Game on: computer games craze reaches pubs
Licensee Adam Billingham stands absorbed, demonstrating a form of entertainment becoming increasingly popular in pubs.
He is flailing his arms in the air, showing me how to use the Nintendo Wii, a video games console he has set up for drinkers to play in the back room at the Brixton Bar and Grill in London. The trade it generates is the reason why he is now selling an extra 10 pints a night during the week.
The Wii, which was the patented Must Have Present This ChristmasTM, has made gaming more accessible to punters through its unique control system (see box, below).
Significant numbers of pubs like Adam's are realising that the pick-up-and-play nature of this new generation of video games, coupled with the interactivity of the multi-player gadgets, makes them suitable for entertainment in a pub.
Team Europe, the company behind inter-pub poker league Poker in the Pub, is to launch a similar concept for the Wii this year. Bar operator Novus Leisure runs a Wii tournament in its Digress Soho venue in London's West End, which averages 30 competitors every Wednesday. A number of pubs in the Charles Wells estate have also begun hosting Wii tournaments. The Smiths Arms and the Half Moon in Kempston, Bedfordshire, and the Admiral Vernon in Over, Cambridgeshire, have all made the console available to customers on an informal basis.
A spokeswoman for the pub group described videogames as 'trade builders' and said: "Wii reaches across generations. Everyone can take part. Darts and pool thrive in our community pubs but we need to look ahead to the future."
Even Nintendo executive Satoru Iwata pointed to UK pub culture's role in promoting the games giant's empire. In a Q&A session with investors recently, he said: "I understand that the UK has its own 'pub culture'. After work, they visit pubs and talk over drinks. Although Nintendo had nothing to do with this, some volunteered to start 'Wii Days'. After they played with Wii at the pubs, some of them went to retailers to purchase Wii the next day."
The Brixton Bar and Grill runs 'Wii Love Wednesdays'. Drinkers play against each other, and friends and other spectators watch the action on the big screen. The Wii is an unusually spectator-friendly entertainment. What began in August as a way to get punters in on an otherwise quiet midweek night has mushroomed so that Adam takes bookings and gets regular requests for use of the Wii. A Wii Love Wednesdays group set up on social networking website Facebook has more than 300 members.
"I had this back room and it's an unusual space," explains Adam. "At the weekends, when we have the DJ in, it's great. During the week I thought 'how can we use it?' I have a big projector so I thought 'why not get a Wii?'"
Paying for itself
A self-confessed 'games nerd' himself, Adam says the £180 console has more than paid for itself. Free for customers to use, it "makes people stay longer", he says. "The last people to leave will always, always be the people playing the Wii. Selling another 10 pints at 10:45pm, it quickly pays for itself."
The only problem, he says, is that because of the much-publicised Christmas rush to buy Wiis before stocks ran out, he has had difficulty tracking down extra controllers to meet demand.
Adam has tried traditional pub games, such as bridge and chess, in the past, and has worked hard to perfect his entertainment offer. Sometimes, the experimentation hasn't worked. Repositioning a TV in the front bar and using it to screen films met with protest from some of his more traditionalist customers. So he was apprehensive about launching Wii Love Wednesdays.
These fears were seemingly unfounded. Perhaps Nintendo's new twist on the video game can be offered by pubs as something midway between traditional and newfangled entertainment.
"It's another arrow in a pub's quiver," Adam says. "A lot of our customers are women, who Nintendo has targeted so well. It has made Wii more accessible to people who would not otherwise be playing on games consoles."
Next up for Wii Love Wednesdays are tournaments, with the winner grabbing a free meal for two. Adam is also hoping to host the official launch of a new game for the console at some point.
Another London pub, the Metropolitan near Westbourne Park, has trialled a video games offer. For a two-week period at the tail-end of last year, it offered hire of a portable Nintendo DS console with a pool game.
Licensee Gordon McIntyre saw the idea as creating a 'virtual pool hall', something which again shows new-generation video games giving pubs the ability to adapt entertainment commonly found in boozers of yore. The Metropolitan ran a mini tournament with the consoles on one night. Although Gordon ultimately decided it wasn't suitable for his pub, a member of the barstaff was more enthusiastic that the concept could appeal elsewhere across the age divide. "We did get some older customers in who gave it a go, a really mixed crowd," he says. "The novelty caught their attention."
So getting your customers gaming could provide a boost to the entertainment side of your business. Could 2008 see the Wii generation spread out of their living rooms and into your bar?
What is a Wii?
The Wii represents a radical departure from its predecessors in that the games are controlled via a motion-sensing remote.
Designed to make gaming more accessible, the device is multifunctional. In a tennis game, it serves as a racket to be swung. In a driving game, it becomes a steering wheel.
Perhaps the game with most appeal to pubs is Wii Sports, which features tennis, baseball, golf, bowling and boxing games.
Poppleston Allen on the law
According to licensing law firm Poppleston Allen, offering video games in your pub does not require a licence as it 'falls between camps' among other licensable entertainments. Licensable activities include performance of a play, exhibition of a film, indoor sporting events, live music and performance of dance among others - none of which would cover video games
