Would you like a video game with your cocktail?

You know you’re living in the 21st century when you hear that Australia’s First Video Game Bar is upon us. But before you get too excited, put your nerd-gasm at bay; it’s located in Brisbane. Sorry Melbournians! But do not fear, the bar has plans to expand to Sydney and Melbourne, and their next stop is world domination!

So what’s this place called and how does it work? It’s called ‘Mana Bar’ and it opened up in March this year in the middle of Brisbane’s ‘night-club’ district. The bar is surrounded by walls of LCD screens and features the ‘next generation of video game systems available to play 7 days a week. You can even play games before they’re released!’ It promotes itself as ‘Australia’s First Video Game Bar’ and the bar’s owner, Guy ‘Yug’ Blomberg, believes it is in fact a ‘world first’. My initial reaction to this was, ‘Are you serious? How has this not been done before?!’ From working in a video store I know that adult gaming is becoming more and more popular, and another popular past-time for many adults is drinking! Put simply, it’s a marketing match made in heaven! I particularly like the way one eager Mana Bar-goer described it in the video below: “My two loves – video games, and beer - combined to form a nexus of awesomeness.”

Now of course there is the argument that you can fulfil that some love at home; invite a few mates over, bring a few slabs, pump up the Xbox – and you’re good to go! Free from the hassles of sharing with other patrons, and free from the need to put on respectable clothes (if any at all). In the comfort of your own home, anything goes! Nevertheless, I still think lots of people would make the effort to leave their homes to come to this bar. A bar like this would have a completely different, much more exciting atmosphere from the one at home. So maybe people would choose the ‘home option’ when they want a relaxed drinking occasion, but when they feel like ‘making a night of it’, they’d opt for the ‘Mana Bar option’? What’s more, this bar provides a great way to meet people! What better way to break the ice than to challenge a person you’ve just met to a fun and flirtatious game?! Say, this bar might even give nerds a chance at love!!

Speaking of which, what kind of customers do we think this bar attracts? Is it simply a nerd-magnet? What sort of brand image SHOULD the bar (and the ones soon to follow in Melbourne and Sydney) portray? It describes itself as a ‘funky drinking venue, with a unique selection of drinks, and custom cocktails on offer’. And this classy image is reinforced with the photo below showing an Xbox controller next to a blue martini:

So is this classy image the right way to go? Or should it somehow give off more of a nerdy vibe? I’m not quite sure of the answer to this. As much as we may like to think of gamers as nerdy, social recluses, most of they guys I know love playing video games. In fact, whilst there probably is a small percentage of people who do fit the aforementioned nerdy, anti-social profile, I think that ultimately this bar would be appealing to the average male who DOES enjoy socialising. So perhaps the brand image should fall somewhere in between – neither classy nor nerdy – appealing to the ‘average’ guy. But I’m just not sure that that image would work quite so well with an Xbox controller placed next to a beer… Then again, maybe Mana Bar realises that people will visit this bar no matter what, and in the interest of making profits, it’s going for a cocktail theme.


Nevertheless, Mana Bar will have to be very careful. At the moment it’s free to play games, but if they start to charge a fee to play games and hitch up drink prices, they could see customers walking out the door. Furthermore, the bar has a maximum capacity of 50 people, and from what I’ve read online, it seems people are already annoyed about having to wait in line. A maximum capacity of 50 seems crazy for a place with such high demand! So Mana Bar is going to have to think about how to solve this issue, or people might decide that playing games at home is a far better option. Perhaps they should look at opening another bar in Brisbane to cater for demand, as well as opening up in Melbourne and Sydney?


Anyway, what do you guys think? Would you go to Mana Bar if there was one in Melbourne? Or wherever you live? Do you think it will be a success? And do you think that a ‘classy’ image is the right way to go?