good to hear! good luck

wicked :)

Good for gaming, but the perception of esports has faded over the years, to the point where now any form of gaming can use the term "esports".

True but we are going to be holding some proper events there, not just pseudo-esports.

Phew, was starting to think your a sell out, good stuff.

Good luck - Surely HMV will want it console focused based of their recent announcement of pay to play console sections?

Guitar hero and Rockband comes to mind.

This is our concept with HMV's support. It's going to be almost completely PC based since that is where we have the systems to charge people for gaming :).

Big news. Hope it works out.

I see more future in having gaming centers that have a non-profit base with people voluntarily helping out so you can keep the prices very low so you will see a lot of regulars (and thus new volunteers / events).

Good news :) gl

I thought the plan was to make another Omega Sektor in the heart of London? Has this replaced that idea, or is the next Omega Sektor still set for London?

I had a look at the one in Birmingham the other day when I was passing through. It seemed excellent to be honest, everything is to a very high standard.

Both Dominic and I left Omega Sektor a while ago now. I'm not sure what they're up to these days but we wish them the best of luck!

great stuff! :D

that concept design looks familiar!!!

Heh yep it looks a lot like Omega Sektor but what do you expect, it's the same management and the same designers :). It won't be as big as the Birmingham store but the location is unbelievable right in the middle of Picadilly Circus.

are you guys planning to open more gamerbase's across the country? newcastle needs one! :P

We'll see how this one goes in HMV, but yea we're looking to expand into other HMV stores around the country after this pilot is complete.

don't tell me you speak like a geordie!!!
I can still clearly remember my first encounter with a geordie. Most of the time I was like "what???" and he was always like "... ay mate, ay mate".......... HORRENDOUS

wheeey aye mate! cushty like!

love the geordie accent

yeah it's fun to listen to... But when I talked to that guy I was in England for like 3 months and I got barely used to the yorkshire-accent. Funny bloke :P

What's wrong with CGZ?

they dont even have osp or cpma for q3

Looking good.

Is this in any relation to GTW? lol. :)

We're good friends with GTW, and they have some awesome ideas. Still working out details though for what we'll do together.

Sounds great. From my own standpoint, I definitely hope something works out between you both.. The Coleraine centre is where I spend most of my days, and it has so much potential *if only*.

Anyway, nice to know. :)

Out of curiousity what are the best things about the Coleraine centre? I've only seen Bangor which I know is not quite at the same spec as Coleraine. Is it the atmosphere, the stats stuff, etc.?

The best things? The regulars; the staff; the CoD2 stats system (and up and coming Fusion stats system for Source games and Q3 also); the atmosphere; the three competitons for time per day (1pm, 4pm and 7pm).. My mind is ablank for somewhat more centre specific things, but it's a good place. :)

Cool thanks. I need to spend more time at their bigger centres.

They just opened a new 'super' centre in Dublin (nowhere near the size of Omega Sektor though of course, 50~ PCs or something), which is supposed to be pretty awesome.. Not sure if it's actual GTW or a franchise centre, but I intend to go down in the nearish future. Hopefully that's were the CoD2 league finals are held, it'll mean an excuse to go tripping. :D

.. also come 2 coleraine ty bbz xx

:)

Looks good, im back from China in january - moving to london - so i should come in a check it out - I played you on lan a few years ago Sujoy so maybe we can have a rematch? :)

What game did we play? I'll have to practice a bit. Only playing dota these days...

Was Q3 :) You probably don't remember but was at the center in Harrow (?) - Would be 4 years ago now. My clan and some extras came for a session there one night and we had a semi-fun 1v1 competition which dreg won quite easily. I lost to you on t2 and you knocked me out :(. Wanted revenge ever since.

Maybe I can play you at wsw instead now :P

Hmm I haven't played wsw for a long time now... Might have to get some neutral ground :)

hehe - well its not like ive played it - im using an apple laptop here - and there is no mac version of wsw. Maybe we could play a game of chess instead? :) Battle Chess?!?!?! :D Besides you have til next year to practice - im sure the laser gun is lg enough for you? :P

oooh kinky pink, I like it!

no offense but i wouldnt be caught dead in the middle of the trocadero playing games ;) Design looks nice

Haha fair enough. Still some work to do to make it 'cool'...

You should force a small joining membership fee for anyone who wants to play, to deter the rowdy scum who will inevitably try to loiter in such a place, and possibly be quite intimidating and loud to the more civilised of us.

The thing is we're probably going to get a lot of trade from tourists as well as regulars in Picadilly Circus. I don't want to deter a one-time visitor from the shop. As for loud and rowdy, we should be able to deal with that in other ways.

Bricks?

either that or a big stick to beat them with

pfft
thats what the troc is FOR :D

haha i was one of those extras in harrow xen, I remember Dreg spanking everyone yeah.

go dreg \0/

ah raz - how you doin man? havnt heard from you in ages!

Add a secret room with some prostitutes in it and that might get close to Heaven !

Combo gaming centre and massage parlor.

best of luck with this - im sure itll be awesome!

nice, I wonder why there isnt something like that in Germany

From what I understand there are legal issues with charging peopel to play computer games. I think you need a gambling license to do it.

because gaming=gambling innit

the ESL tried to open gaming centers four years ago. seems like they gave up thanks to the gambling shit :(

Been looking forward to this for a long time. Great news :D

I was a bit gutted when the massive Omega Sektor was announced to be built in Birmingham but then again London can't have EVERYTHING :)

Then I heard about this place, and was hoping for something similar to the Brum OS. Bit of a downer that it's only 80 PCs, was hoping for 100+ at least :( If Brum OS can handle a 400+ PC gaming centre, London can do that and better. Let's hope someone is planning something bigger for the future!

danny

if this is inside HMV i think they might have been a little limited on space

To put it in perspective, the rental on 2,500 square feet we have in Picadilly Circus costs more than whole Omega Sektor in Birmingham which has 25,000 square feet of space. We originally considered double the space we have now, but since we are investing personal money to make this happen it was too much of a commitment for us!

My plan is that after this place has been open for a few months, to open other similar stores around London. People have computers at home anyway so there's no need to build anything stupidly big. The reason someone might want to come to a gaming centre is to socialise as much as play games, so having a place so big that you might not see someone else on the LAN is counter-productive in my view.

You have to accept that this is a business, above that of how we want a gaming centre to be. Birmingham was great, we had plenty of space to design a centre that size, but for Gamerbase this time we are a business first and gamers second. It HAS to make money like every normal business.

Anyone who builds a gaming centre is governed by the averaged occupancy rate to determine its profitability. I dont have the precise figures, but lets say Gamerbase has 80 PCs and for our costs, we require about 14 PCs to be full all day, every day (give or take). Thats about 17% average occupancy.

If we had taken double the space and put in say 150 computers, then we would have had to get 30 PCs occupied all day everyday, thats 20% occupancy. But in real terms we have to fill another 16 PCs all day every day. It doesnt make commercial sense to do this straight away. We already have 80 PCs, so if after 3-4 months we obtain an average of 40% occupancy with 30 PCs occupied then we can justify opening expanding or building in another HMV store, maybe Oxford Street or Covent Garden.

So 400 PC centres although great visually, makes absolutely no commercial sense as the occupancy rate would be ridiculously high and could never be achieved.

wow i am impressed, a man thinking logically :x

the concept looks awesome, think i'll go check it out next time i'm in London.

Check the opening date, we're not 100% sure what day we're opening for real in November, depends on how the building goes. Sign up to the £5 voucher and you'll get a mail when it's open.

Hopefully wont suck as bad as omega sektor birmingham, 5 billion pcs and one wc3 cd key.

Are you serious? That's insane...

We have talked to the publishers to get 1 license per PC for each game we're using. In any case we'll use smartlaunch which lets us allocate licenses centrally. That means even if you only have 20 keys, they will be allocated to machines as people click to play wc3 and so on. We won't have problems with duplicated keys.

yep, tried to play ladder for kode5, ended up going home to practice instead.

Did make a fuss, then when I went home, staff complained to rotti, saying that I was out of order for making a fuss.

I work just round the corner - will pop my head in and take a look when its open : )