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WHERE THE GAMERS PLAY: Your Guide to 9 Metro Area Game Centers: It's All About the Vibe You Catch

Posted on: Friday, 3 March 2006, 06:00 CST

By Heather Newman, Detroit Free Press

Mar. 3--There have never been more choices for people who don't want to play video games alone.

Game centers, where people can gather to play on PCs and consoles for rent by the hour, have been around in metro Detroit for a long time. But their numbers have been exploding lately, and the audience is shifting.

It used to be mostly college kids out for a quick bout against their friends. Now its becoming the domain of middle and high school students, whose parents drop them knowing exactly where they'll be and what they'll be doing for a few hours. That doesn't mean that the centers are all alike -- far from it... If you're hunting for a game center experience, you have a lot of different vibes to choose from.

Metro Detroiters hit game centers when they want to hang with their friends while still playing their favorite video games. Which one they choose, they say, has a lot to do with the kind of atmosphere they're looking for.

Digital Ops in Ann Arbor is one of the oldest game centers in the metro area for people who want to play video games together. The tiny room in the basement below the Michigan Theater complex is dimly lit, painted black and stacked two high with cubes that are barely large enough to fit a tiny computer desk, you (as long as you don't stand up) and a porthole view of the people playing video games on either side of you. The upper level is accessible via ladder. Slide into a cube and you immediately feel enclosed in a cockpit of darkened space.

"It's a very chill environment," said Jesse Yaeger, 17, of Ann Arbor. She can frequently be found at Digital Ops, in part because her iMac at home is too old to run most games.

Across town in Southgate, Stoopids (one of the area's largest centers) has the opposite feel: It's one huge room, open and airy, with long tables lined with state-of-the-art PCs and walls lined with video game posters. Gamers chat with one another as parents and friends play cards at a large table in one well-lit corner. At one end of the room, two gigantic televisions, complete with couches, wait empty for the Xbox fanatic.

They, like the Xbox stations at Digital Ops, are usually empty; console gamers often play online instead, or shanghai friends into their living rooms to play, something that's more difficult to do with PC games.

Other centers around the metro area are tucked into plain-looking rooms behind computer repair shops, Internet cafes and, in the case of Neek's PC Playground in Woodhaven, an Exclusive Video rental shop.

Jordan Pentecost, 17, lives down the block from Stoopids. He's there many weeknights and most weekends, playing "Most Wanted: Need for Speed" or "World of Warcraft."

"You get to see your friends up there, battle them, rub it in their faces," he said.

Centers typically have PCs and consoles to rent, with many more PCs than consoles. Rates range from almost nothing (Neek's charges $1.50 an hour if you can show a report card with As on it) to $7 an hour, with discounts based on how many hours you buy. Almost all offer all-you-can-eat plans, which range from $25 on up.

For your money, you get time at a state-of-the-art PC with popular games pre-loaded on it, a headset to fully enjoy the stereo sound and an Internet connection.

"Their computers are really, really good, so your games always run perfectly," said Brandon Taylor, 14, of Southgate, who plays at Stoopids.

Typically centers offer tournaments and special events ranging from parties with food and drinks to intense head-to-head matchups that get some players a place in regional and national tournaments.

The businesses tend to be reliable watering holes for the same gamers week after week. Unlike a LAN party, where 50 or 150 gamers might bring their PCs and battle it out for an afternoon or evening, folks go to game centers to hang out rather than focus on the business of gaming.

The centers also offer gamers benefits if they don't have a sexy new PC at home.

"I don't have a computer or the Internet at my house, and I'm pretty passionate about computers," said Jay Roberts, 20, of Chelsea, who hangs out at Digital Ops about every other day. He likes interacting with his friends in person there.

"It's a lot better to yell at people when they screw up in person, rather than just typing angrily," he said, laughing.

Ann Arbor resident David Lones, 25, agreed.

Lones plays single-player games at home, where "I can play in my boxers as soon as I get up." But for multiplayer, he heads to Digital Ops. He likes using the center to try new games before he buys them, since PC games are more difficult to rent than console titles. But mostly, he focuses on the squad-based shooter "Battlefield 2."

"It's an experience. There's so much social interaction," he said. "It's cooler to be playing with eight to ten guys who are playing the same game. You can quickly tell guys what's going on. My best experiences there are when we're all in the same squad. When you get that going, you feel unstoppable."

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Copyright (c) 2006, Detroit Free Press

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Source: Detroit Free Press

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