End of an Inning
360 Degree Gaming Center was my last stop for this trip. It was also my last day out on my own. This place already had some pictures up online so I KINDA knew what I was getting but I still wanted to go see for myself. Which was a little difficult as the entire area was torn up and under construction. My Uber actually dropped me off right around the corner form it, but I couldn’t get there because of the construction. So it took a moment to find it.
I showed up right after the place opened, so I wasn’t expecting a full house or anything. Truly I just wanted to see what it was like. Similar to the 360 Game Center I saw in the shopping mall (previous post) this was laid out in a familiar way. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if both of these places were under the same umbrella. But again, it was just a bunch of high end PCs and PlayStations.
This time, there were a lot. Two floors worth, actually. The bottom floor had 10 stations set up along three different risers with two more (not shown) to the left that had VR headsets. Not a lot was turned on, but I bet when that place gets going (weekends?) that everything is in use. They also had food and beverages. The conversion rate approx 4 QAR to 1 USD which means that everything is pretty well affordable. Really felt like they weren’t up-charging for a captured market.
Upstairs was were the PCs were. Tricked out cases in a futuristic setting. Around each pillar were 4 PCs facing center. Dim red lights to silhouette everything. The place was actually pretty sweet looking. There were about 4 or 5 pillars in total giving about 16-20 machines to play. You could get a pretty sweet game of CS or Unreal going in there. It didn’t look like anything was ready to play. Just running basic network utilities showing connection, lag, and data transmitted. Probably because I was the only person in there besides the two employees.
So it really looked like there was only one arcade-type place in Doha, Qatar with arcade games, driving sims, and the like. The rest seemed little more than everything you could get at home. And that’s not what I go to arcades for. PS and PC games are not that expensive anymore. But maybe they are in Qatar. I never looked at the pricing.
I am happy to be going home. But I really liked checking these places out and then writing about them. So I think I’m going to check out a few of the places near me and maybe in other cities that I travel to. This has definitely been an enjoyable experience.
Erik