Bushnell's Next Gaming Venture

Internship = acquired!

Looks like I'm gonna have to learn .NET programming real quick. The lady said pay is about $3000/month...holy shit that's a lot of money. This is gonna be an awesome summer!

Remember, this is the man who brought the world the ANDROBOT.

http://www.robotswanted.com/robotgallery/androbot/

How could it possibly go wrong?

Was Bushnell even that successful with Chuck E Cheeses? I ask because I heard he won the lottery awhile back and that's what saved the chain from doom.

the Internet has removed the need for people to assemble physically for their gaming

Multiplayer gaming is always more fun when you can reach over and slap the person next to you for beating you.

Jillian's called and said they want their business plan back.

I think an idea like this will work if done right.

Just think of it as a restaurant with games at the table. Wouldn't you rather go to a restaurant with games than one without (all other things being equal)?

If this comes through for him, I hope he focuses more on the food side of things than his gimmicks. Our one Chuck E Cheese's (that closed after about a year) had awful pizza, but hey it was the one place in town that had Dragon's Lair AND Dragon's Lair II. People quit going there because of the crappy food, not because they got tired of playing the tons of arcade games.

Sounds like he needs to throw strippers in there if he's going to put that many geeks together at one area ...outside of a campus computer lab.

Well one has to only look at the rest of the world (besides the United States of America) to see the success and wide patronage of Internet Cafe's to see that there may be a market for this. People are more than willing to pay by the hour for Internet access and to play multiplayer video games. If they were setting these restaurants up in South Korea I'd be foretelling success for this venture.

The one flaw of Bushnell's plan is opening these restaurants in the U.S.A. Didn't he learn anything from the 1990's and the (largely) abysmal failure of net cafe's in the USA? The fact that he couldn't find venture capital funding for this in the mid to late 90's, when they were throwing money around at anything with tech in its name, should have put his dream to rest. These restaurants better have REALLY good food for us American fat fucks because the draw of multiplayer gaming and Internet access isn't going to be enough.

However, I do wish him success and the article doesn't say whether all the planned restaurants are going to be in the USA or in different parts of the world. My brother used to be a friend of one of the man's son, he had a kickass house (the old Foldger's coffee magnates mansion in Woodside, Ca.). One entire room was devoted to old school Atari and earlier arcade game boxes and it was cool to walk through and see the evolution of the arcade game all in one room. I remember hearing about his dream of multiplayer game cafe's way back in 1992 or 1993 and it seemed cool then and maybe it would have succeded at the time, but sadly I don't think they will now.

aivars

Nothing helps my frag count like being surrounded by idiots who think a cyber-bar is fun.

Just name it what it'll be the Sausage Factory since no female would want to go into dorkheaven.

He is trying to corner the Shackmeet market!

uWink Media Bistro restaurantchain (strike one through fifteen: the name)

I hope this means there'll be a few oldschool arcade games on display. It's freaking Nolan B, after all!

This restaurant is going to smell funny... like some people stayed up all night playing WoW and fap'd to the Night Elf dance.

I hope they making eating optional. Would be nice to have a Lan of Xbox360s.

Best Restaurant name ever.

Yay, Nolan's back! No, where's Sam Tramiel...

no one knows what i'm talking about

I could only imagine what a horror it would be for the wait staff. Trying to turn tables at a gaming bar is fundamentally broken. I'd imagine to compensate for this, for the fact that product isn't being sold every trip, there would be some sort of booth rental, or table rental, an hourly "gaming charge." Chuck E Cheese worked because the only fucking way you are stepping into that Cacophany of Light and Noise was for a hick neighbor's birthday party, so there was no pretense of "resturaunt style service;" it's all a pop banquet, and the game's took the cash, not the waitstaff.

Umm, when I go out to eat I don't want gaming, I want food.

Oooo, a nerd dating service. Sweet.

Probably aiming to seem like a "cool and edgy" place to hang out after a movie in a mall. Although, I'll admit that if I was stuck in a mall after a movie, I might check the place out for novelty factor- the Virgin arcade in Times Square was fun for a night, etc.

My entreprenuership professor knows this guy, he got 5 million in venture capital for writing chuck e. cheese on a napkin and has had other successful businesses. I will ask my prof tomorrow if he knows about this.

This reminds me of the restaurants at Playdium here in Canada. It wasn't a big success though.

(Playdium is like GameWorks, but cheaper)

People game at home because they're fundamentally lazy. It's why arcades died as soon as home consoles eclipsed them: why go to the trouble of driving somewhere and then paying money when you can just plop your rather large ass into the recliner and game away to your heart's content?

"The perpetual kid has been thinking about starting a Chuck E. Cheese for adults since the early '90s. But back then, the Internet wasn't sturdy enough to link the games together, and multiplayer videogames for adults didn't exist."

That's what they need to realize - the Internet has removed the need for people to assemble physically for their gaming, except for things like LAN parties and Halo gatherings, and when you do those, it's a personal gig at someone's apartment, dorm room, etc. It's not something you need to take to an establishment, and it's why those places that offer $5/hour usage of consoles with big-screen TVs keep failing. Not enough business. The fact is that home console technology has advanced far enough that communal gaming is either done remotely across the Internet, or self-arranged with a group of friends. The 18-34 (or whatever it is) age group doesn't need the communality provided for it.

I'm also curious about what he means by "young-adult." Teens and college kids want to hit up clubs, suck back Red Bull and vodka, and fool around - so I can see Bushnell's idea appealing to everyone *except* that demographic. I wonder if it would work better in Japan, though, based on what little I know of that country...

Another cybercafe...but less useful... What an interesting idea....

Off the couch, not the coach. Though playing videogames in a stagecoach would probably kick a tremendous amount of ass.

he totally needs to sell hotwings and have lil condoms on the controllers