News - Omega Sektor closes it's doors : Where did it all go wrong?

[HEXUS]

The UK's largest LAN centre was hailed as the Wembley of the PC gaming world and, like Wembley, it looks like it'll probably now be knocked down

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[Betty_Swallocks]

Omega who? I'd never heard of them which suggests that their money could probably have been better spent on advertising than on Wii tennis courts.

[moogle]

I'm sure this

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[dave87]

Moogle - you beat me to it, lol.

[moogle]

Moogle - you beat me to it, lol.

Well as long as it gets fixed

[Dommulroy]

It is in Administration now so Im hoping that someone can rescue it. I have already been contacted by several people but Sujoy and I are very happy at Gamerbase in London and we are currently building a new store in Manchester. We will not be getting involved again with Omega Sektor. We may well open a Gamerbase in Birmingham one day, but not til late next year at the earliest.

After we left Omega Sektor (Summer 07), we did not agree with how the management planned to operate the business, not least we knew that for a centre the size of Birmingham, it needed a strong marketing and sponsorship strategy. I guess they didnt listen.

Im sad for the staff of both centres in Birmingham and Harrow, a lot have already contacted me but currently there are no vacancies available in London, but if any wish to migrate to Manchester Im happy to consider them for one of our positions there. Please contact me at jobs at gamerbase.com and mention your experience at OS and I will contact you back.

One thing that I must say is that the games industry shouldnt feel worried about the whole gaming centre concept - it is still very strong and centres such as Gamerbase work very well in terms of reaching the end user and promoting titles and the industry as a whole. Indeed, after opening Manchester before Christmas, Gamerbase now have investment (not debt!) to open at least 6 stores next year, again, inside HMV stores.

[richieuk]

I'm an ex lan-gamer from Wolverhampton, and I went to Omega Sektor a few times. The computers there were amazing, and the decoroation was perfect for a large LAN Center. Its a massive shame it went under but it lasted only a little longer than my local one did, and that was just a family run store in my community.

If the big investors backed smaller LAN centres spread out, rather than blow 2 million on big 300 PC lans in city centres, they could easily keep these places running. Why? Because you only need maximum 20 PCs in a small lan shop, and it only requires the space of one, maximum two shopspaces to run it in.

And theres a reason smaller ones work better... and its because of people like me who frequent them! Heres why...

I went to Omega Sektor maybe 5/6 times, and because it was so far away, it would cost me &#163;10 parking or &#163;6/7 travel plus an hour of my time. Then while I was there, I didn't have the ability to pop home for a second if I needed too, so it felt like you had to stay there. It was more like a day out, than a frequent thing to do, and felt like a real drain on my finances to go there.

Snorz in Wolverhampton however was different, there was maybe 10 of us who went there every day, we were all really great friends, and there would be others who would pop in every now and then for a game who mixed it up a little. We kept going back for competitions in iGUK and invited other centres to come over and play against us. It was a sort of family and ritual being there, and we loved every minute of it. It was walking distance from most of us, and the others would be 5 minutes drive to pick up. We had teams in leagues, allnighters, played so many games and we had so much more fun there because it was our place. We need more local places like that.

Dom, I was wondering mate, my names Scribblejam, I played in iGUK alot a few years ago (You probably remember me ^_^) and I was wondering if you would be interested in reopening a centre where Snorz was? I'm sure the shop is still free at the Three Tuns parade, I'm sure Clive would help you with local contacts and such. I would bet most of the old guys would return, and there would be alot of new blood interested from the two local schools.

[Bleak]

Been to the one in Harrow a few times for various LAN tournaments, and Birmingham once for the CGS Combine earlier this year. It was a good LAN centre but never really looked sustainable. Knowing one of the old staff members there quite well too I've known roughly how much trouble it's been in and how bad the business model was. Something like needing 70&#37; of PCs used at all times to break even or something stupid like that.

Shame to see it go though, it was good whilst it lasted.

[richieuk]

Yeah, its the trouble really, LAN gamers go to static LAN centres to play all the games they cant at home, and to play games they could in a close knit environment with friends.

The first problem is that PC games seem to always require computers worth in excess of &#163;500 to build to play them on release. Further to that regardless of that, PCs need to be replaced after a couple of years to keep ahead of it. Sometimes upgrading them too before hand.

So lets say, we're looking for a LAN centre with say 16 computers in. It costs &#163;700 to build the computers with a monitor, keybaord, mouse and headphones. Then you need the tables to put them on, the administrator computer/s, the specialist login and payment programs, the routers, the wiring around the shop, the shop lease, the security systems. This is all before you put any games on these computers or pay iGUK fees or staff wages. Do you want to work all this out? I'd say a captial of over &#163;25k is required to start a place like this.

All in all its a BIG cost to the founders, with recurring costs of leases and upgrading as time goes on. Bearing in mind however you can only make possibly &#163;30 per computer per week, assuming its used, then you might be lucky to get some sponsors and such, so aftrer this you will need to make money from things like food and drinks in the lan centre then. You can expect realisticly no more than &#163;40/50 per computer per week, its just not enough to keep a stable LAN centre running.

[kalniel]

Well they couldn't even spell 'Sector' correctly

(Hope they all find new jobs etc.)