Need advice - Would you buy it?

[Santoro]

I am considering building cabinets to earn a few sheckels on the side.

I live in a fairly affluent area and I think that I have a shot at selling a few machines a year at a decent price.   A number of people in my neighborhood have basement home theaters and/or pool tables, and IMHO an arcade machine is a natural complement to those.

I was hoping to get a sense for pricing.   If you are not already, try and imagine you are a well-to-do thirty-something living in the suburbs of New York.  Would you pay ~$3000 for a cabinet like Mamenation:

http://www.mamenation.com http://sites.santoro.com/mamenation/

with with a 2Ghz PC, 256MB RAM, 40 GB hd, and NO ROMS?

It is not my goal to be low priced, but rather to offer quality at the right price for my market.  I need to make a decent margin to justify the use of my very limited free time.

Thoughts?

Thanks!


{edited for spelling}

[SpamMe]

Well if you're selling it in that pricerange, your audience has to be in the time > money crowd (who are probably not likely to scour the net for roms, or knowledgeable enough to contact a burner). I'd really recommend plunking down some dough at starroms so that you can provide a fully functioning cabinet right off the bat.

[Santoro]

Well if you're selling it in that pricerange, your audience has to be in the time > money crowd (who are probably not likely to scour the net for roms, or knowledgeable enough to contact a burner). I'd really recommend plunking down some dough at starroms so that you can provide a fully functioning cabinet right off the bat.

I would do that but the StarRoms fine print says they are not transferrable.    {edit: What I would do is provide the 3 free legal games with a DOS/ADVMAME config, and a pointer to Lazarus or something.  Anyone know if I can still buy a licensed copy of DOS?}

I agree that the target audience is the "time=money" crowd - of which there is a lot where I live.

[Crayola]

knowledgeable enough to contact a burner

Nothing wrong with providing a piece of paper with the cabinet
saying how to go about obtaining them from a burner and of course
review the legalities of it at the same time.

Crayola

[DarkKobold]

Your biggest problem?

Competition.

 Recently, there are more and more people trying to make a couple  bucks off selling cabs to the general populous. 1UP has started work on mass manufacturing his wonderful rotating panel cabinet.  I know at least 3 other manufactures are trying to tap this market.

Many many companys are selling full kits for approx ~ same price. You'd have to do something special to stand out. The market is quickly becoming saturated. Plenty of other people have come here, asked the same question, and gotten basically the same response. It isn't easy to make a quick buck off this hobby.

Also, remember, this is NOT your target market. The majority of people on this board are out to save as much $$$ as possible, and have then fun of BYO. Hence, this is BYOAC.

Your best bet, bring a couple cabs to a hobby or craft show - put them out, have people able to order them, ala down payment - you'll know what your market is then.

Read a book on marketing. My marketing teacher said the best thing to us. "An engineer tries to fill a problem (in this case people needing arcade cabinets) with out knowing their market"

[Santoro]

Many many companys are selling full kits for approx ~ same price. You'd have to do something special to stand out.

You mean like build it, test it, and drop it off locally for free? :-) To me those are huge differentiators! All that for the same price as a Kit!

Also, remember, this is NOT your target market. The majority of people on this board are out to save as much $$$ as possible, and have then fun of BYO. Hence, this is BYOAC.

With all due respect,  you are wrong. I have been out in the real business world for a long time and I know exactly what my target market is.   I have led bid teams for multi-million dollar outsourcing deals and I know more than any Marketing For Dummies book.

I thought I made my target market clear, but let me elaborate.

My target market is affluent people in central NJ where I live.  Many people here drop $50K on a basement home theater like it is pocket change. Many of these folks are in their mid-thirties, made their money on Wall Street and love thier toys.  They have long commutes to NYC and are willing to pay for fun things that the average american is not.  Many have seasonal homes, cleaning ladies, and Volvos.  Many are sports or music personalities.  Steve Forbes John Delorean, and Jackie-O lived here.  

I live with and know this community well.  (Not to sound pompous, because I can only dream of having this type of money, and I personally know none of the famous ones...)

I would offer them a built-to-order cabinet with customized button colors, formica, and controls.  I am a local and they could call me or come visit if they had a question or problem.

Is this clearer now?

I am looking to make a modest profit for my time.  I sort of don't appreciate the 'quick buck' characterization of what I am doing.  I am not asking $5K like some of those ebay thieves.  

Give me some credit, please.

[DarkKobold]

Sounds perfect, sounds like you've already analyzed your market, and have a sound buisness plan....  Why did you ask us?  

Sorry if it came off rude, it didn't mean to be.

when I said THIS, I meant the BYOAC community, not the market you've defined.

I've seen quite a few people waltz through here trying to sell to the people on this board, and when people gave suggestions, they got feisty. I meant no harm by the quick buck thing.

Anyway, Sounds great, and good luck.

[Santoro]

Sounds perfect, sounds like you've already analyzed your market, and have a sound buisness plan....  Why did you ask us?  

Sorry if it came off rude, it didn't mean to be.

Sorry to be sensitive. It's been a long day at work.  I really am only trying to cover the costs of my hobbies, and I do not want to be mistaken for a scammer.  

I have been here long enough to know that most here don't have the luxury of dropping $3K on a cab, and I really am not trying to sell here at all.  I am pretty sure there is a market where I am though as stated above.

What I am really looking for is feedback on the price .  That is where I don't have the experience.  Truth be told, I think I am too low.  That is where I was hoping the community could provide some freedback.  

Thanks for the feedback though - It is appreciated, and I didn't intend to be uppity.

[Wienerdog]

Based on your target market, you should charge $5,000.  Don't worry about the ROMs, give the customer everything.  It's going into a basement playroom/gameroom.  I understand if you are just telling us you won't deliver with the ROMS.  You said you know your market, think about them a little more.  Did they pick up that pool table for 800 at the local Sears, or did they spend $4,000 at the local pool place?

[paigeoliver]

This is a much more saturated market than you might think. These days most major cities have several Mame builders, and most game restoration shops (and many operators who are largely liquidating, which is most of them), sell them too.

They ALL sell them with the roms installed. No matter what they might claim on the internet, when you go look at a machine in person, or see one at the auction, then it has the roms installed.

I can think of at least 5 local Mame builders, and those are only the ones I know about. Most of them are sort of low profile. They will sell one in the paper from time to time, or at the Superauctions, or work primarily through word of mouth.

[Santoro]

Did they pick up that pool table for 800 at the local Sears, or did they spend $4,000 at the local pool place?

That is a good point.  Most likely they indeed paid $4K.  I still want some legal protection though if i were to include the ROMS.  Interesting dilemma.  With my luck the guy that lives next to my customer will be some copyright lawyer.

I think a compromise might be to buy a bunch of legal roms from StarRoms on behalf of the customer as a consultant - that way there is no transfer of the license.   I could provide clear instructions on how to contact the burners for the rest and include 1 hour of consulting in the price to do any installation that might be required in the first month.

hmmmm

As for the price, wouldn't $5000 be a bit high when they could get a 'real' retail PacMan/Galaga reunion cab for the same or less?  I really don't want to be overpriced either, even if a few people might be silly enough to pay up.

[paigeoliver]

I know this won't mean much, but my lawyer has expressed quite a bit of interest in buying a cabinet from me (just hasn't gotten around to actually coming over and looking at them yet), and he EXPECTS the roms to be included, and won't buy if they aren't.

[zaphod]

As for the price, wouldn't $5000 be a bit high when they could get a 'real' retail PacMan/Galaga reunion cab for the same or less?  I really don't want to be overpriced either, even if a few people might be silly enough to pay up.

These people may not have shopped around and won't have a sense of what cabinets sell for.  They likely are not DIYers.  I agree with Weinerdog that you should charge (at least) $5,000 for them.  You provide them a fully functional cabinet with thousands of games installed, delivered to their basement, that you show them how to use it.  Make sure however you setup the machine that it is extremely user-friendly.  Give them a 30 day warranty.  If you build a quality product and your target audience is already decided, that price won't be out of line.  IMO, don't even bother telling them the specs of the machine inside.  It should not concern them.  Concentrate on the games!

Good luck.

[nipsmg]

I'm going to disagree with many of the people here.

I'm going to strongly suggest that you NOT include the roms, ESPECIALLY if these are people that you don't know, personally.  All you need to happen is have someone point out to one of your customers that they were sold a piece of equipment that operates mainly on thousands of pirated software programs that you supplied to them, and charged them thousands of dollars for it.  

If you were to supply the roms, I'd do it separately of the sale, and make it very very very clear to them that there *are* ways they can get legal roms to play on the system (Capcom/StarRoms/etc), and use of roms for boards you don't own is illegal *blah blah blah*

Charge them for the hardware, NOT the software.. DON'T include it in the sale.. Plus, you can't (legally) make MAME part of the sale anyways.

--NipsMG

[Santoro]

I'm going to strongly suggest that you NOT include the roms, ESPECIALLY if these are people that you don't know, personally.  All you need to happen is have someone point out to one of your customers that they were sold a piece of equipment that operates mainly on thousands of pirated software programs that you supplied to them, and charged them thousands of dollars for it.  

This is where I am at as well.  I would rather make less profit and be 100% legal in the deal.  I have all of the ROMs on my personal machine, but to me that is much different from selling them to others.

I like the compromise I outlined a few posts up.  I don't think it would impede sales if the legalities were explained to the buyer properly.

{edited for grammar. :-P}

[SpamMe]

Starroms coorespondance. Short version: Contact them, you may be able to work something out.


me:

I saw this on your site:
Can I give or sell the ROMs I license from StarROMs to someone else?/
The licenses that StarROMs grants are non-transferable. They can not be sold or given away to someone else. This allows StarROMs to retain an up to date and accurate database of licensees.
I'm wondering if I can purchase roms for another party specifically from the get-go, rather than purchasing them for myself and giving them away.

StarRoms

Are you a business? Do you sell arcade related
products?

Our license is non-transferrable, but we might be
able to work out something. Let me know what you're
thinking and I'll try to get you in touch with
somebody here to discuss it.

StarROMs Customer Support

me

I'm not, no, but I know a number of individuals that have been or will be producing MAME arcade cabinets commercially. Your site/service is regularly mentioned on several related forums, as these folks would like very much to be able to include legal roms with the cabinets they're selling (most now sell them with no roms at all), but the 'non-transferable' clause in your agreement has prevented them from doing so.  I think there may be a market there that you guys are missing out on.

SR

Thanks for the note.

There are some restrictions on what we are able to
do, but we've been able to work something out with
a couple of companies doing similar things. If you
know of somebody interested in doing what you're
talking about, I encourage you to have them get in
touch with us.

[Stingray]

Sounds like Star Roms is willing to be flexible on this. Good news for those selling cabs.

-S

[Santoro]

SpamMe, thanks for the guidance.  I sent them a note this morning and I will keep the group apprised of the response.

[Santoro]

I recieved a response.  Since I will know the name of the party I am buying for in advance, I will just order the ROMs in using the customer name and pre-install in the machine.

[Sprucemoose]

What is the cost?