Custom Cabs for an Arcade

How are you licensing the games for these cabinets? Also, your bathroom thing just sounds like a reskinned jack shack

>>3416715

How are people licensing the games for repros?
They just do it.

>>3416718
Don't drop the soap

The money you're trying to save is less than what the first month's rent on your commercial location would be.

Arcades don't succeed unless they also have food and drinks specifically catering to either kids with kiddie games and prizes and pizza or adults with alcohol.

Arcade operators have to follow a lot of laws in most states.

The whole pirated software could net you in hot water. Technically it's illegal to sell a MAME cabinet with working coin slots depending on which you have installed.

>>3416724
Not entirely true, there are a bunch that are treated more as a museum. However I do live in San Francisco. And they still do host children's birthday parties on occasion.

>>3416724
>you're trying to save is less than what the first month's rent on your commercial location would be.


That's not necessarily true. Arcade Monitors can run anywhere from 150-200 bucks for ones in good/new condition. Depending on number of cabs I build and on going maintenance it could save me thousands of dollars over the course of the year.

I've done the math and I can build superguns for around 80-90 bucks for parts.I'd save more if I can go wholesale Obviously not including labor, which will just be part of the deal.


I think even if it isn't super profitable, if I can make it viable where I pull in at least some wages from it I'd probably do it. I just really am unsatisfied with my job right now.

>>3416715
>jack shack

I actually thought it kind of sounded like a massage parlour/prostitute thing myself, but the idea is that it's more upscale and nicer than just having public bathrooms.

They would be "private" rooms but they'd still have large windows so they can't be fuck pads.

you should do it man, think of all the megabux you will be raking in every week, there could be a revival of the old timey arcades of yesteryore and you could be at the forefront of it! As far as ppl saying it's illegal to sell mame stuff, when's the last time you ever heard of someone getting busted for fugging emulation? has that EVER happened? don't those cops have better things to do like catch criminels instead of bullying small business owners?

>>3416720

I can't, it's on a rope.
Yeah, I'm too clever!

>tfw I read that in GHost Nappa's voice

My experience from building my own MAME cabinet is to just skip the whole CRT thing.

It's a lot more cost effective and better to get a decent LCD monitor because then you can expand the capabilities of the cabinet more.

Using a filter I can emulate the CRT experience well enough. But I can also run Street Fighter IV, Skull girls, The Binding of Issiac and a lot of modern arcade style of games on my cabinet.

>>3416740
I appreciate your desire to do business with something you love so I'm not going to necessarily try to shoot you down I'll just tell you some stuff you should take into consideration

>Your audience will be playing games for nostalgia. If you offer games displaying composite in non-authentic cabs they will know something's not right even if they don't know what
>Refurbing existing cabinets will be less expensive than building cabinets from scratch, even including gas for your truck to go pick them up from people who want rid of them, which there are still plenty of because you can't just sell them on ebay and stick them in a flat rate box
>You can get RGB transcoders for less than what your supergun budget is to use your arcade boards with component input TVs, although you should also be able to find used RGB monitors in that price range since you're planning on used consumer CRTs. If you get really desperate you can actually feed RGB directly into the neck of consumer CRTs. Learning about that might be something for you to do right now just stay away from their anodes. You'd learn that lesson anyway working with arcade cabs

Finally, the bottom line is that in today's market retro gaming only works as a draw to other business not business in itself so either develop another business to go along with it (restaurant/bar/strip club) or rent your machines out to people who run other businesses - and rotate the titles regularly.

>>3416715
If he's using arcade PCBs they're already licensed.

>>3416734
Why are you guys all assuming I'm using mame?

I'd be using arcade boards. I'd just be wiring them through superguns instead of wiring stuff directly into the cab so it was all modular.

>>3416752
>want to have an authentic arcade experience
>use MAME
>use LCD monitor
>I play binding of isaac on my cab

I threw up in my mouth a little bit.

>>3416826
if your gonna fugg around with actual arcade boards and crt monitors cobbled together into some ooga booga looking monstrosity like they have in buttfuggistan why dont you save yourself some hassle and just get a regular arcade mashine

>>3417012
obviously I would if I could get my hands on them.

It's way easier to get an arcade board than a cabinet. Especially for stuff like neo-geo where a lot of people took the MVS boards out because the games were cheaper than AES.

I'd do my best to make the cabinets as accurate as possible, but make some concessions like making them wider to accomodate the TV's and make them a more comfortable playing experience.

Six player x-men cabs are rare as fuck and they are really shitty for the people on either side. Same with other 4 player cabinets like Sunset Riders so I would try and design cabinets that had better button layouts and positioning.

>ooga booga cabs from buttfuckistan

I don't know why you guys are assuming I'm going to make shit look like baby's first mame cabinet. It'd be as accurate as possible to the original

old crt pc monitors,gonbes boards, diy scanline generators, make a bunch of bartops on carts so people can rent them hourly at a table with food and drink. also do tgc tourneys and have a trainset that you can put your phone in (locking?) that will go around the building and get mileage for pokemon go players

>>3418020
>trainset for pokemon go mileage

Thats a deceptively good idea.

Depending on what you do it could take a year or more to do this by yourself, and you'll need to store them somewhere until they're in a building ready to go.

And building cabs will be pricey, kind of. MDF(the particle board used in cabinets) and ply are roughly the same. You'll want 3/4", the best deal I ever got was $27 a sheet, and I had to order 30 0ieves to get that. If you run to home Depot it'll be about $33 a sheet depending on your area(if it's hurricane season add $2). You'll need a minimum of 2 sheets for a standard sized cab, but probably closer to 3. Then bracing. Edge banding. Paint. Decals. Bezel. Marquee. And all the tools(not just a saw and drill, squares, a router, jig saw, straight edge, several measuring tools) needed to make something that looks decent. I'm going to estimate $160 minimum per standard 2 player cabinet. And each one will take you a day easy after you spent time designing and planning your cuts. Then the electronics are another thing. I would estimate 2 days to install and tweak everything, assuming no issues come up. There will be issues, always whenever working with old equipment and building something from scratch. Even if you can get away spending $120 for everything, board included, that puts you just shy of $300.

If you want 10 cabinets that's $3000 and 30 days as a conservative guess. I know you got a job, you won't be able to work 30 days straight on this and still maintain the income funding it. And 10 cabs doesn't make an exciting arcade, it also means there can only be 10 groups giving you money at a time.

>>3418101
The building of the cabs can be accomplished, I don't doubt you can pull it off if you care about it. sustaining it is a different beast. You have to find mass appeal, and the reason arcades largely died out is they lost it. The arcade will have to be a gimmick, something that is there but ultimately not the meat and bones of the business. The other anons are right, bars, restaurants and entertaining kids are the way to go. There's probably some untapped market somewhere in there, but if there is you'll have to find it. All I'm trying to say is have a solid business plan on place before you even think about putting any time and money into this. If you have 50 people a day drop $10 on quarter machines you'll make $500. With that you'll have to pay electric(running all those cabinets all day adds up quick), pay your staff if youre fortunate enough to have some, save some to cover rent/lease at the end of the month, and then still have some to take home at the end of the day.

You can pull it off, but likely not in the way you want. If you're absolutely certain you want to do this I would find someone like a chef or brew master and consider a business venture, you cover the video game end and they'll cover whatever you serve. The video games can be used to lure people in, but the main profit will be off food or drinks. Hypothetically, there are other ways to make money. Move to Colorado and open a weed friendly arcade, I bet that would be huge.

Also, private rooms would be cool in theory, but realistically the people who can afford them can also afford their own place. I wouldn't go out and pay $20 an hour or whatever you'd charge to be secluded from everyone, that defeats the purpose of going out in piblic.

>>3418010

If you're making a bunch of cabs getting a CNC or laser cutter is going to make this a piece of cake and look really professional.

I agree with others though, you need to have something else at the business - food, drinks, etc.

If the cabs you make are really nice there is definitely a side business of selling this stuff, if you have a laser cutter or CNC selling some flat packs to folks as a diy option would work.

I think folks are over estimating the autism of customers. People will see a cab and play. They won't notice it's a standard TV if it's done right, hell most won't care if it's a LCD.

I think some of the success is how involved in the community you get, having tournaments and opening the doors / equipment to folks wanting to do that (like smash or sf5 weeklys) will help bring im business.

Main thing though is sell food/booze or something besides the videogames.

>>3418139
>If you're making a bunch of cabs getting a CNC or laser cutter is going to make this a piece of cake and look really professional.

i was thking of that, but why not just make a single shape for each 1p 2p 4p cabinets? does it need to be a replica of the original tekken alpha turbo 2 master of fighting?
you could outsource the machine cutting.


this way full size images could even be non-disposable vynil sheets under acrylic instead of disposable adhesives

>>3418139
Cnc is overkill. It would definitely work, but you can make some jigs and make quick repeatable cuts with a router with a pattern bit, you'll also need a jig saw and circular saw. You can get this all used and decent for under $250, and set up is a breeze.

>>3418616

Yeah doing a stencil is a easy way. CNC isn't that expensive though. If you're doing this frequency it's pretty good. A bonus is you can rent out time for folks.

>>3418775

Yeah, thats true. CNC let's you get some cuts that would be pretty tricky.

CNC kits aren't overly expensive so if your doing this alot it's not a horrible investment. Saws and tools are going to add up to more than $250 if your doing lots of cabs.

>>3416394
Op should look into AliExpress and alibaba to buy stuff in bulk. Even stuff like screws, cabinet stuff, etc will save you some money. Also can get the artwork and stuff custom printed there.

>>3420347
Bump for op.

This is kinda interesting wondering what he does

>>3420554
Well this whole thing was kind of just an idea.

I could actually try and do some searching but we'll see.