>fixing notebook for a ~70 years old lady
>comes, pays, asks about gaming tier GPUs for her desktop
>little took back I inquire about the price range and what
games, solitaire, sudoku, puzzle games...
>nope, I play the Assasin
>Assassin's creed?
>yes, on my grandsons console, I just love Venice
>she pauses
>and killing people
You jest, but if someone opened up a bona fide internet cafe in my area, I just know it’d be filled with nostalgic 30-to-40-year-olds playing Counter Strike 1.6 and yelling at each other.
LAN parties need to come back…
The upmarket ones can advertise having new CRT monitors. By then, surely someone will have started a factory somewhere making them in artisanal quantities for well-heeled retro-gaming enthusiasts.
I mean, it would be pretty awesome to see a top-ot-the-line CRT with contemporary materials and techniques. Like, the apgee of CRT displays :-?
This is probably not really possible. Was watching something recently about how modern cassette players are super bad compared to the ones from the peak of the technology. Like they’re bigger, offer less functionality, and aren’t as reliable etc. Because they’re not benefitting from economy of scale anymore, the old assembly lines are long gone and creating new ones that can beat the old stuff is crazy hard/expensive. So they just all use the one model available for the actual mechanism and it’s trash.
So if someone made a CRT today it probably wouldn’t beat the old stuff.
Worse for CRTs than that - the manufacturing process and power draw of the finished product wouldn’t pass modern environmental regs. The heavy glass is leaded, because the CRT is beaming you in the face with radiation. Leaded glass is a big no-no nowadays. Even if someone got a CRT factory up and running they wouldn’t likely be allowed to operate domestically in Europe/North America, and shipping 200 pound glass sealed vacuum flasks is a recipe for lost inventory.
Not to mention, even with economies of scale in play, the kind of monitors/TVs that modern CRT enthusiasts want cost thousands of dollars new in the late 90s/early '00s. The material costs wouldn’t have gotten cheaper, so even if somehow Sony or whoever started producing CRTs at scale again they’d likely be $3k+ luxury products (again). Flatscreen panels, even those HDR 8K OLED ones, are simply way way cheaper to manufacture and ship.
My 32 inch Trinitron ($35 on craigslist, it was actually free but the dude agreed to $25 to drive it over and I tipped him ten bucks) cost some schmuck $999 in 2003, that’s $1800 in today money. A quick amazon search shows that if you’re willing to pay $2k on a TV in 2025 it buys you a 65-inch 8k 120hz Samsung display. An 85-inch 60hz 4k display also by Samsung is “only” $1200. No CRT purist niche is gonna make producing 200 pound radioactive power sucking naturally blurry chonkbeasts worthwhile for a company, even if they could theoretically get them made for as cheap as they made 'em in 2005.
Well, damn, that’s sad…
That’s a hard business to run these days, I haven’t seen a net cafe in a decade.
Someone opened a video game hang out place 3 years ago and it’s still somehow going strong. So clearly there is some demand and isn’t an entirely possible business model.
Like a decade ago we had these weird net cafes that were actually digital casinos I guess? That was weird, I think the law got to them.
I think something Boutique™ might be catchy and niche enough to make it! I don’t see them becoming The Next Arcades, but a couple of such in a moderately sized town could work!
They’d have to have some personality to them, but as a Millenial, I feel that my cohorts and I have become somewhat tired of the gimmicks and would go for something intentional, but simple. As long as the atmosphere’s good, there will be clients. Heck, could do a lot of organised events, build some community!
Edit: thinking about it, I’d totally go for something which caters to both the CS 1.6 and the Sims 2 crowds. Like, you wanna solo some Frostpunk but feel kinda’ lonely doing it at your desk again? Come on over! We’ll reserve you a wall desk and you can
butchersave your citizens in peace! Might even have your favourite Monster (or whatever) flavour in stock if you let us know what you drink!Edit 2: plus the software overhead would be minimal now that Linux runs (most of) all the games! Just have BYO Steam Account, like!
Edit 3: and a couple of rental accounts with decent libraries for those who’re new to the disease. There, free business plan!:)))
An upscale but retro-themed gaming cafe would probably do well in a big enough city.
Like, instead of selling only Red Bull (but do sell that too) sell quality espresso. Instead of just instant Ramen (but do sell that too), sell Japanese-restaurant style Ramen. Charge a fair price for that, heck overcharge for it. It’s a bit like a movie theatre, but you’re getting quality goods not just popcorn.
You could also do well with the kinds of setups that most people can’t have at home because of space / time constraints. Like a proper VR setup with the space you actually need to take advantage of it. A Flight Sim cockpit with a good HOTAS setup. A racing setup with pedals and stick. Also, just simple stuff like couches in front of a big screen for playing console games together. Even people who have a couch, big TV and good console at home probably don’t get to have their pals over for gaming sessions much because they need to share the couch with spouses and kids.
Also, have lockers on-site people can rent out to store consoles, peripherals, etc. So, someone can come in, rent out a “booth”, and go get their gear out of the locker if there are specialty things they want that aren’t provided by the cafe.
Hell, I’d totally frequent something like that! There’s a boardgame hall in our town and they hold everything from mini painting classes to pro tournaments and Campaigns, they’re always packed!
It’d be the perfect environment for contemporary socialisation. I mean, we’re always sharing memes and stuff, Random Hangout Time has long evolved into browsing the webs for funny cat photos together, why not formalise it, in a way!