St. Games’ fire: how these two 31-year-olds turned console gaming into an events startup

If you’re old enough, you’ll probably remember how your local mom-and-pop store had an NES console you could rent. Those services disappeared as convenience store chains and affordable home consoles appeared, and disposable incomes rose. Yet these two 31-year-olds have preserved that age-old tradition of “social” gaming – and no, they don’t run an indie arcade.

Lee Ming Wei and Lee Teck Hou are co-founders of St. Games Cafe, a retail outlet where customers can rent video game consoles for on-site play. Situated in The Cathay mall in Singapore, St. Games Cafe is part of a bigger startup called Gaming How, which organizes events – corporate and otherwise – that make use of gaming consoles.

This weekend, Gaming How is involved in Gamestart Asia, Singapore’s biggest consumer game convention yet. But the path hasn’t been all that easy for this startup that’s coming going on seven years old. We spoke to Ming Wei and Teck Hou to find out more.

Ming Wei (left) and Teck Hou (right) at St. Games Cafe.

Gaming? How?

Gaming How was founded by Ming Wei, Teck Hou, and Gan Chia Huey back in 2007. The trio met during their national service before heading to the same university. Ming Wei was a computer engineer and Teck Hou was an engineering student, and Teck Hou shares that they knew even before they graduated that they wouldn’t want to work for other people when they finished school.

The first idea for their joint venture was to run a human resources agency that placed students in internships or jobs before graduation. However, they soon realized that this simply wasn’t feasible, as each student attachment required them to put down a deposit ranging from S$20,000 to S$30,000 in case people broke their contracts.

At that time Ming Wei was working in retail, selling games. Teck Hou was a big gamer himself. Influenced by their passions, the duo started a video game rental service, where customers were able to borrow a number of games in exchange for a monthly fee. But even though Ming Wei and Teck Hou poured their hearts into this endeavor, it didn’t take off. They couldn’t get publishers to agree to support the business.

Customers enjoying some gaming time at St. Games Cafe.

“This is common in the US, but it doesn’t work in Asia,” Ming Wei shared in an interview with Games in Asia. “Every person who rents potentially won’t go on to buy the game from the publisher, so they couldn’t agree to that.”

Ming Wei and Teck Hou still wanted a gaming-driven startup, though. At that point in time, the Playstation 3 and Wii consoles had just hit the market. The duo started supplying consoles to events like family dinners and dances. They ran these events from 2008 to 2009, and enquiries started to pour in.

Settling down

The constant customer enquiries led to Ming Wei and Teck Hou to put down roots. In January 2009, they rented retail space in Singapore’s Square 2 mall and started what would become St. Games Cafe, the country’s first proper console gaming cafe. Walk-in customers could now enjoy a full 700 square feet of video gaming entertainment in a bright, welcoming environment.

It wasn’t just walk-in customers that St. Games Cafe hosted. Ming Wei and Teck Hou played host for birthday parties, and even babysat children as young as four years old. Parents would drop their children off while they went shopping around the Square 2 children’s shopping mall.

“The shop really helped change parents’ outlook on games. There was no cursing and shouting, and it wasn’t dark and shady,” both co-founders shared. The welcoming environment was a stark contrast to gaming cafes, more commonly known as LAN cafes or shops in Singapore. These are typically poorly-lit and packed with teenage to young adult gamers cursing and swearing as they fight their way through virtual environments.

Although the Square 2 unit of St. Games Cafe shut down in 2011, the same welcoming atmosphere carried over to its subsequent outlet in The Cathay mall. It’s common for staff to be in their late teens, and these staff are even encouraged to bring their parents down for their first interview so the latter can see for themselves what the job really is all about.

See: Qisahn.com: the story behind this Singapore game shop

It was the opposite at home for both Ming Wei and Teck Hou, though. Their families were supportive, but not positive. Ming Wei’s mother would express concern about the business, only to compare him with his more successful university friends. It was only when Gaming How shifted its operations fully to The Cathay mall that both founders’ families realized they were working hard.

St. Games Cafe in The Cathay, Singapore

After all, St. Games Cafe had grown into more than just video game rental by then; it had become a social gaming experience. It saw, and still sees, female customers – a demographic not easily attracted by some of its direct competitors. It’s got a friendly community of gamers who enjoy multiplayer and party games. There are even occasional requests to host bachelorette parties for brides-to-be. Ming Wei says the store’s most popular consoles are the Xbox Kinect and the Wii, while the most favored game so far is Rayman Raving Rabbids. At any one time, the store will also have customers playing Rock Band.

Moving with the times

Business was great when The Cathay outlet first opened. But that was back in 2011. With The Cathay, being an iconic cinema in Singapore, its reopening following a long renovation that saw many moviegoers walking by, and walking into, St. Games Cafe. However, in 2012, new malls with brand-spanking-new cinemas in them started to sprout up. The Cathay’s cinemas were no longer a big draw.

So to stay afloat, Ming Wei and Teck Hou had to adapt. “We realized we needed to offer more things,” Ming Wei said.

They finally collaborated with the publishers who had once scorned them: EA Games, Bandai Namco, and the like. St. Games Cafe organized and conducted free-play days for newly-launched games. It started to offer gameplay packages, improved on its branding, and worked to nurture its community. Eventually, another St. Games outlet was opened in Bugis+, a new shopping mall geared towards youth and gaming.

Even today, the Gaming How startup never stops adapting. Ming Wei and Teck Hou have gone on to work on product launches, school events, and even provide entertainment at Zoukout (an annual rave held in Singapore) and the F1 races. Gaming How’s retail front, its game console rental, and its events keep the company cashflow positive. While not doing insanely well, it is doing all right.

A lot of St. Games’ customers are groups of girls.

Both Ming Wei’s parents have had brushes with cancer; his father’s illness proved terminal, while his mother is a cancer survivor. At one point, Gaming How’s meetings between its founders were conducted in hospitals and hospice as Ming Wei tried to spend his father’s remaining time with him.

As a result of that, both Ming Wei and Teck Hou have a soft spot for charity, and are involved in the KK Women and Children’s Hospital social work department, where they counsel sick patients. This sentiment has also led them to work with foundations like Make-A-Wish. On one occasion, Gaming How helped organize a gaming birthday party for a sick child, where he was presented with a gaming laptop.

It’s been a seven-year rollercoaster ride for the duo, and it’s one that’s also far from over. St. Games Cafe – and Gaming How as a whole – is getting more competition as more game-savvy entrepreneurs like its founders finish school and decide that working for someone isn’t for them. It’s hard to predict how far this ride will continue, but Ming Wei and Teck Hou don’t think of the daily grind, or the struggle to keep profitable, as a chore. Even today, when you ask them to describe their jobs, this is the answer:

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