Opening an Internet cafe in the sticks in Isaan...

[zyphodb]

Hi people,

What I'm trying to find out is what are the most popular games that Thai Teenagers outside of the Cities like to play?

If anyone has any thoughts on this they'd be much appreciated, Obviously Iv'e done some market research locally but I'm interested in a slightly wider cross section of the sticks & small to medium sized places....

Thanks in advance....

[David48]

Considering that the internet removes boundaries, up to a point, I would presume that they would enjoy the same games that those in the Big and Middle smoke like.

Presumably ...

[Display]

All you have to do is visit any popular, already established internet café and use there computer and look at which games they have installed on the desktop and in the programs folder, write them down and bingo.

[krisb]

I know the answer to this.

World of Warcraft.

Then games like Battlefield, Call of Duty is massive.

They love the online first person shooter games.

To narrow it down, visit local internet cafes and see whats what.

Have you considered offering the service for ladies to talk to their online bf's? Charge a few baht, then type the message for those who's English isn't up to scratch.

[star kicker]

get some ear plugs, the kids love the noisy games

[Farma]

Maybe walk through a couple of internet cafes and look at what they're playing.

Just a word of caution. I live in a small town (umphur population 37,000), In the past 18 months we've had 3 internet cafes open and close next to us plus a 4th one open a month ago. It's about to close from lack of customers too.

Out in the villages the kids now have access to internet and PC's or laptops either at home or their friends place. If not, a large portion of them have smart phones and do all their facebook and game stuff on the phones.

Edited June 7, 2014 by Farma

[HooHaa]

perhaps talk to some thai teenagers?

[asdecas]

About 15 years late to the party.

[realenglish1]

The new one out DEBBY DOES DALLAS in 3 D WOW what a game changer

[Jeffrey346]

Why should it matter. These kids use a browser and go right to the game the want to play.

[NoshowJones]

I live in a village in the sticks, but not in Isaan. When I arrived here eight years ago, there were two internet cafes as far as I know, now there are none. I would do a bit of research first.

[hotrod4098]

games require a licence....thats where the problems come..some one will cone to the shop download a game...then next day in come the licence ploice....bingo for them....

the fine can be around 10000 a computor...thass what happened to me..

also internet shop need licence...and has hours of opening and closing...

as said the part is over for the shop it on the ipad xbox..form home

[zyphodb]

Appreciate that hotrod but they won't be d/ling anything unless I come over, log in as admin & d/l it for them, & that'll be very restricted. Didn't know about a licence, have to look into that. Jeffrey, browser games are very simple unless you download a big file to play them which they won't be doing. have to look at that one realenglish lol

[Colabamumbai]

Don't know what games they like but we have many and a new one just opened on Kalasin.

[johnnyj]

LOL (league of legends)

DOTA2

CS;GO

starcraft2

Various others after that

You need something to differentiate yourself... I know a few years back out in the sticks in isaan (det udom) there were a number of underground internet cafes (in the west they'd be LAN gaming venues) that the nephew in law used to skip school to frequent.

You'd need a way to make your internet cafe a better place than at home, maybe by have top of the line machine specs?

[zyphodb]

Thanks johnnyj, I think that I can do this by having games that no one else will have and the ability to play each other via a Lan network between the PC's, The 'at home' bit doesn't apply so much around as no one has a decent internet connection until you get several km away from me.

[jaycor]

Internet Cafe = Welcome to 1998!

[Sandman77]

Only 200 m nearr our house is a Internet cafe!

10 baht one our!

But the friendly police man wants also money from your profit !

Let's say 30 Procent

Maybe you have 500 baht a day

When some game addicted kids find your shop!

After you paid your friends next door maybe you half 300 baht

And when the electric bill comes

At end of the month you have 5000 thb

Minus because your shop not have customer every day and the computer you also must pay!

In one simple word FORGET IT!

[haybilly]

I don't think that you are going to get rich doing this--a good friend of mine opened up an Internet Cafe in the sticks, near Buriram--he needed to branch out with the 'Cafe' part offering extensive food, snacks, drinks, smoothies, coffee, etc.. to make anything like a go of it.Still closed down after not that long.

[Glock3am]

I know the answer to this.

World of Warcraft.

Then games like Battlefield, Call of Duty is massive.

They love the online first person shooter games.

To narrow it down, visit local internet cafes and see whats what.

Have you considered offering the service for ladies to talk to their online bf's? Charge a few baht, then type the message for those who's English isn't up to scratch.

WOW requires a monthly subscription of around 500 baht per license and COD games are around 2000 baht each for the latest editions, of which you will need one copy per PC. The same goes for Starcraft 2 and so on. You could be looking at half a million baht just in games if you want to have such premium titles. Let alone the cost of the machines and their ongoing running costs.

All popular retail games will need their own keys purchased per machine. You could go the free (pirated) route, but you will not be able to play online, only locally amongst machines in the shop, which will definitely limit the appeal, not to mention the potential risk for being busted.

OP, your best bet is to setup an email account for each machine and then register Steam accounts for each address. Steam is an online gaming store and platform through which you can purchase full games and play F2P (free-to-play) games. Have a look on http://store.steampowered.com at the most played F2P games and install those to start with.

Steam also has regular sales with massive discounts where you can buy many of the top games very cheaply, perhaps 150-300 baht per copy. There will be a big Summer Sale in July that is worth checking out.

Most of the internet shops in Bangkok likewise also stick to the free games. From memory, popular titles are a COD clone called Special Forces and a football sim, FIFA Online. They could be worth looking into as well.

Edited June 7, 2014 by Glock3am

[zyphodb]

Thanks for the thoughts Sandman & glook, I know I'm not gonna get rich but every little helps, glook I have over 200 games personally on my own steam account, I understand about most of this sort of thing, there's also origin & the ubisoft platform to name but a few, humble bundle have some very good deals as well, I think I have a fair handle on this sort of thing, this is just one of the ways that I'm hoping to sustain a income here for my little family & I,this idea's mainly based on the fact that I'm the only one with a decent internet connection for several miles in any direction & it's likely to stay that way for a year or two yet as there's no 'hi so's' or other falang in my vicinity...

[1FinickyOne]

North - Central Sticks Report:

There used to be several internet shops in my small nearby city… Most are gone now. One Thai fellow has one set up as a retirement business for himself, but he does not allow games, just wants it for an education center. From what i have seen, even in places like Bkk and CM is that internet places are going out of business left and right as most people have smart phones and tablets… even in my small village, my nephews now play games on their tablets, they use my wifi for connectivity - they no longer go to uor small internet shop.

Sorry, I do not want to appear negative but keep it small at first and limit your down side...

[HughJass]

u will open yourself up to fines and tea money...anybody downloads a song then copyright is infringed and the police will be blackmailing you...forget it and play poker online instead

[Bpuumike]

Don't even go there.

[zyphodb]

Believe it or not Hugh, where I live there are no police for several miles... shockingly enough none of the local shops or businesses get shaken down at all by the BIB,they are all Thai though as of course so will mine as it'll be my Wife's business, hopefully it'll be the same...

[zyphodb]

Also the PC's will only be able to d/l anything through my admin account so I can vet anything that's d/l ed...

[Glock3am]

Another idea is to possibly have a few comfortable couches and big screen TVs with PS4s and charge an hour or so at a time. The latest multiplayer games like FIFA 14 would be very popular and some of the other ones that locals wouldn't have a chance to play like Watch Dogs, etc. might also be good. The outlay for each TV + PS4 would only be marginally more (35k or so) than a PC (presuming you are building quite high-end gaming rigs).

I would guarantee they would not have an opportunity to play the likes of a PS4 anywhere else in the vicinity. Those arcade PES setups in shopping malls at 10/20 baht per 15 minutes are usually quite popular but they are still on PS2/PS3 and likely won't be upgrading for quite awhile yet I'd think.

[sirchai]

Hi people,

What I'm trying to find out is what are the most popular games that Thai Teenagers outside of the Cities like to play?

If anyone has any thoughts on this they'd be much appreciated, Obviously Iv'e done some market research locally but I'm interested in a slightly wider cross section of the sticks & small to medium sized places....

Thanks in advance.

My son's turns 16 in October (and knows pretty much all games) was just telling me that point blank, cookie run, Hero of Newwerth, minecraft, world Z, Special Force, Fifa ( football online)...

Hope that helps.-

Edited June 7, 2014 by sirchai

[Squeegee]

Scanned over the thread and

* noticed OP doesn't seem to know anything about the business or its market

* didn't notice any grasp of the significance of Minecraft

therefore...

deadinthewaterbusinessisdeadinthewater

OP, you've had some good advice and experience already given to you about this specific idea and how it is unlikely to succeed, so do yourself a favour and come up with a different (better) idea.

Of course, there are many examples of successful businesses that rose out of the roar of pessimism during the beginning, and most likely many more that failed to heed good wisdom and failed.

To at least try at something is great, but at least try at something you have some kind of understanding of.

Hope this doesn't come across as offensive, it sure ain't meant that way.

Good luck with your decisions.

[Edited to add....]

I think my point is, if you had opened the thread by saying something like "Hey, I've noticed the Thai kids are every bit as crazy about Minecraft as they are in the rest of the world. I was thinking of exploiting this setting up an internet cafe focused on gaming and using X, Y and Z to make it stand out and appeal. What do you think?"

Then we could have at least warned you that you've probably missed the boat by 12 to 18 months but it might be worth a shot based on the X, Y and Z and taking previous advise offered into consideration.

Now, we are pretty much post-Minecraft and whilst Watchdogs is flavour of the month, if you know anything about gaming you'll also realize it's only one of a number of flavours of the month in the current gaming world, and certainly no replacement for Minecraft.

In fact, Watchdogs is a much more adult game more likely to appeal to 'Real Gamers' who will have their own setup at home rather than casuals and kids who depend on hanging round an internet cafe.

This is why - in my opinion - you missed the boat for Minecraft, because it's a much more casual-friendly multiplayer game with better potential for that kind of business. Really though, it's past its prime and a lot of the kids who last year were banging on about Minecraft are now into Cookie Run, a mobile game.

You're really going to need to not only research your basic internet cafe business, but if you want to exploit gaming you're going to need an understanding of gamers and games to find what would fit. If you press on with this I would advise you to have other avenues to draw an income beyond just gaming: Skype (of course), translation, printing and help to set up email/facebook/etc accounts and etc.

Edited June 7, 2014 by Squeegee

[khunPer]

I would have thought that kids of today play online on their tablets (or smartphones), which by the way one also can download lots of (free) games...