Gaming cafes & Internet cafes

[Pyrax]

Ever been to one? What was it like? There's a gamer cafe in my city that opened a couple of years ago - it's basically a cafe surrounded by a lot of consoles (no sign of a Switch though, guess they don't want to risk it getting stolen?) and a couple of arcade machines. They even have a PS5 that I was able to play for an hour way back in January, but I've been playing different consoles every time I visit.

No internet cafes here as far as I'm aware though. What about your city?

 

[Blast]

Honestly I've never even seen one before. There's lots of arcades where I live so I guess there's no reason to have them. With internet cafes, I don't see them around very often. I'd like to visit one to see what it's like though.

 

[hanecco]

Where I live, board gaming cafes are quite popular. They have a huge library of board games, which you need to pay an entry fee to access, and they also offer snacks (which you again have to pay for). However, I haven't seen an actual arcade, or the type of cafe you're describing.

Internet cafes, in particular, are kind of redundant in a place where 95% of people have a smartphone, tbh.

 

[Zerito]

In my country, internet café and gaming café are called "Lan House". I used to frequent one of these when i was 10 yo, when there was a internet café next to my house, but since i moved to a distant part of the city, i stop visiting these kind of places, but i miss it.

 

[Rockapheller]

Back in middle school in mid 2000s, the lunch break was for 90 minutes at my school which was excessively a long time. I would go to an internet café near the school after lunch to kill time there. and 90% of time I would play Pokémon Crater.

 

[Princess Viola]

I've honestly never seen an internet café in my life.

 

[Catz]

^ this. I mean, in my case I'd understand why (me live on teeny tiny island) but they seem kinda nonexistent to me even though I've heard of them and seen videos.

 

[Sheep]

Just looked it up and apparently we have three. One looks like a regular computer repair shop that's labelled as an internet cafe for some reason, and the second has no photos or reviews at all so I'm hesitant to believe it's actually a thing. That leaves us with just one that looks legit lol. Kind of thought there would be more considering the city size but they're not as popular in this country.

 

[Princess Viola]

Yeah I think for the most part Internet cafés are popular in East Asia and in countries where having a personal computer and Internet connection at home might still be too expensive for most people.

If I search for internet cafés near me, there's like two places down in Miami that are actual places, one place that used to be one but is now a mini-mart, and the rest just point to people's houses or this literal goddamn abandoned shack???

Like what the hell is this:

Spoiler

That's apparently an Internet café that's 5 miles from my house. Hell no it isn't, that is where I would go if I wanted to end up as the victim of some goddamn serial killer or some shit.

 

[Zerito]

Yeah I think for the most part Internet cafés are popular in East Asia and in countries where having a personal computer and Internet connection at home might still be too expensive for most people.

This is true, but also, people who their PC can't run the games they want go to these places to get a flavour of that, or if they want to play together with their friends but don't own a console, there are many reasons to frequent a internet or gaming café