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tinytort posted:Ahaha, no way. $200k would probably be just enough for renting a building and buying a few cheap VR rigs, and maybe some games n poo poo to go with them. Maybe not even that! Commercial rental can be expensive, after all. I have a hunch that renting a strip mall bay and buying a few VR rigs and games is precisely the level of aspiration his "high-end VR arcade" has. I wouldn't be surprised if he could actually get it up and running on 200k (less a couple vacations) and it might even be able to stay afloat for a while on the novelty, but there is no way it's going to replace his entire income let alone make enough profit above that to recoup his initial investment before it dies.
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Jul 5, 2023 18:52
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Khanstant posted:A VR arcade lmao. Sounds like another goober who spent too much on VR rigs, found there's nothing really good or special to do with it, but are still absolutely convinced it's the future. Normally folks stop there, just convince themselves VR hasn't caught on not because it fundamentally sucks and nobody is going to want to do that poo poo, but that the tech just isn't there yet. This guy though thinks if he can just get people to pay to flail around for a few minutes with too much poo poo on their head, he will not only make money from the endeavor, but convert a bunch of people into VR zealots like himself. That's not the issue. VR is popular and commercially viable. The problem is that VR hardware is fairly cheap - on par with a standard game console - and there's no real communal aspect to it. The appeal of an arcade is that it gives an experience that's too costly for people to readily afford (particularly with the more specialized cabinets that have fancy hardware features), and that there's a big crowd around that's all interested in the same things you're doing. A VR arcade doesn't give you either.
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Jul 5, 2023 18:53
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$200k to me would pay off any and all debts caused by or existed prior to the loss of the job, make a 12 month emergency fund and the rest would pay down as much of my mortgage as I could. But that lack of growth mindset is why I'm a TAKER and OP is a MAKER.
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Jul 5, 2023 18:57
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Nocheez posted:He literally said it was about $200k after taxes. Oops, you're right. Brain went numb reading the rest.
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Jul 5, 2023 19:03
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MK-Ultramarathon posted:AITA for refusing to kill a spider in my girlfriend's house? This was one of the most pompous AITAs I have ever read. This is why chat ai will always be easy to detect, because human beings can so easily instill this hyperbolic egotistical intensity into the most dismissive of issues and literally end relationships over it. The answer to this is, kill the spider it's literally just a spider - or - "honey could you please leave the room while I take care of this" I wish the spider had rather, upon being granted the gift of life, laid eggs in OP's ear and eaten his brains so he could never have posted this
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Jul 5, 2023 19:05
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She should be concerned that he's treating it as though it's his money to solely decide what to do with despite having a wife and children.
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Jul 5, 2023 19:06
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RC Cola posted:My little brother always cheated at board games and my family just accepted it. Well when I started dating my now wife, we played monopoly with my sister, brother, and mother. At some point my wife asked why my brother just took $500 from the bank and he got extremely mad and started yelling and stormed out of the room. He was cheating and my family was ignoring it. Mrs RC Cola did not know this and was just asking a question and not trying to call him out even. Also he was 23 at the time. Does this behavior extend to anything else in his life or is he just a lovely baby at board games
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Jul 5, 2023 19:06
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A viable VR arcade concept might be something like The Void, who integrated bespoke VR scenarios with real-world design and layout so you can e.g. reach out and touch furniture that appears in the VR world. But there's probably no way to do something like that from scratch for $200K
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Jul 5, 2023 19:07
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I’ve seen a few vr arcades around here but I’ve never gone in one because lol
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Jul 5, 2023 19:07
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Nurglings posted:$200k to me would pay off any and all debts caused by or existed prior to the loss of the job, make a 12 month emergency fund and the rest would pay down as much of my mortgage as I could. But that lack of growth mindset is why I'm a TAKER and OP is a MAKER. This is why people like us will never be the next Bill Gates or Elon Musk or anyone else who took a small bit of money and made a massive company. I mean they were also independently wealthy, and some had slave labor, and they're not exactly wealthy in terms of money but an idea of money. Remind me of when you were a kid, 20 bucks or 50 bucks seemed like a whole lot of money, but as an adult you know that might barely top off your gas tank.
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Jul 5, 2023 19:07
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The_Franz posted:I feel like the only way arcades survive today is to be a "Round 1" type of place with a big selection of dance machines and the types of games that have some gimmick that you generally can't replicate at home, or, go full retro with a selection of well maintained classics and maybe offer alcohol sales for some extra revenue. It's this. VR stuff requires dedicated staffing and upkeep and new technology and upgrades and cleaning and space, and most people are probably just going to do it once for the novelty, if they do it at all. Big Bass Wheel will print money for you just by sitting there because our monkey brains really really like "pull lever -> get tickets".
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Jul 5, 2023 19:09
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There's a VR arcade next to the fancy new food court downtown. My boss took us there as team building. We played "Amber Sky". Based on their setup, it seems like an outlay of millions, and the equipment still bugged out a couple times, and they paused the game. https://sandboxvr.com/booking/experiences
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Jul 5, 2023 19:10
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Look at all these fools, doubting the marketability of dactyl nightmare It’s gonna be big news any day now
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Jul 5, 2023 19:13
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Magic Hate Ball posted:It's this. VR stuff requires dedicated staffing and upkeep and new technology and upgrades and cleaning and space, and most people are probably just going to do it once for the novelty, if they do it at all. Big Bass Wheel will print money for you just by sitting there because our monkey brains really really like "pull lever -> get tickets". yeah I'd never go to a VR arcade for this reason
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Jul 5, 2023 19:14
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When I was in Vegas there were VR kiosks every twelve feet and they all looked exactly the same, even the people sticking to the pleather recliners.
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Jul 5, 2023 19:15
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mllaneza posted:I've also made a lot of SF2 fans super mad. When it came out, I was working at a Software Etc. Both of the managers were fanatics, and they encouraged the staff to play and helped us git gud. I'm still mildly proud that I could win the occasional round against their Ken and Ryu; not match, round. They also encouraged us to accept challenges from customers if it was slow. I didn't really have a favorite character at first, but I learned very quickly that a lot of players would get amazingly salty if they lost to Chun Li and only Chun Li. This has proved a rich source of enjoyment ever since. Back in my Smash Bros days we called that the Way of the Jigglypuff. She a gimmick character and in the multiplayer matches we did would often get overlooked in favor of the guy in your face with a sword. One of my friends was great at taking advantage of this and sniping, judging the range of her gimmick just right to drop into a couple of people fighting and KO them both. I learned enough from watching him be a maestro that when I went to a summer camp that really got into it for a night I taught them all not to ignore the puffball as well.
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Jul 5, 2023 19:21
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a VR arcade just implicitly seems gross to me, even tossing aside the fuckin pandemic
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Jul 5, 2023 19:21
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Johnny Truant posted:a VR arcade just implicitly seems gross to me, even tossing aside the fuckin pandemic Whats the big deal, press your eyes and nose and face into this soft, saliva-absorbing padding and really get sweaty
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Jul 5, 2023 19:27
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artsy fartsy posted:Lol Just  that Rosey thought blocking OP would keep her from knowing about her petty bullshit. Betting the other friend who spilled the beans is tired of Rosey too.Mushmouth posted:The secret to playing with little kids is to do the dumbest stuff you can think of and die in the most hilarious ways and make big deals out of it. If they're good, sure, give them a bit of skill, but spending more time blowing yourself up with grenades to get a giggle is the best part. Perfectly ties in with the past posts talking about "tests of strength" with little kids & always fake struggling/letting them win to see their reaction  the more over-the-top silly it is, the better
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Jul 5, 2023 19:30
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Working 2 jobs to barely tread water sucks but opening a vr arcade bar seems like a great way to work even more hours while losing money
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Jul 5, 2023 19:33
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rotinaj posted:Whats the big deal, press your eyes and nose and face into this soft, saliva-absorbing padding and really get sweaty 
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Jul 5, 2023 19:34
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Bright Bart posted:Well. The big academic instance on Mastadon has among its rules that you have to use Content Warnings for pictures of insects. I tried to get into Mastadon before bluesky was the obvious twitter alternative and yeah, the whole thing being fractured into weird clique silo's with insane overbearing rules makes the whole place so deeply unpleasant.
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Jul 5, 2023 19:36
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RC Cola posted:My little brother always cheated at board games and my family just accepted it. Well when I started dating my now wife, we played monopoly with my sister, brother, and mother. At some point my wife asked why my brother just took $500 from the bank and he got extremely mad and started yelling and stormed out of the room. He was cheating and my family was ignoring it. Mrs RC Cola did not know this and was just asking a question and not trying to call him out even. Also he was 23 at the time.
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Jul 5, 2023 19:39
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You dont want to have to wait for the cleaner to dry, do you? This sheen? Its just sweat from the last 10 people to use the vr facemask! Who ever got sick over a little sweat? Now put in this communal mouthpiece and try not to blink as we attach the eyetrackers
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Jul 5, 2023 19:40
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Runcible Cat posted:My family refuse to play Monopoly with me any more since I decided to go full capitalist and started bribing people to let me build hotels on their properties and whatnot. The best way to play Monopoly is to ONLY buy houses, never upgrade to hotels. If you take over the housing market you take away your opponents ability to up rent by building hotels.
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Jul 5, 2023 19:40
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Huggybear posted:This was one of the most pompous AITAs I have ever read. This is why chat ai will always be easy to detect, because human beings can so easily instill this hyperbolic egotistical intensity into the most dismissive of issues and literally end relationships over it. The answer to this is, kill the spider it's literally just a spider - or - "honey could you please leave the room while I take care of this" AITA for putting the spider outside with a cup and some paper???
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Jul 5, 2023 19:43
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VR sanitation is pretty trivial easy to solve: you use a disposable liner for the headpiece and replace it for every customer. Goons mystified by the concept of public restrooms, apparently.
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Jul 5, 2023 19:44
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rotinaj posted:Does this behavior extend to anything else in his life or is he just a lovely baby at board games He has borderline personality disorder and bipolar, so a lot of what he does can be pretty swingy. It really depends if he chooses to take his medicine or not.
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Jul 5, 2023 19:44
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rotinaj posted:Whats the big deal, press your eyes and nose and face into this soft, saliva-absorbing padding and really get sweaty I don't know, judgeing from the people I see these days who don't cover their mouth when they sneeze or cough, I don't think there's much of a big deal because we live in a permanent state of biological warfare. Yes I mask whenever I'm in public, and yes I still get weird looks for it, and my one social event a month has people complaining that they can't hear me when I speak and it has nothing to do with the fact that everyone around them is chattering at high volume. In terms of a bad business, I'm not sure if VR is up there with the magician restaurant or dog heelys, but it's probably in the tech bro realm of ideas that look perfect on paper. But the execution is going to leave you with a chip tiled floor and wallpaper from the '80s in a strip mall single occupancy quarter building with no food permit.
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Jul 5, 2023 19:55
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TheDeadlyShoe posted:VR sanitation is pretty trivial easy to solve: you use a disposable liner for the headpiece and replace it for every customer. Goons mystified by the concept of public restrooms, apparently. What public restrooms do you use that have soft foam cushions on the seat that will happily absorb your sweat and plagueridden breath, and will even pass through your brilliant idea of “massively wasteful paper products”
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Jul 5, 2023 19:55
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TheDeadlyShoe posted:VR sanitation is pretty trivial easy to solve: you use a disposable liner for the headpiece and replace it for every customer. Goons mystified by the concept of public restrooms, apparently. And I’m sure the guy that thinks it’ll only cost $200k is going to make it a priority to change those liners after every customer.
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Jul 5, 2023 19:56
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Like, here's a picture of a local "VR arcade": There's a bit more to it than that, they have some special-purpose racing rigs set up too, but those aren't going to add more than $5-10k a pop. I would be very surprised if it cost more than $200k for this place to get up and running. This place has been open for 4 years now and survived the pandemic, and I doubt it's entirely a money-losing vanity project. So his business model is definitely out there working right now... which is the reason he's doomed to fail, because there's nothing stopping a million copycats from cropping up (and at this point, he's one of them.) This is turning into the next axe throwing bar or escape room business concept and the life cycle of these fads means that the field is about to get flooded with competitors, which is usually enough on its own to kill off most of them, but on top of that this concept has a built in expiration date since the technology is rapidly getting cheaper and more accessible for consumers to get at home. If he's the first game in town he might actually be able to do well enough for a while to fool himself into thinking the business has legs but if all he has to offer is "I've been messing around with VR for a while because I think it's neat" there is no way in hell that he will survive the upcoming bloodbath.
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Jul 5, 2023 20:07
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Plucky Brit posted:This has shades of the guy who opened a restaurant and then burned through his startup capital, pension, savings, home equity and wider family savings in just over a year. I'm pretty sure this is the story you are referring to. https://torontolife.com/food/restaurant-ruined-life/
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Jul 5, 2023 20:07
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Lizards scare the everloving poo poo out of me, and this one huge-rear end gecko has snuck into my house no less than four times this past month. His rear end is mine next time, he's had enough chances.
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Jul 5, 2023 20:09
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Grey Cat posted:AITA for putting the spider outside with a cup and some paper??? I know? I am pretty arachnophobic, I'm fine with little roundy spiders, but big leggy ones absolutely horrify me. There's a specific time of year in Ireland, when all the big black housespiders come out of their hideyholes and go looking for mates. They are extremely short-sighted, and inclined to panic if they get startled. I feel sorry for them, they are so totally harmless, but I absolutely cannot bear to look at them. If there is no-one handy to move them for me, I just have to grab a glass and paper and loving go for it. I don't put them outside, since they are not outdoor spiders, instead I yeet them over the banisters to float gently down to the next floor, well away from me. Unfortunately, they are slowly getting ousted by an invasive species - the false widow, which are a perennial source of clickbait about how these deadly poisonous spiders are going to kill us all. Apparently their bite is no more painful than a bee-sting, and I know from my own experience that they are not aggressive. There's a load of them in my house, they just sit in their web and never ever go anywhere, not for years.The other day, I flicked water at one of them, for no particular reason, and she carefully climbed all over her web to drink all the droplets tl/dr I am moderately arachnophobic and I would never kill a spider unless I absolutely had to.
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Jul 5, 2023 20:11
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rotinaj posted:What public restrooms do you use that have soft foam cushions on the seat that will happily absorb your sweat and plagueridden breath, and will even pass through your brilliant idea of “massively wasteful paper products” if you are aggravated by people using disposable paper products for sanitation, you got bigger problems than vr arcades. Pope Corky the IX posted:And I’m sure the guy that thinks it’ll only cost $200k is going to make it a priority to change those liners after every customer. In my admittedly limited experience, VR arcades/booths/etc usually make a production out of their sanitation practices precisely because 'ew gross' is a big PR problem. Whether they are wiping things down or using liners or whatever, its often front and center, displayed and even advertised. i mean, maybe this guy wouldn't do that, but just because he's an idiot doesn't mean he's also a self-sabotaging nurgle demon. ...perhaps you're right.
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Jul 5, 2023 20:15
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One of my coworkers was planning on retiring right before the pandemic and was going to take a lump sum from his pension to open a ninja warrior training gym. Everyone kept telling him he was a moron but luckily his oldest kid got into med school so he had to put off retiring for a bit to help pay for it.
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Jul 5, 2023 20:19
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I always thought black window spiders were huge because I had only ever seen them in closeups on tv and when I saw one in real life I thought it must be a baby because it could fit in the palm of my hand
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Jul 5, 2023 20:28
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B-Rock452 posted:One of my coworkers was planning on retiring right before the pandemic and was going to take a lump sum from his pension to open a ninja warrior training gym. Everyone kept telling him he was a moron but luckily his oldest kid got into med school so he had to put off retiring for a bit to help pay for it. I know of a guy that was fairly high up at valve / on Steam, and quit to do that. Seems like he's still doing it ~10 years later, but didn't pull from the pension for it.
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Jul 5, 2023 20:32
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B-Rock452 posted:One of my coworkers was planning on retiring right before the pandemic and was going to take a lump sum from his pension to open a ninja warrior training gym. Everyone kept telling him he was a moron but luckily his oldest kid got into med school so he had to put off retiring for a bit to help pay for it. Idk what's wrong with this plan. The ninja warrior gym -> orthopedic surgeon patient pipeline seems real lucrative.
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