Broomfield – Mike Sakurada’s eyes never stray from the screen glowing in front of him.
He’s settled into a leather chair surrounded by competitors as he handles the controls of a Microsoft Xbox running the popular “Madden NFL 2006” video game. Sakurada and his video-game rivals could be competing in their own living rooms. But instead they’ve gathered at The Dojo Video Gaming Arena, a dimly lit storefront that opened its doors in the FlatIron Crossing mall last month.
The 2,700-square-foot center with 17 screens linked to Xbox gaming consoles is among a handful of interactive gaming centers that have popped up in Colorado shopping malls and strip centers, providing entrepreneurs another way to enter the $7.3 billion video and computer gaming industry.
Owners and patrons say the centers provide a social opportunity in the otherwise solitary world of video gaming. Shopping-mall officials say the centers help draw more people to their centers.
“I’ve met a lot of new people here,” said Sakurada, a 20-year- old salesman who travels from Greeley to Broomfield at least once a week to spend the day playing alongside other enthusiasts. The cost: $5 an hour, or $12 for an all-day pass. “It’s an interesting place to come. It’s a good atmosphere.”
Cousins Marcellas Proctor, Carl Kelly and Steve Fleming opened their first Dojo Gaming Arena in the Greeley Mall a year and a half ago. That center, which is closed while its owners seek a larger location, caught the attention of FlatIron officials. Both malls are owned by the Macerich Co. of Santa Monica, Calif.
FlatIron officials urged the trio to open a location in the mall’s outdoor shopping area, known as The Village.
The center, which opened shortly before Christmas, has attracted a stream of patrons, including Ashley Munroe, a 17-year old high school junior at Niwot High School and one the few females visiting the center on a recent Friday afternoon.
Munroe, the center’s reigning “Halo 2” combat game champion, said she visits at least once a week. “You can be interactive with other people instead of sitting alone in your room for 12 hours straight,” she said.
The majority of gaming-center patrons have their own gaming systems at home but supplement their at-home gaming with trips to centers purely for the interaction, said Mark Nielsen, executive director of iGames, a Mountain View, Calif.-based organization representing interactive gaming center owners.
“It’s much more fun when you can sit next to someone and talk smack,” said Dean Tanenbaum, co-founder of Net-Topia, a gaming center in Longmont’s Twin Peaks Mall. “It’s more fun to see the look of pain on their face when you destroy them.”
Tanenbaum founded Net-Topia in 2003 after returning from a teaching position in Japan. The popularity of interactive gaming centers there persuaded him to jump into the business with friend Jon Willig, owner of Run PC stores in Fort Collins and Longmont.
Net-Topia, which features a mix of personal computer and Xbox gaming systems, recently moved within the mall, taking over a former restaurant space so it could serve food.
Since iGames was founded with just three centers in 1996, it has grown to include more than 600 North American interactive gaming centers.
“Our belief is that game centers will grow to a scale that arcades were in the 1980s,” Nielsen said. The interactive-gaming industry is so far dominated by mom-and-pop businesses, but an Arvada company has begun franchising its centers. The WASD Group LLC, which owns Maximumgamer in Arvada, has franchised locations in Westminster, Thornton and Littleton. Franchise fees are $20,000 to $25,000, plus 6 percent monthly royalties.
“There’s a huge potential in this industry for someone to come in and do it right on a corporate level, said Geoff Tognetti, president and general partner of the WASD Group. “I’m not saying that’s necessarily us, but that’s our ideal.”
Maximumgamers offer only PC-based gaming that Togetti described as emulating “the dream basement that one of your rich friends would have.”
While many view interactive-gaming centers as next-generation arcades, others liken the centers to movie theaters because they give gamers a chance to experience “first-run” games when they are launched before deciding if they want to buy them.
Players at Net-Topia plunk down $5 an hour for playtime or buy packages of seven hours for $10. The Dojo, where a 16-by- 8-foot screen dominates the rear wall, charges $5 an hour, $8 for three hours and $12 for all day. At Maximumgamer, costs range from $2 for 30 minutes to $75 for 50-hour accounts.
“It’s not a hugely profitable business, but it does well by us,” Tognetti said. “All of our businesses are cash-flow positive.”
On a recent afternoon at The Dojo, gamers drifted in and out of the center, often interrupting their gaming to visit a Starbucks or grab a meal at the food court.
“Every business around here will benefit from our presence,” Kelly said. “Parents will come here because they know they can drop their kids off while they shop.”
The Dojo is helping the mall fulfill its mission of turning The Village into an entertainment-oriented area, said Heather Drake, FlatIron’s senior marketing manager.
Joette Frey, marketing director for Twin Peaks mall, got a sense of how much traffic Net-Topia generates when it relocated to a new center in the mall. Following the move, disappointed patrons flocked to the customer-service desk, worried the center had closed.
Staff writer Kristi Arellano can be reached at 303-820-1902 or karellano@denverpost.com.
