Nostalgia Nerd & Ashens: The cafe


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PIA
PIA
1 year ago

He’s done some good historical videos and helped get Steven Jones and his monitor kickstarter project to go ahead by promoting it. I can’t fault him for that, but this grifting is disappointing. The grifting I see in the old computer and gaming scene is almost as bad as the UFO scammers and bullshitters.

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u4ria
Admin
1 year ago
Reply to  PIA

Well you could fault him for pushing Stevens monitor.

The Furthest Man From Home
The Furthest Man From Home
1 year ago

After a rather pathetic click-bait “I’m leaving YT.. oh no i ‘m not’ pantomime video and another book nobody really asked for, i did wonder what the Nerd had up his sleeve next.

So, they are asking for funding for another Retro Arcade venue in a location that already has one established….

They haven’t even stated which Arcade titles the venue will feature, just they’ve put some on reserve..

They plan to launch it a time when crippling UK electricity prices are putting people under at an alarming rate..

And they are alienating the widest possible audience by making the food Vegan only.

These old Arcade machines are notoriously expensive to maintain for a start.

Food supplier prices are rocketing week in, week out..

If this ever gets funded, they’ll be back within months asking for more money to keep it running.

They’ll probably get some steady footfall at the start, whole novelty factor will be a draw to some, then it’ll rapidly fall off.

All these UK YT people desperate to branch out, now YT revenues in sharp decline..

Ebegging for books they will probably never write..

Business ventures they’ve no real clue about.

When they can’t even research material for their own videos properly, employ brand managers and script writers…

It’s laughable.

I’d loved to of seen them rock up on Dragon’s Den, they’d be laughed out the building.

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Jambon
Jambon
1 year ago

Yeah i didn’t mind Nostalgia Nerd until i spotted that ‘I’m leaving Youtube’ clickbait shit of his. That’s when i finally realised he was just another nasty, manipulative Youtube grifter.

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Frisky Dingo
Frisky Dingo
1 year ago
Reply to  Jambon

Even the title of his kickstarter beg video is “I’ve been gone”. What the hell has that title got to do with anything in the video?
A subscriber base of 500k and barely over 200 backers. It’s safe to say they’re all sick of his shit.

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dreamkatcha
dreamkatcha
1 year ago

If the backlash gets too intense, no doubt he’ll declare it was all a tongue in cheek joke and deride the foolish people who took it seriously, much like with the Doom gaming PC fundraiser that he never expected to receive contributions towards, despite setting up a dedicated Go Fund Me account.

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Princess Rescuer
1 year ago

Let’s see if I can think of some better ones:

Barometer

The Pub of Play

Gaming Gathering

Arcade Exotica (ok maybe not that 1, sounds too much like a stripclub?)

Credit Drink

Classic Tavern

Vintage Cabana

Gaming & Refreshment Centre

That’s just a few of them

Bert
1 year ago

Mekon’s Lair (Max and Paddy reference, Paddy said he could never be a “mekon”, meaning vegan).
Soy Kingdom
Greasy Sticks (you just know the cabs will get greasy from all the fancy chip eaters).
The Grifters Arms
Phish and Chips
Ashens and the Kickstarter Heist.

Lolcow Enjoyer
Lolcow Enjoyer
1 year ago

I’ve never been to Norwich, but I can’t picture it as being the retro gaming and plant-based gastronomy capital of Britain. Can anyone really see Alan Partridge going to a vegan pub to play a bit of Pac-Man? I think not.

Stevieboy74
Stevieboy74
1 year ago
Reply to  Lolcow Enjoyer

He certainly does!

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Stevieboy74
Stevieboy74
1 year ago

What fucking annoys me about this is the fact that it’s clearly obvious they’ve already sunk a load of their own money (or should I say simps donated money) into this, and the 35 grand they’re asking for now is clearly just to keep them afloat probably, and not to progress the project in any meaningful way. The rent on those premises probably costs a ton on its own, and this is probably a pathetic attempt to get people to fund that for them for a while, and you know exactly what will happen, it will eventually go tits up because it’s a terribly shit idea, and then they’ll roll out the usual kickstarter theft excuses – ‘ohh we tried but we just couldn’t get over the line blab blah, but we’re keeping all the thousands you idiots were stupid enough to pledge anyway, of course we are, in fact we’ve got enough of that left over for a good holiday probably!’

Parasitic cretins.

Frot hat
Frot hat
1 year ago

Can’t wait for the oh shit moment on the electricity

“this out run cab is like having a kettle on boil all day”

Swiftly followed by a 5 part YouTube series on what is inside an arcade cabinet and how expensive they are to run and maintain.

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Frot hat
Frot hat
1 year ago
Reply to  George

I think we’ve uncovered a pattern!

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Grinning Simpleton Gamer
Grinning Simpleton Gamer
1 year ago

Imagine that twat going on Dragon’s Den and asking for money. He’d be toast.

The licence trade is in the doldrums, inflation and running costs are insane and and you are aiming at the vegan retro gamer market? Are you some kind of idiot?

Hence why they need the extra money to get over the line. Although it’s a drop in the ocean. I reckon the Kickstarter is to pay off a chunk of the first years rent.

On the one hand good luck to anyone brave enough to set up a business. On the other hand get a bank loan and some proper investors like a normal person you grifting plastic gamer.

Still at least there’s a titty bar next door so he won’t be the biggest tit on the street.

Jambon
Jambon
1 year ago

The sense of entitlement emanating from this dead-eyed grifter is off the charts. Can you imaging how depressing it will be for the Kickstarter backers when then turn up to the “exclusive” launch party for their free drink? Nostalgia Nerd will be there with his real friends/fellow grifters and they’ll all be laughing their heads off at the poor suckers. Also, I wonder how happy the owner of the board game cafe would be if some grifting Youtuber and their mates set up a new board game cafe round the corner from them, part funded by the hard earned money of their half-wit followers. Not very i suspect.

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Codetapper
1 year ago

I’m getting really sick of these UK YouTubers. Their entire plan in life seems to be grow their audience by stepping on anyone they can, steal ideas and content from smaller channels, produce the lowest common denominator cookie-cutter garbage and then get the general public to pay for them. Yet in public, they’re back-slapping each other, making pacts on their discord servers, shilling any old crap shown their way. Honestly they’d peddle chocolate-coated dog shit if it brought in a few patreon dollars.

They beg for patrons, freebies, donations, ko-fi’s, superthanks etc (in return for sweet FA), and when they want something bigger it’s off to the bank of muggins, the same fools that fund these people month after month. Most of them need a reality check, a real job and stop sponging off their supporters.

Honestly it’s a disgrace and it’s fantastic you’re calling these pond-scum out.

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Ninja Badger
Ninja Badger
1 year ago

“Samantha” is Nostalgia Nerd’s new girlfriend after Octavius got dumped.

Grinning Simpleton Gamer
Grinning Simpleton Gamer
1 year ago
Reply to  Ninja Badger

I await her Kickstarter project that she becomes too sad to complete.

Boingalot
Boingalot
1 year ago
Reply to  Ninja Badger

I thought he was married with kids?

Boingalot
Boingalot
1 year ago
Reply to  George

Ooooh sauciness ahoy!

Boingalot
Boingalot
1 year ago
Reply to  George

Ooooh sauciness ahoy!

The things you learn in this life and on this site!

fierce onion
fierce onion
1 year ago

The only thing a second retro bar/cafe in Norwich is going to make is a loss.

Opening a cafe with the current crippling levels of inflation is fucking insane. It’s pretty common for businesses to have a relatively decent 3 to 6 month discount on unit rental to get them off to a solid start especially if the space hasn’t been used for a while.

I suspect he’s asking for the bare minimum to start trading with nothing left in the bank to cover any issues of equipment fixes so when the rent goes up after 3 – 6 months it’s going to hit the business hard.

I could rattle off costs for running a bar/restaurant as I used to manage a successful one when the economy was booming, but in this current climate I suspect by the time he’s paid his utilities, food, rent and staff there’s gonna be nothing left for him.

I can’t help wondering if he has a beef with retro replay.

I’m not a fan of the Nostalgia Nerd by any stretch of the imagination but I wish him well enough to tell him not to bother with this not that anyones stupid enough to back him

Grinning Simpleton Gamer
Grinning Simpleton Gamer
1 year ago
Reply to  fierce onion

Yep, rent discount at the start. But then you have your rates, VAT, energy, waste collection, staffing costs, marketing, etc etc. You need seriously deep pockets. Pubs and venues are still going to the wall. I know places that just closed for the whole of Jan and Feb, or went part hours.

A board game cafe doesn’t translate to an arcade bar. Board games have broad appeal. Older people may pop in during the day. With an arcade cafe bar the demographic is far more limited. 45 year old blokes and hipster. And the hipsters have a massive choice of venue across the city. Your 45 year olds have kids and wives and I can’t see a venue on the same street as a titty bar being a go to family venue.

And yet again the retro community is asked to put its hand in its pockets for these people. Why? Because it’s easy and no sane investor is gonna stump up the cash.

It’s a shot in the dark, they’ll be doing it with no real cash reserves needed to stick it out, and it’ll last until the second rates bill hits and the rent goes up to market value. Sure they’ll do well initially due to the buzz, but 6 months in and the novelty has worn off, they’ll be back begging for more money to save them.

Fierce onion
Fierce onion
1 year ago

Ashens should bloody well know better. For years I thought he was the only one that could stay away from all the drama.

I’m a bit disappointed in him.

Anonymous39523091
Anonymous39523091
1 year ago

Nice to see someone saying it how it is. Seemed like absolute insanity to be kickstarting this business, costs for thee and profits for me. Still, shows there’s plenty of fools to be had still given the funds they’ve raised so far. Not that it’ll save them…

Boingalot
Boingalot
1 year ago

A bit confused here, what the hell has a jungle theme got to do with arcade games? By the looks of it they will use a lot of those retro pi cabs as they won’t have much time to resource and repair original machines.
Also from what I gather the road it’s on is famous for strip clubs etc. a lovely area for families.

Grinning Simpleton Gamer
Grinning Simpleton Gamer
1 year ago
Reply to  Boingalot

It’s next to a strip club so Nostalgia Grifter won’t be the biggest plastic tit in the neighbourhood.

Boingalot
Boingalot
1 year ago

And they will have a choice of real or
Plastic bush to stare at.

Geezer
Admin
1 year ago

If they had any balls they’d have put their proposed business plan up on their crowdfund page. The first question any reasonable investor would ask is “who is your competition?”, which is a difficult one to answer given there’s a well established business around the corner offering over and above what’s on offer here. So what are they to do?

The answer is simple…. e-Beg for money from their subscribers to raise 25K of capital which I suspect will go towards…
a) paying for a venue refurb
b) paying for arcade machines.
c) paying for landlord bonds

At the end of the day, it’s a grift – plain and simple and I’m surprised this Samantha Whitehouse or whatever she’s called hasn’t asked the obvious questions, I can only assume she’s in for a percentage.

Yes they can raise capital on the grift, but keeping it going and the operating costs will swallow them up in 6 months.

Crazy.

Boingalot
Boingalot
1 year ago
Reply to  Geezer

Good points.
What happened to the pizza place that the food guy works with Ashens was going to open after a crowdfunding?

TRVG
1 year ago

As much as this would seem to benefit the Retro community, given there’s another retro arcade close by, and with so many bars closing in Norwich this feels like business suicide to open a place with the implied suggestion you might meet ‘your favourite youtuber behind the bar’.

But what it does show is two things:

1. The bank laughed the business plan for a loan out of the door.

2. All of the channels involved are suffering income wise and need the extra money to keep going the way they currently perform.

I hope I’m wrong on many of the thoughts there, but is suspect I’m not.

Boingalot
Boingalot
1 year ago
Reply to  TRVG

Pretty much bang on there!

Gobbins
Gobbins
1 year ago

I’ll wait for the Kickscammers episode…

Gobbins
Gobbins
1 year ago
Reply to  George

In case it wasn’t clear, I was being facetious haha. I see he’s already backed it and left a comment. Birds of a feather, and all that.

Not sure about you, but if I had a business idea I was so confident in I’d be pitching it to legitimate investors with tangible financial backing, apply for small business loans and the like – not try to sponge money from [insert username with the obligatory word ‘retro’ in], but hey I’m not Alan Sugar.

Luc
Luc
1 year ago

So the bank won’t give them any (more?) money which I imagine means they don’t see it as viable business.
Still, thanks for bringing Retro Replay (Norwich’s original premier arcade lounge!) to my attention, I may well have a look there as £12 for the day is not bad at all (they also list high scores you can submit on their website for machines that don’t save scores).
That’s right : Retro Replay; Norwich’s Original Premier Arcade Lounge!

UnixAnt
UnixAnt
1 year ago

I live in Norwich, and we do indeed have plenty of:

A) Retro gaming shops where you can play with the consoles & also the Retro Replay arcade which you mentioned in the video
B) Vegan Restaurants
C) Pubs & Bars. Norwich is nicknamed “The City of Ale” due to the large amount of seriously good pubs & ale houses.

I would be very surprised if this gets off the ground…

u4ria
Admin
1 year ago

Somethings that needed pointing out are
• Pubs, clubs and restaurants are dying out on the high-street
• Most people that are interested in arcades generally want cheap food not cattle feed for double the
cost.
• Fuel prices(electricity and gas) are at all time highs and what do pubs/restaurants use a lot of ? and
they want to add arcade games to the mix…

The thing that sticks out most to me is why are they begging for help?

They got laughed out of the bank when asking for a business loan when they said we want to open a pub/restaurant. You know the main businesses that are collapsing right now but its also its going to be a retro arcade….

I hope they make it work and i hope the people who funded this with kickstarter get their moneys worth(lol).

u4ria
Admin
1 year ago
Reply to  George

Retro replay are already established and i don’t think these shitehawks will make any difference. I’ll be surprised if they last more than 6 months any small business takes a lot of work to get off the ground and rarely makes enough to pay decent wages for at least 12 to 18 months. so i hope they have a massive buffer to pay the running costs and to pay them enough to live off and then on top of this multiple sources are saying the price of living is not going to go down anytime soon and the standard living in this country is going to drop off a cliff edge over the next two years so people are not going to have the free cash they once did.
Also the other thing is there’s what 4 – 5 people involved, As they say too many cocks spoil the broth and that’s also a lot of people to split the pie between.

Danger Otter
Danger Otter
1 year ago
Reply to  u4ria

A lot of cocks in this particular broth by the looks of it!

Stevie Aaron
Stevie Aaron
1 year ago

Aw, George. Hope you didn’t get that medical bill on a… SATURDAY! Because that’s just really insensitive.

Chumpyman
Chumpyman
1 year ago

Hvae you saw NQ64? up here in scotland they have locations. Both a selection of games to play and drinks to be had.

Danger Otter
Danger Otter
1 year ago
Reply to  Chumpyman

There’s a really good argument for having arcade bars, but not this format and not that town.

Danger Otter
Danger Otter
1 year ago

The tokens wind me, up in miles away from anywhere but there’s a few places you can go and have drinks and play arcade games and it’s always free play for an entry fee. Dear oh dear, the vegan grifting needs to stop but I got cows and lambs to sell. Why is everything a crowd funder now !?!?!!

Danger Otter
Danger Otter
1 year ago
Reply to  George

being cheeky on the internet…bastardy!! There’s plenty of towns that could probably sustain one of these, getting a venue and working out a very anaemic business plan before the ebeg…bloody hell. If I wasn’t cynical enough then this is bollocks…open one up the road, share the joy of oldschool arcades, getting by on emulation is enough for me mostly.