a few years back, they were called Cyber Cafes.
I only went once to check it out and never used any of the machines.

I just watched a video recently on people in Tokyo, Japan that rent space in those Lan centers/cyber cafes since they can't afford to rent an actual apartment.

here is the video,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5u-kGYCA3Zg
 
darkstarcow said:
City I lived in down in CA banned them basically because they said they were causing students to miss school.
Click to expand...

What city was that? I'm in SoCal, so just curious.

I still see them around here actually. There's a relatively popular one in Chino Hills, CA called "The Grid Cyber Lounge" and another Rowland Heights, deep in an Asian shopping plaza called "E Game Bang." One down the street from me in Koreatown.. something in Korean with the word PC at the end and LoL/DOTA banners on the windows.
 
darkstarcow said:
City I lived in down in CA banned them basically because they said they were causing students to miss school.
Click to expand...

CA should never be counted in any topical discussion the whole state is full of insane right-left wingers. They have this crazy political system in which any law has be put to a vote if it gets 120k people to sign a petition. Can you imagine what that is like from a governing standpoint? Thats why gay marriage is legal and illegal depending on what day of the week it is. They have new crazy laws in every city every week.

On topic, I don't know. I live in Billings MT and we have a lan center thats fairly busy from what I understand, I dropped by one in Aurora CO for an MTG tournament recently and that one was busy too. At the same time in my home city of Louisville Kentucky which has like 2 million people they kept trying to open lan centers but could not make enough to stay open. I don't think theres any at the moment though I think they still do MML(million man lan) every year.

I think its just different every where.
 
SPARTAN VI said:
What city was that? I'm in SoCal, so just curious.

I still see them around here actually. There's a relatively popular one in Chino Hills, CA called "The Grid Cyber Lounge" and another Rowland Heights, deep in an Asian shopping plaza called "E Game Bang." One down the street from me in Koreatown.. something in Korean with the word PC at the end and LoL/DOTA banners on the windows.
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Awesome to see some Cali people on here.

My friend a few years back took me to this crazy big Lan Cafe sponsored by Monster. I think it's called Howies?
It was down by L.A somewhere.
Ever been there?
 
Zepher said:
we had one or two in my area a few years back, they were called Cyber Cafes.
I only went once to check it out and never used any of the machines.

I just watched a video recently on people in Tokyo, Japan that rent space in those Lan centers/cyber cafes since they can't afford to rent an actual apartment.

here is the video,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5u-kGYCA3Zg
Click to expand...

woo.... this is very ''disturbing'' ... im glad the guy at the end found peace.
 
Never been to a LAN center as my friends are mostly console gamers and I can afford to buy and build my own gaming PC.

With that said, I did drive my brother to a LAN center a decade+ ago that was located in Rowland Heights in California. It was located in Diamond Plaza but dunno the name.
 
My apartment was a ten person LAN center this past weekend. :D

Otherwise... you're right... they became extinct when home gaming got more convenient and less expensive.

What might bring them back? VR. VR and the standing floor units for walking and running in. Not everyone can have those at home but a LAN center with 20 of them in a line? Oh, hell yes...
 
Available (and cheaper) home broadband also helped push out these businesses. Back in 2001 it was not always possible to get cable internet or DSL even in major areas.
 
Shantarr.Dalrae said:
My apartment was a ten person LAN center this past weekend. :D

Otherwise... you're right... they became extinct when home gaming got more convenient and less expensive.

What might bring them back? VR. VR and the standing floor units for walking and running in. Not everyone can have those at home but a LAN center with 20 of them in a line? Oh, hell yes...
Click to expand...

Yeah, I definitely agree, VR would be really fun.

However, I could see those whole units being added to like Dave and Busters or a mega arcade like that down the road too.
 
Eshelmen said:
Yeah, I definitely agree, VR would be really fun.

However, I could see those whole units being added to like Dave and Busters or a mega arcade like that down the road too.
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Hell yeah! That would be awesome.
 
Mozex said:
Available (and cheaper) home broadband also helped push out these businesses. Back in 2001 it was not always possible to get cable internet or DSL even in major areas.
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Bingo. That was the only reason I went to our local cafe. After I got cable internet, I stopped going and started playing on their CS server from home. Then one day they banned me for "hacking" even though they all knew me. Super cool people.
 
Up here in frozen Edmonton, Alberta, Canada (yes it's April 1st and we have a heavy snowfall warning for the area) I've seen cybercafes come and go. I've never been to one in Edmonton but have seen them around. I used to have an ex in Vancouver and she used to go there with her friends and play and those were the only times I've ever been in one. The only reasons I could see why people prefer a Cyber Cafe over staying at home are chilling with friends (a social event, like instead of going out to dinner and a movie, you go to a cybercafe), and also the aforementioned more powerful systems than you had at home, with broadband internet access. But with the proliferation of things like teamspeak, Mumble, Skype, and video conferencing, and with hardware and high speed internet prices going down, cybercafes have gone the way of the video arcade, at least here in Edmonton. I haven't been to Vancouver in a few years now.

Ah, video arcades, loved being really good at a game and having random strangers watch you and cheer you on.
 
I've never done the LAN center thing, but the mall video arcade was a huge social scene when I was in Jr. High and High school. Street Fighter and MK machines with tokens lined up across the lip, shit talking, occasional real fights, the thrill of a new game, crazy rumors surrounding Guile's gun (aka. the handcuff) and Kano morphs, etc.
Arcades seem to have died right around the turn of the Millennium. I recall MvC 2 and Tekken 4 being the last hurrahs of that scene. I think the writing was on the wall when Street Fighter Alpha and Street Fighter 3 were competing with themselves...and arcades had to choose which one to get.
 
Eshelmen said:
Awesome to see some Cali people on here.

My friend a few years back took me to this crazy big Lan Cafe sponsored by Monster. I think it's called Howies?
It was down by L.A somewhere.
Ever been there?
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I just recently moved into LA, but no I haven't seen a Howies. I see there's a Howie's Game Shack near Anahiem, but that's quite a drive from me. :D
 
Besides the usual business related issues and the need for expensive upgrades every couple years the other big thing that killed them was the utter lack of LAN connectivity in modern games.

Everything requires connecting to the publisher's systems nowadays (which can be overcome) and not many of those companies were friendly with the whole scene due to licensing costs.

FWIW, Valve/Steam and Blizzard made things easier for these businesses, but I never saw much help from EA, Ubisoft or non-Blizzard Activision titles.

The last one I saw only lasted a few years from 2002-2006. They had a large Steam Accounts on each box with plenty of AAA titles as well as a couple of XBox360's connected to big screens. I never saw them install anything else that couldn't be retrieved from Blizzard or Steam.

These businesses still thrive in Asia due to the much lower average income and the cost of owning your own computer. This factor at least keeps internet cafes in business due to demand even if they don't have all the latest AAA titles that westerners prefer.
 
I had one in my smaller town back up north. My buddy and I were the only ones in there on most nights, excluding of course the Magic or D&D nights they hosted. Like others said, wasn't sustainable. Sure did love ploping down on the couch and playing some Halo or something on the giant screen they had.
 
Eshelmen said:
What do you think played the major role for Lan Centers not really popping and not really lasting as long as I'd hope for? Profit? Boredom? Not enough exposure?
Click to expand...

I think widely available broadband internet is what killed the Lan Center.

Before DSL was widely available in the late-90's, my friends and I used to have to go to the Arcade which had a Lan Center for CS and Quake3 matches against each other. After we all had broadband, there was no need to leave home...
 
There used to be a LAN center off of Foothills and Baseline in Roseville CA, where I grew up. Only ever went there for a few friend's birthday parties... CS 1.6 was awesome. That said, apart from events, it wasn't ever all that populated, and it went under after a few years :(

Now either my apartment turns into Lan Party Central, or I just play online with friends...
 
LAN centers were a social event much like the video arcade. I mainly went to them because of the people. The owners were awesome, too. Every Friday they would hold an all-nighter where many people would bring their own PCs. The variety in builds and aesthetic was always cool to see. At the time I also thought it was cool that we knew and addressed each other by our online aliases rather than our actual names. I was also stuck on dial-up until 2006, so it was a nice escape to game online with a sub-100 ping. My overdriven 56k modem at the time was no slouch and probably had a better connection than most P2P these days (90-110 ping on local servers, 120-150 farther up the east coast), but still.

Ruoh said:
I think it comes down to building rental costs, and insurance. Neither are cheap. Back in the day there was a local "Cyber Café" that I used to hang out at (Sunrise Blvd in Citrus Heights CA) and they would have done well if it wasn't for people just being cheap asses. I like the owners, and would help out whenever I could (even brought my own hardware in to keep the lan going), but it died out after a couple years. It wasn't sustainable.
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I agree with this. The one I frequented for their all-nighters closed shop after Hurrican Charley came through the area. They couldn't afford recovering so they liquidated the equipment. The great thing about that, though, was being able to pick up three 21" SUN Microsystems CRT monitors for $100 a piece. Also got several games that were new at the time for $5 a piece.

Dangman said:
Never been to a LAN center as my friends are mostly console gamers and I can afford to buy and build my own gaming PC.

With that said, I did drive my brother to a LAN center a decade+ ago that was located in Rowland Heights in California. It was located in Diamond Plaza but dunno the name.
Click to expand...
Some Cyber Cafes had consoles set up, too. The one I went to had a large TV setup for local multiplayer.

mavrocket said:
I think widely available broadband internet is what killed the Lan Center.

Before DSL was widely available in the late-90's, my friends and I used to have to go to the Arcade which had a Lan Center for CS and Quake3 matches against each other. After we all had broadband, there was no need to leave home...
Click to expand...
Indeed. I didn't have broadband until late 2006.
 
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