Internet cafes, why do we miss you
Editor’s note: This article is from the micro-channel public number “slot value” (ID: caozhi163), Author: Sister slot values.
This year’s New Year, the younger sister has also become the main force in issuing red envelopes, painfully sealing the new year’s money to the juniors.
Looking at the junior high school students happily holding a wad of hundred-yuan bills and swaggering through the market, the little girl had a whim and asked where all the new year’s money after 05 was spent——
Some charge games, some buy trendy brands, and some are ready to save up and secretly invite girls to dinner.
The younger sister discovered that the Internet cafes that once swept the youth of the 80s and 90s have almost completely left the life circle of these children.
A few days ago, the news about #Internet cafes closed over 12000 companies in a year was searched hotly. People feel that the real economy is struggling to survive under the epidemic, but at the same time they have to say:
“Ye Qingjie”.
Picture source Weibo super chat
Internet cafes, as a place for a generation of youthful memories, have quietly withdrawn from the sight of the times.
01 Internet cafes, collective memories of a generation
Although the economy of Internet cafes is currently sluggish, any young man who takes to the street will definitely be able to break his fingers and tell you all the things I had to say when I was young and Internet cafes.
The whole night without any hesitation to skip classes over the wall, the private rooms are full of the taste of instant noodles and carbonated drinks;
Brothers who can fight side by side and team up to fight are considered deadly friendships;
The internet card goes from 3 yuan an hour to 7 yuan an hour, the wallet is deflated, and the blood is boiling.
The meaning of Internet cafes is far beyond what an entertainment occasion can summarize. It contains not only the latest games at the time, the excitement of playing truant, the rebellious youth, but also the gathering of a whole generation of people.
The growth history of boys born in the 80s and 90s is accompanied by witnesses and attention to the rise of domestic Internet cafes.
And the girls of this era must have experienced the baptism of QQ Hyun Dance and Audition. Dressing up and dancing to your favorite characters in front of the green screen is a fashion enlightenment for girls.
Before 2006, black Internet cafes were the most common places where these adolescent children were mixed up, and the configuration of these Internet cafes was low., The sanitary environment is poor, and the games are mainly Warcraft, CS, etc., plus the low price, it is very popular with students.
As people’s living standards gradually improve, and the country’s management is becoming stricter, the traditional Internet cafes that are in the impression of being dirty and poor have quickly changed their faces, and they have once again risen as “Internet cafes”.
In order to attract customers, most of the Internet cafes are optimized and upgraded in hardware and software. Not only are they equipped with high-end mechanical keyboards and mice, high-refresh frequency gaming screens, professional gaming chairs, etc., but also adding water bars, casual dining, etc. The service has transformed from the main game to the main social experience.
The spacious lobby, high-end computers, and menu settings that are almost comparable to cafes have enabled Internet cafes to be updated and form a redefinition of the offline scene of the Internet.
Such a new type of Internet cafe with all-in-one services has naturally attracted countless fans.
A quick search on station B will reveal many young people’s Internet cafe evaluations, with strict scoring from price to comfort level, etc., which are comparable to the video of food bloggers exploring the shop.
In addition to the excellent surfing experience, newcomers are even more attracted by the fish-flavored pork rice bowl in the Internet cafe, which can be regarded as a different way to attract customers.
People who don’t play games may be curious. Now almost everyone has a computer. Why go to Internet cafes to spend money to play games?
In this regard, the young people who still stay in the Internet cafes pretend to sigh deeply: “The game is not important, but the important thing is the atmosphere—”
02 Internet cafes, small rivers and lakes for a group of people
The gaming experience brought by high-end computers in Internet cafes is certainly fascinating, but in the final analysis, the combination of privacy and publicity is the reason why it is popular among young people.
If you are looking for an atmosphere, you can naturally meet up with three or five friends to open a gang together, swearing at your teammates in a mixed Internet cafe, and there will be no parents knocking on your door.
If you are in the late stage of social fear, Internet cafes with a strong sense of isolation can also have a great experience. Here, no matter what game you play and what movie you watch, no one will look at you.
Everyone puts aside their social attributes after entering Internet cafes. In the boundary between virtual and reality, people form a small world, but they understand each other. A cigarette and a drink can temporarily be good friends for a night .
After you have a good chat, you can exchange contact information to make an appointment next time. If you don’t speculate, you can quickly return to your own world with headphones.
As the saying goes: When we meet in peace, we are all guests from other countries.
Compared to a simple game, this place is more like a lively friendship world, bustling with people, coming and going as you please.
Not only that, sometimes, Internet cafes can also be a life-saving straw for the underwhelmed.
Not long ago, there was a question on Zhihu: “Why don’t the owners of Internet cafes drive away sleepy people?”
In the nearly 2,000 answers under the question, few people talked about commercial social factors, and most of them talked about the unique feelings of Internet cafes back then.
Someone met a young boss after the college entrance examination and spent the last high school era in an Internet cafe;
Someone learned software such as PS in an Internet cafe for a dollar an hour, and thus had a brand new career choice;
There was also a girl who was followed in the middle of the night and rushed into the Internet cafe in a hurry. She was saved by the colorful-haired boy and the boss…
cr: Knowing the blogger Skylark
A hero who is stumped by a penny can sleep in front of an empty seat, and mediocre office workers can also kill all sides in the game.
Internet cafes have unknowingly built a more tolerant time and space in a “parallel universe”, which carries the world of human society.There is a small and moving warmth.
How can such an almost idealistic utopia, such a refuge in a reinforced forest, not make people’s hearts be moved?
It now appears that Internet cafes once played a pivotal role in our lives. Perhaps we, who are indulging in the glorious past of the moment, never expected that the grand annual meeting of Internet cafes would be so short.
So, why will the popular Internet cafe ecology usher in a wave of bankruptcy in the second natal year?
03 Internet cafes, why do we miss you?
Actually, the predicament of Internet cafes began as early as a few years ago in the large-scale transformation.
From Internet cafes to Internet cafes, operators have begun to try to improve the environment and transform the original game ecology into an experience ecology that emphasizes a sense of social interaction.
This attempt was beneficial, but it was just the last leap before the tide receded.
By 2015, the e-sports industry has truly become a capital hotspot, and this has given a short boost to the Internet cafe ecosystem.
The rise of e-sports has brought new outlets in the industry. Internet cafe owners have updated and updated, and strive to provide customers with a better gaming experience.
Although e-sports has restored the business of Internet cafes to a certain extent, young users have returned to Internet cafes to complete the “team competition”.
But in the long run, the lack of phenomenon-level popular online games is an irreparable loophole in the Internet cafe ecosystem.
According to statistics, from the start-up data of the past three years, the top three most popular Internet cafes are still “League of Legends”, “Cross Fire” and “DNF”, while client games and web games account for the market structure. The ratio is also declining.
2016-2021 China’s online game market structure and forecast Data source: Analysys
In other words, there is not a new game that has reached the popularity of the whole people. New users and old users are not connected. The homogeneity competition intensifies, which naturally leads to a major reshuffle of the Internet cafe industry.
At the same time, mobile mobile games have become a general trend, directly becoming the core force of the game industry, not only robbing the PC side of the computer share, but also forming a dimensionality reduction blow to the Internet cafe ecology.
Under such conditions, the postponement of the opening due to the epidemic is just the last straw that overwhelms the camel.
In the torrent of the times, Internet cafe operators need to find a more suitable business model in order to achieve a real industrial transformation.
Future Internet cafes may be a highly integrated entertainment venue, with professional gaming experience as the core, supplemented by emerging entertainment formats such as tabletop games and mobile games, forming a casual social scene that is more in line with the Internet generation.
This is probably the only way out for Internet cafes after their birth year.
Go back to the story of that Internet cafe, aside from the influx of capital and the wave of emerging mobile games, why do we still miss it?
Because every side face illuminated by the screen is shining with wonderful blood; in every large sofa, there is an idealistic algorithm:
Tap on the keyboard, issue program instructions, and fight in the fastest time. Whether it is a one-shot kill or a KO is imminent, the process is more exciting than the result.
Such freedom and recklessness happen in Internet cafes all the time.
In the silent boiling, the sharp and hot protagonist’s life belongs to them alone.
