Arcade Tournaments are a No-Brainer!

How do tournaments benefit venues via enhanced revenue and repeat customers?

Esports and professional gaming have shot through the stratosphere as one of the most watched genres today. However, arcade gaming, the original spectator sport, seems to have fallen off the map. Sadly, it's possible that arcades don’t run tournaments as they aren’t convinced of, or aware, of the benefits, and how effortless it can be.

Hosting any game (basketball, air hockey, racing, dance machine, shooting) event at an arcade can offer several benefits that help generate profit. Here are some key advantages:

1). Increased social media traffic and foot traffic on the day

Advertise the event well in advance. This can generate traction on social media, but also put up a few posters by the machine in question, which can have a QR code for the venue’s social media links! This generates content for social media, gradually building up interest.

The day of the event also creates spectators (supporting friends plus onlookers), which is perfect content for the venue’s social media channels. It instantly sets the venue apart from competitors as a place that offers more for its customers.

2). Very quick at zero to minimal inconvenience

Keep the event short; the myth is thinking you need to clear off a space, hire extra staff or run a full afternoon event. The simple reality is, arcades with limited space should stick to an hour or so on a quieter part of the day, players can run it; finished! The area is ready for peak customer hours!

Sometimes players run their own mini-tournaments without the arcade knowing – All you need is a notepad and pen (or phone) to keep track of scores, winners and losers. However, players and staff working together, even if the organisation doesn’t change, is always a better option for everyone. It’s also a big moral booster as the event will be seen as more official.

3). Repeat customers and increased player base

The build up to a tournament will encourage players to make repeat visits leading up to the event, playing to improve their skills. More people meeting up to spend money at the venue in the build-up, more player posted pictures with the venue tagged on social media.

It's human nature to talk to others playing or interested in their chosen game. They will make friends and look forwards to visiting if they know there is a higher chance of seeing other players there. It also creates a sense of belonging and loyalty to the venue.

4). Entry Fee and Prize Pool easy to care of

Charging extortionate fees for machine hire will put players off – They will be doing this in their spare time and spreading awareness via word of mouth and socials, which will always benefit the arcade. However, no arcade will want to run an event at a loss!

Secondly, big prizes aren’t too important. Offering additional merchandise like plushies or prizes donated from your prize counter can keep costs low. The fact you’re holding a tournament when most arcades are not, will already be a draw. Big videogame tournaments certainly exist, held in dedicated centres around the country, with. The arcade or FEC isn’t competing with them. The FEC simply needs to run a short event to bring a handful of players together and create a good atmosphere.

Have players pay for their own credits, plus a small entry fee towards the prize pool. This can be handled by the player event organisers. That way you won’t need to worry about anything! Just make sure you’re kept in the loop via email or a group chat. It’s always important to have everything in writing (chat apps, email or text), and set some basic rules of what is allowed (time constraints, prizes, use of the area) to avoid confusion.

5). Free Social Media and Marketing

Promoting game tournaments and the results of each event helps drive engagement on social media platforms. Regardless of total entrants, encouraging participants and spectators to share their experience is easy content for you to share and boost the reputation of your arcade.

(Have a small disclaimer saying any player at the tournament may be seen on social media and need to be ok with that when at the event).

Ultimately few arcades can show off community interaction. Static posts with no engagement compared to player generated content, with comments and engagement are worth their weight in gold. It’s also far more genuine and congruent than forced posts.

Examples/Format of previous events I’ve held over the past year:

September 2022

Plenty of time, no space restriction – One dedicated tournament

“Double Elimination” on Dance Dance Revolution, Namco Funscape Romford

Info: Paid a small fee for venue hire – However for this Namco moved both cabinets to the bar area, with a camera focusing on the players feet which was on a TV screen above the cabinets. This was more than we expected!

Format: Double Elimination is one of the longer tournament options – If you get knocked out of the main bracket you enter a “losers” bracket and can still win your way to victory. The winner of the losers bracket will need to defeat the winner twice to come out on top. Entrants paid £5 which covered hire and a small prize pool. This was handled by myself, no headache for Namco staff.

Result: The bar area had people stopping to watch players during the event. Photos were reposted to Facebook, Twitter and Tiktok for Namco’s social media. 

Good feedback from Namco team; Nigel Bett, Ana Pinto & Rory Brecknock.

October 2022

Plenty of time, no space restriction – Several tournaments

“Round Robin” on multiple games at Freeplaycity, Manor House

Info: The venue is pay to enter with all machines on freeplay, so the owner took entry fee as usual - Then agreed anyone who entered one event, £5 of their entry fee would be put into a prize pot of their chosen tournament.

Free entry passes were also given to winners, which meant minimal cost to the venue. When those returning players came back to user their free pass, they also brought full paying friends with them who wouldn’t normally have come. There were no time or space restrictions, so long as events ran during arcade opening hours.

Format: Without time restrictions but smaller groups, I used the “Round Robin” format: where everyone plays everyone. This meant even if it was a handful of people for a tournament, each player got around 3 to 6 matches. Everyone walks away with a more involved experience than just getting knocked out in an elimination event.

Result: Shared social media by players, content for the arcade, repeat customers after the day.

Ellis Gardiner at Freeplay City stressed it was important to get new customers and reward old ones, with long term investment into returning customers.

Autumn 2022 to Spring 2023:

Various events held over different months

Time & space constricted – But arcade cares for regulars

“Single & Double Elimination” on Dance Dance Revolution, Funland, Brunswick Centre

Info: Funland is run by legendary arcade veteran Electrocoin. Their flagship location in the Brunswick, Russell Square. Funland is a busy FEC with high foot traffic in zone 1.

Format: Double elimination ran for the launch event, and single elimination for following ones. To make single elim more involved, before each tournament I got everyone to play the same song to “seed”. Seeding is used in all major tournaments. Seeding is skill based, and means you don't face the best players against each other. Player 16 faces player 1, player 15 against player 2 etc.

Seeding gave an extra element to single elim, but still not as long as double elim. It also meant each event was finished in a few hours, so everyone has fun competing and the arcade area can go back to normal operation asap.

Result: Regular customer base created plus social media content.

December double elimination:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10167194612640541&type=3

Various single elimination events:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.183611920839720&type=3

Rather than putting the cabinet on Freeplay or Event Mode, Electrocoin’s  Gabino Steridges aimed on getting players to use Funland’s game cards. This meant running the dance machine game as normal, with players swiping to play. Now owning cards, entrants and friends had a reason to come back to Funland.

May 2023

Time constricted – Cater to all skill levels, focus on new players

Custom tournament on “Pump it Up” Babylon Park, Camden

Info: The arcade aimed to cater to existing players, yet really wanted to bring new customers into the venue. Therefore we had Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced categories; condensed into a limited time frame.

Reaching out to Andamiro (the game producers) and Namco (European distributors), prizes were sent over from both companies. Babylon gave all paying entrants a special wristband – This was credited with gameplay 24 hours after the event ended, which was announced at the end of the tournament. Not only did this mean players came back, now with a connection to Babylon (the rechargeable credit wristband), but as no one expected bonus game credits, this put Babylon in a very positive light.

Format: This was the trickiest – Time constricted yet three categories required, this needed a speedy solution. Therefore we ran Beginners, Intermediate and Advanced using a quick knockout system. We selected 2 songs for each category on the day, had everyone play those two songs, eliminate the bottom ¼, start another round with 2 songs, eliminate the bottom ¼ etc. In this way we could run 3 categories in 4 hours, rather than a more lengthy single/double elimination.

Result:  Social media content for Babylon, repeat customers, featured on Andamiro news page:

Player interview: 

Tournament promo: 

Yonatan, the area manager at Babylon pushed social media channels with his marketing manager Joel, plus game streaming setups from tech team Ryan & Josh. While streaming/video feed isn’t essential, this event went above and beyond, fully supported by them!

Community events – Tenpin Bowl @ Star City Birmingham

Events don’t need to have tournaments. What started out as a few solo players on “Pump It Up”, word spread through the messaging app Discord resulting in meetups at Tenpin Star City.

As a result, this has made it the strongest arcade dance game community outside of London. The community started to spill over to NQ64 Digbeth, which means more regular customers that wouldn’t normally have gone there.

Media shared in the community seeing there is a reason to go to a location.

Summary

At the end of the day, any event should be made beneficial for the venue.

It should be a smooth experience that does not interrupt the working day.

It doesn’t need to be complicated or long winded, no matter what is requested.

Prizes are not as important as hosting a fun event.

Just running a one-hour tournament at an off peak time of the day, every couple of months will hype players up, gain long term and consistent customers, plus generate social media content & shares. This comes off as genuine, rather than static corporate posts that feel forced. Sharing or posting player submitted content is organic and more convincing to other customers.

The operator gets to nuture and create a dedicated community at off-peak times, get extra income and establish their location as a friendly, go-to destination for game enthusiasts. Since when did gaming venues actually stop being about gaming? It doesn’t have to be this way.

Event running should be a no-brainer!

by Toby Na Nakhorn - arcade editor

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5 June 2023

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