What is it about Atari?

[lingyi]

I posted this in another thread: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/279747-new-independent-video-game-stores-aversion-to-pre-crash/page-3

 

This is an interesting article about running an Independent game store that was also talked about on the Pat the NES Punk YouTube channel. https://www.polygon....ideo-game-store,

 

This is an excerpt from the article that talks about the cost of running a store:

 

"STORE BREAKDOWN

As with any retail business, the product is only a small part of what it costs to keep things running.

Every store's situation is different. Some have larger square footage and therefore need to add employees, or pay more for insurance if they have enough glass on their exterior. Some pay for health insurance for their employees. Some rent warehouses or storage space off site to store extra games. Some set up booths at conventions to sell additional games.

Gamers Anonymous in in Albuquerque, N.M. takes a relatively straightforward approach. It sells new and used games and doesn't branch out into related fields like comics or movies. It sells some merchandise, but it makes the bulk of its profits on used games.

Jonathan Sakura, owner of Gamers Anonymous in Albuquerque, N.M. Jonathan Castillo

 

Owner Jonathan Sakura bought the store in 2007, and says he was inspired by Japan-based chain Super Potato to turn it into something that celebrated games with rare items and marketing materials around the store.

For this story, he opened the store's books to give Polygon a breakdown of all the money that goes into running it.

To keep Gamers Anonymous going on an average month, costs include $3,400 for payroll, $1,800 for rent, $976 for taxes, $250 for a miscellaneous bucket of minor expenses like cleaning supplies from Walmart, $200 for a point of sale system, $175 for credit card processing, $150 for electricity, $150 for insurance, $150 for internet and phone, $150 for an accountant, $100 for advertising, $100 for a FiveStars customer rewards program, $30 for gas and $6 for web hosting.

To stock the shelves, Sakura spends approximately $1,500 a month on new game and peripheral orders from distributors, and another $1,500 to buy used games from customers. That latter number varies, however, based on what customers bring in, and whether they want cash or store credit. (As part of a recent deal, a customer sold Gamers Anonymous a large collection for $15,000, throwing off the store's monthly averages.)

Added up, that comes to $10,637 in a given month, which the store has generally been able to make back with a small buffer to keep things going, selling, on average, just under 1,000 of the store's 4,500 games each month for approximately $12,000 in revenue. The numbers fluctuate through the year, though, slowing down in October and ramping up from November to February.

"There's a misperception, sort of, of how a business has to make its money," says Sakura. "You know, it's really easy to walk up to some place and say, 'Oh, well they just want to rip you off. They just want your money.' Which, sure, if you're a business, absolutely we do [want your money]. But we like to do it not through high-volume sales or high profit margins, but to establish a good relationship with our customers. …

Jason Brassard, owner of Trade N Games in Fenton, Mo. Jonathan Castillo

"We're not making dollars hand over fist like Walmart or GameStop. We're making enough to survive and build the store slowly, essentially."

Trade N Games' numbers look relatively similar, with higher payroll ($4,000), rent ($3,000) and cost of games ($6,500) to cover a larger, 2,000-square foot, space with total costs adding up to $16,530 per month.

"If we [make] $17,000 to $18,000 in sales for the month, that's just enough," says Brassard. "That's just barely enough."

The numbers are tight enough for many that regional differences like minimum wage and rent costs can make or break a store. In our research for this story, we found zero independent game stores in San Francisco where rents are high. Forty-five miles away in the suburb of Antioch, 4JAYS makes the math work by staying in a cheap area that has low foot traffic and "Drug Free Zone" signs scattered around the streets outside.

"Mainly, we decided that we wanted it to be affordable for people to buy video games," says 4JAYS' De Amaral. "… [We wanted to] keep our overhead low so we didn't have to, you know, be like another GameStop or some of our competitors that are pretty high ticket on their items."

And there's no lower overhead than getting rid of retail space altogether, as many selling exclusively through Amazon and eBay already have.

 

"That'd be the future," says Brassard. "That'd be no need to pay employees or pay rent. Just do it all out of the house and write off whatever it is — 10 or 15 percent of the house — for business and just roll with it. My rent is $59.95 a month for my website, not $3,000."

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Edited July 15, 2018 by lingyi

[Syzygy1]

I remember being at a friend's house in the early 80s during the peak of the 2600's popularity, when EVERYONE had an Atari. His family had a Channel F that they no longer played and it sat there on the floor in another room, forgotten. To my mind at the time, without really knowing what it was, I looked down at the weird console as the ugly, primitive video game system that no one in their right mind would want to play anymore - only that it was a stepping stone to the current good games: Frogger, Space Invaders, Berzerk, etc etc

 

I believe that many people who grew up after the Video Game Crash look back at Atari the same way (and have no idea what a Channel F is). Ataris were the ugly, primitive, wood-grained clunkers that people used to play before the "good games" (ie Super Mario Bros and everything that followed) and aren't worth wasting much time and money on nowadays.

Channel F was released around the same time as Atari 2600. LMAO. And I know what that is.

 

Anyway, I loved Atari because I love old shit, thanks to 80s Strawberry Shortcake and old episodes of SNL. Imagination, too.