Epic Arcade Project

[DanP]

http://epicarcadeproject.com/

Anyone else seen this? Anyone here involved? Is this for real or what?

Dan

 

[dannyboy]

There's been some discussion about it on the 'other' forum, although most of the comments were fairly negative - basically saying nice idea but much too ambitious, should start smaller and then expand over time, etc.

Reading through the site I get the impression it's for real, although apparently £50k of the £51k 'raised' so far is their own money. I hope they can make a go of it anyway, although I doubt I'd ever make it there anyway as Edinburgh is over 450 miles from where I live.

 

[P-Man]

Why is everything quoted in $ dollars? not just on the fundraising parts if thats a software thing, but in their own descriptions? if they are 'based in scotland' why not pounds? If its an American doing this from overseas, how do they know the market, the feasability?

They will have 200 machines? open 12 hours a day? in Edinburgh?

Its either pie in the sky, or a scam.

They'll refund your donation (minus fees) if it doesn't work out... so, they win either way.

I wont be donating, i know what it takes to get 110 classic machines ready to play, i know what it costs to run, been there, done that, this fundraiser is not realistic.

P-Man2012-10-30 10:32:36

 

[DanP]

I think that might be why no one else is donating. EOD no one know's these guys from Adam, I can't see too many people (let alone the thousands they need) donating anytime soon. The Funspot model would seem better, get the thing setup and running then ask for donations to keep it going. The refund minus fees statement doesn't help, just makes it sounds fishy.

All that said, I hope it does happen. I think we'd all like to see another Retrokade up and running in our lifetimes. If the number of Retro Arcades springing up in the US is anything to go by there may well be a market for this. I just hope they have Billy Whiz as the tech guy as he's gonna need to be fast to keep 200+ vids up and running. I can barely manage to keep 20 odd going and they are only used rarely!

Dan

 

[Alpha1]

If I had balls i'd do something like this - however i'd follow the business model of something like 1UP.

 

[IDCHAPPY]

This thread looks familiar

 

[DanP]

These dudes anything to do with your IDChappy?

Dan

 

[Setch]

**copied from another forum**

Hi all, Barry from Epic Arcade Project here. Glad to see our project has got people talking. Thought I'd respond to the numerous comments on here and hopefully clarify and few of the things that may appear misleading.

Like everyone on these forums, Jeff and myself (Epic's founders) are extremely passionate about arcade machines, and the preservation thereof. We have been avid collectors for many a year and have a decent collection already between the pair of us, which is the starting batch for our arcade.

We're not just another wannabe arcade out there to make a quick quid then close down one night, and here's the reasons why:

Firstly, we've both invested £20,000 EACH of our hard-earned money into this venture. Coupled with another £10,000 from friends and family, that puts our starting pot at just over the £50,000 mark. That alone should show how serious and committed we are.

We're doing this because we believe in it. We're not doing it for a profit, but for the preservation of these wonderful machines and to allow as many people as possible to enjoy what they have to offer. With the funding we aim to raise we should be able to cover ALL ongoing costs for the first 3 years, which will give it a fighting chance of survival, regardless of the number of visitors we get. Hopefully beyond that we'll have enough gamers to allow the arcade to continue to thrive.

Edinburgh may seem like a strange/bad choice to locate, but there's a number of factors that influenced it. First and foremost, I'm a father of 2 young kids and relocation is not an option at this moment in time. Family comes first. Likewise, I wouldn't be willing to travel to London or similar for weeks on end without seeing my kids, so Edinburgh seemed the best option. It's also the most visited city in the UK outwith London, so there's a huge international market readily available. And, with good roots in the Scottish property sector already, we're in a position to get the right location at the right price. Yes, Edinburgh is quite an expensive place in general, but the vast number of empty units costing landlords money right now has meant there's been quite a shift in the rental value and benefits associated in taking a lease on commercial property.

Your $25 ticket gets you a full days access to the arcade, which is on permanent free-play. There are no other costs involved (unless you buy some vended drinks or merchandise). The section on the campaign detailing the 'free-play VIP area' was from when we initially started out with a per machine cost, which we have since dropped. Sadly I didn't edit the script as well as I thought I had and this unfortunate piece of misleading info remained! The arcade will be open for at least 12 hours a day, but hopefully 14 or 15 hours will be the total daily operating hours, especially when we take other events into consideration.

Asking for a $25 donation for a ticket is a fair deal. And yes, you're absolutely right, it is there to help us kit-out the arcade and secure premises, as well as operating costs. However, this is no different to the other campaigns out there asking for $25/$50 to put a game into development, where your perk at the end is a copy of the game. No-one is unhappy with that type of deal, so we feel that our campaign is acceptable. Even the Lamborghini project mentioned on here, lol - I'll happily donate my $25 if you do the same for us

On the topic of campaigns/Indiegogo, we are complete novices at this type of funding, as is evident with our poorly received campaign with only $45 to show for it. However, as we are going to see this arcade through to the end no matter what hurdles we encounter, here are our plans (anyway feedback is always appreciated, positive or critical, and taken on board) -
we plan to launch another campaign, probably on the more popular Kickstarter site this time; we will be going for an all-or-nothing funding campaign (we feel most people are thinking that we'll just bugger off with a few grand if that's all we raised on the Indiegogo site)- hopefully this will encourage people to contribute, knowing their cash is safe until all the funds are raised; we will also have a full breakdown as to where we intend to spend every single penny of the raised funds; we will be launching a more appealing website too, as the feedback we've had on our current one is that it isn't engaging enough; we've been so focused on trying to promote our project that we've lost sight of what our audience really want - photos of the cabs we have, info on potential premises, etc, so all of that will be getting fed into the new site.

Yes, it's an extremely ambitious project, and yes it will be ridiculously difficult to pull off. We don't want to start off small. With our own investment and cabinet collection to date we could happily open up a little unit somewhere and run with it, but we won't. We want something huge, exciting, and (what for the cliche .. ) Epic. We want people to be able to justify travelling to the arcade. I know I'd travel a few hundred miles to play over 200 machines. I wouldn't, though, to play just 20 or 30! And it won't just be the machines. Any of you that remember the buzz, the atmosphere, the social aspect of a big, full, busy arcade must remember the tingle that you get just being there. That's what we hope to recreate. For the lucky few amongst us, we can recreate this in our games room or garage or wherever we have a few machines kicking around and a couple of mates over, but to most people there is no access to this set-up.

All we need to get this going is people to believe in it, and for people to believe that we have the passion and commitment to see it through to the end. A project like this can only benefit every fan out there with a passion for retro gaming - whether you run a business related to retro cabs and consoles; organise local gaming events; or just want to meet with like-minded people. This project can help open up the media channels and hopefully bring a renewed interest, as well as a wider and newer audience, to the passion that we all share.

thanks for listening.
Barry.

Setch2012-10-30 18:21:01

 

[captainvark0]

Barry,

It sounds awesome, and i hope it all works out!

Id love to spend a day chilling out and having a blast on that many cabs!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cap'

 

[IDCHAPPY]

These dudes anything to do with your IDChappy?

Dan

Naa man, i hadn't heard a thing about it till about a week ago.

Seem like a nice pair of guys, they are coming to the scottish open bash were holding so should be a chance to chat to them properly then