LAN cafes

This page considers LAN cafes, aka networked computer game cafes or even MMORPG cafes.

It covers -

• introduction
• statistics - how many LAN cafes and consumers
• economics - the business of LAN cafes
• issues - addiction, child-endangerment and other issues
• responses

It supplements discussion of virtual worlds (multiplayer games) and addiction elsewhere on this site.

     introduction

Normalisation of the online population, lower connectivity prices in advanced economies and uptake of networked roleplaying games have seen migration of some users to what have variously been characterised as LAN cafes, cybercafes and game cafes.

Those facilities are differentiated from the cybercafes discussed in the preceding page of this note because they emphasise online game playing (eg participation in globally-networked 'reality' games such as World of Warcraft) by a youthful audience, rather than provision of connectivity for businesspeople, students and tourists. The 'LAN' refers to a local area network, with multiple players interacting with each other on that network - and with people in separate locations, including offices, schools, residences and other cafes - via the internet and MMORPG game servers.

LAN cafes, like their predecessor the pinball arcade, are social phenomena. The motivation for visits by most of their customers appears to be partly access to the particular game, partly the opportunity for interaction - however tenuous - with peers and partly to occupy a 'youth space' (one that is not closely surveilled or ordered by employers, parents or educators).

One observer thus somewhat cruelly described several LAN cafes in Canberra, Sydney and Melbourne as

places where the main lighting comes from the glow of computer screens watched by kids - all wearing a uniform of cargo pants, sneakers, t-shirts and cap - who are busy replaying World War 2, conquering Rome or slaughtering green-skinned crustaceans from Outer Space. The dominant smell was unwashed socks, pizza and teen sweat. The players appeared to subsist on Red Bull, chips and chocolate bars.

LAN cafes are places where "you hang out" (usually undisturbed by parents or by bothersome expectations about personal hygiene and etiquette).

They thus attract the anxieties about feckless youth, alienation, addiction and moral delinquency evident in past criticisms of pinball arcades and video games.

They also resemble the cafes of the belle epoque or earlier - venues where Georgian aristocrats or Viennese intellectuals 'hung out'.

     statistics

How many LAN cafes are in operation? How long do they last? Who is using them? Answers to those questions are problematical.

There is no global or national register of LAN cafes. Authoritative directories or guides are unavailable. Many cafes do not use large-scale print/electronic advertising, instead relying on word of mouth. Some are short-lived. Overall many do not "appear on the radar". There is no authoritative industry association offering substantive and comprehensive data; much academic research is atomistic (with an emphasis on the sociology of gender roles, liminality and consumer interaction or on application of theory by Foucault and his epigones).

In Australia (based on contact with gamers, searches of the whitepages and scrutiny of game sites) it appears that as of early 2007 there were under 300 LAN cafes. Most were concentrated in major metropolitan centres. Many were small, ie with under 20 'seats'. Economics of scale have encouraged development of a handful of sites with between 50 and 300 seats. Turnover within the industry appears to be large, with cessation of all activity at particular locations and change in management as entrepreneurs move on after disappointment.

Cultures overseas vary. It appears that on a per capita basis there are greater numbers of LAN cafes in South Korea (with claims that there were around PC-Bangs in 2002) and Japan, some of considerable size.

Australian cafes appear to attract broadly the same demographics: predominantly gamers (male, in the 14 year to 25 year cohorts) along with tourists, students and others wanting access to connectivity for email, social software and so forth.

     economics

As with cybercafes, the economics of LAN cafes reflect factors such as investment, management expertise, location and traffic.

Costs typically involve -

• lease of premises
• fitout (including cabling, chairs, tables)
• purchase or lease of computers
• electricity, line rental and ISP charges
• licensing of management software such as HandyCafe
• public liability insurance
• security monitoring
• cleaning (if not undertaken by staff)
• wages
• taxes
• lease or purchase of vending machines, fridges and other amenities
• software licensing.

Some LAN cafes seek to minimise wage costs by offering 'in kind' payment for staff, ie allowing employees or the friends of employees to have free access to the network for specified hours. In practice employee management appears to be a challenge, with many cafes experiencing difficulty in handling junior employees who have technical skills (and are comfortable dealing with their peers) but lack motivation and are prone to allowing friends a free ride.

Licencing costs are another challenge, with some cafes experiencing difficulty paying for operating systems (resorting instead to unlicenced copies and therefore being vulnerable if inspected by rights owners) and game licences. Licencing varies from game to game: some games (such as Battlefield and Counter Strike) involve a copy per computer, with cafes accordingly having to judge which games are most attractive for their consumers and therefore justify investment. The ability to pay for a high speed connection - and thereby reduce the latency that erodes gamer satisfaction - and to acquire/maintain high-performance personal computers is also important.

Economies of scale can be significant, particularly in urban centres where there is meaningful competition. A large number of seats may allow a cafe to bring down prices, from example $5 or $6 per hour to $2 per hour. Revenue in some cafes is primarily attributable to charges for time online. Others make their profits from sales of food, drink and even tshirts or other paraphernalia.

     issues

Operation of LAN cafes poses a number of issues, several of which featured in past moral panics about penny arcades and other places where youth gathered.

John Springhall commented that

recent youth leisure … occupies visible public space, is seen as hedonistic and presents problems within the dominant discourse of 'enlightenment' … The most popular forms of entertainment among the young at any given historical moment tend also to provide the focus of the most intense social concern. A new medium with mass appeal, and with a technology best understood by the young … almost invariably attracts a desire for adult or government control

One issue is thus 'youth endangerment', with criticisms that young people are inadequately supervised and can thus come into contact (online or face to face) with older predators or gain exposure to improper content. Most LAN cafes do not have rigid age restrictions on entry or close machine by machine monitoring (potentially subverted by users swapping seats) and anecdotes indicate, for example, instances of 14 year olds playing BF2 (a game with a MA+15 rating).

Local government and police in Australia, Canada, UK and US have on occasion expressed concern regarding LAN cafes as venues for gang activity (although reports of trade in party drugs appear to be sensationalist).

In China and elsewhere there have been claims that LAN cafes are contributing to truancy or to cyber-addiction. Beijing for example has sought to crimp community access to heterodox content through public campaigns emphasising the evils of addiction and the death of LAN addicts. Local developments regarding 'LAN addiction' are discussed in a 2007 presentation The LAN Game Ate My Brain, Dude: 'MMORPG Addiction' and Australian Law (PDF) and the forthcoming paper A Label in Search of Liability: CyberAddiction and the Law.

     responses

Responses have included -

• licencing of premises
• zoning of premises
• tacit control through recurrent inspections by police and health agencies

Regulatory questions are discussed in more detail in the following page of this note.

   next page (regulation)