Walking into a local area network gaming center — or LANcenter, as they are commonly known — can be surreal. As you stepinside you hear the sound of computers humming and teenagers makingjokes. But if you come at just the right time– try 2 a.m. –you’ll hear sounds of battle. Explosions, machine guns and soldiersyelling “Move out, team!” will tell you that somebody is playing”Counter-Strike.”
Over the last few years, LAN gaming centers have popped upacross the country. These businesses operate on a simple principle:people like video games, and they like them more if they have greatcomputers, blisteringly fast Internet connections and their buddiessitting right next to them playing on the same server. You pay bythe hour, choose a PC and you’re set to play today’s most populartitles.
Donato Demeterio bought the retail location along with all itsassets 11 months ago. Since the previous owners didn’t take goodcare of the location, Demeterio bought higher quality mouses,keyboards and headphones for his gamers.
“The mouses were breaking down everyday, so I bought better onesand keep them clean,” said Demeterio.
E-Intraplay’s aging machines also have to be maintained. Eachhas a 1.4 GHz AMD processor, 256 MB of RAM and a Ge Force 2 videocard.
While no longer cutting-edge, the computers capably handle allof the games the center has. There are visible slowdowns on thenewest offerings such as “Halo,” but the majority of gamers playolder games such as “Counter-Strike,” “Day of Defeat,” “Starcraft,””Warcraft 3” and “Battlefield 1942,” where lag time is minimal.
“If you compare [LAN centers] by machines, ours are relativelyold. But for those particular games it’s OK,” said Demeterio.
When it comes to servers, E-Intraplay is peerless. The facilityhouses two “Counter-Strike” servers, one for the “Steam” versionand one for the older 1.5 version of the game. The Steam server ispresently rated 32nd in the entire world, out of tens of thousandsof “Counter-Strike” servers.
Patrons of other LAN gaming centers in the area frequent theE-Intraplay server because of its extreme performance capabilities.The store and server run on a blistering 1.5-mb T1 line, whichgives “Counter-Strike” players on the E-Intraplay server incrediblylow pings (data response times) well below 50 milliseconds.
Demeterio is also well-regarded by his regulars for lendinghours to familiar faces, having a laissez-faire attitude towardinstalling new software on his machines and just being anall-around nice guy.
“He doesn’t get angry or sound like he’d rather be dead thanhelp you if you have trouble with something,” said JohannesCarter-Gohl, an E-Intraplay regular and De Anza student.
Despite how much Demeterio has improved the facility, he isquickly losing customers. When he bought the center, it seemed likea smart investment. But just a few months later, he has about athird of the customers he used to.
The LAN gaming center boom may be ebbing, but the main reasonDemeterio is losing money and customers is Euphnet, a largercompetitor who is undercutting E-Intraplay’s prices.
In a classic David-and-Goliath situation, Euphnet has loweredits rates to $2 per hour, a price no other gaming center canmatch.
“Euphnet is trying to kill the competition. Beat [another gamingcenter] was a really classy place, but now it’s closed down becauseof Euphnet,” said Demeterio.
“It’s best to move after a while. People get sick of the games,”said Demeterio.
Local LAN centers
* Matchplay
4219 El Camino Real, Palo Alto. 650-493-8000
* Rivalution
1172 N. Capitol Ave., San Jose. 408-254-3006
* Indico
540 Lawrence Expressway, Sunnyvale. 408-733-3712
* Euphnet
612 S. Mary Ave., Sunnyvale. 408-733-3712
