ESports Gaming in North Texas

At Desh Gaming Lounge, our goal is to provide the gaming community with a place for people of all ages to come and game to their heart's content. Over the last five years of being open, we have created a great social atmosphere with personable and informative staff while providing high-end gaming equipment to enhance your gaming experience.

Every day is full of new gaming experiences at The DESH, and we have been blessed to make it this far. As we advance, we are always setting Goals and Milestones ahead and working towards making them a reality. This gives us the one-tracked mind for improving your gaming experience every time you visit. We are doing that now with our current goal of bringing eSports back to North Texas.

Gaming has been our passion, and bringing eSports back is our Goal. Weekly and monthly tournaments of all the popular games. Mortal Combat, Street Fighter, Racing Games, Fortnite, Rocket League, League of Legends, and More! At the Desh, we want you to be able to play even if you are a casual gamer or competitive player, so there has to be a way to do that while figuring out a way to keep it going for years to come.

Over the last few years, there has been a refresh of new gaming lounges that have popped up and disappeared. The same result has affected large venues and eSports arenas, like the Arlington ESports arena, and caused them to decline or outright shut down operations. We have studied the gaming and eSports scene in North Texas and the United States. It has shown us that these other lounges and arenas had a significant flaw in being an epicenter for gaming. That flaw was a lack of sustainability.

Our goal is to bring back weekly and monthly eSports to North Texas.

To do this, we need the following:

1. A larger location than we currently have. So a dedicated, built-to-game building.

2. A purpose-built building will need land to be built on.

3. Baked-in sustainability that supports the venue and the gamers.

4. All the gaming essentials for tournaments or casual play, like constantly updated PCs, latest generation consoles, VR headsets, and Arcade gaming equipment.

5. An eSports stage for tournaments held on a State, National, or International scale. Paired with a custom streaming booth for casting these tournaments to online media platforms.

6. Food, all gamers need food. So a full kitchen with gamer meals at the ready.

7. Low Prices: The Desh has a $5 policy. $5 per hour PC/Console, $5 per half-hour VR. Compare that to MainEvent in Fort Worth, where VR costs around $30+ per hour. Or other VR boutiques in Fort Worth or Dallas, where each 30-minute session can be $50.

A new building will allow us to host tournaments and daily PC, VR, and Console gaming. Looking at the DFW metroplex for locations, we have seen that the cost-effective options would have to be in a place with easy access to the main interstate highways while also being in a popular food and entertainment district of the area it's in. Burleson, Texas, is a perfect fit for this as the opportunity potential is far greater than the downtown areas of Dallas and Fort Worth which are hard to navigate and expensive. The market potential of our competitors is also very lacking. All other gaming lounge venues are on the opposite side of the DFW metroplex.

As for the Gaming building itself, the first floor will be roughly 10,000 sqft, and the second floor will be 6,000 sqft.

Plenty of space for:

-12 VR setups

-56 PC Gaming setups

-4 racing sim rigs

-16 single-player console setups with huge monitors

-2-4 couch console setups

-Full-Service kitchen for making all the best gamer food available

-A dedicated eSports stage for 10 players and 20-40 eSports staging area setups

--This also can be used for tabletop gaming

-A private 8-player room for teams wanting to practice, private gaming parties, or a members-only room with absolute, top-of-the-line PC gear.

-Another dedicated room with the capability to be a D&D, karaoke, or a party doing tabletop gaming.

For sustainability, we aim to create a second building for other businesses to lease. The City of Burleson has given us an excellent opportunity for a plot right in the center of town. It places us next to a college, many food venues, and very close to the main highway. The land is also big enough for our sustainability idea. Making dedicated sponsors for the gaming lounge. Having other businesses move into the extra retail units would give the gaming venue a constant stream of income to sponsor activities. That means we can give out extra winnings at tournaments, upgrade gaming equipment and pay for entertainment personalities to come and be a caster, or hosts, for broadcasted events. Just imagine it; we will be hosting tournaments all the time that can be for people of all ages. Middle schoolers could use the money earned from winnings to attend national tournaments. High school students could use earnings as scholarship money for college. College students could sharpen their gaming skills and make money to participate in international events.

Today we have a location for gaming, and once this new location is built, we will be one of the largest ESports Lounges in the country. Right now, we have made contacts within the City of Burleson to partner with them on this project, and they are on board with helping us in any way they can to make it a reality.

What does this project need?

Capital to get a loan.

And how much we can fundraise will determine the speed at which we can start building the structure. What we need to get started is 20% of the total value to get a loan. We have already partnered with the City of Burleson, and other investors, to get the project started as long as we can get the starting cost for buying the land and structure. The build-out is estimated in the $6.5-$10 million range. So what we are asking for is at least enough to get started, and we can take it from there. Stretch goals would make the entire process faster and could make changes to the way we design the buildings. From the $1 - $10,000+ total Donation amount, we will be releasing updates to the Fundraiser on things like floorplans, interior design, and food/beverage types are all examples.

[For anyone donating, we are currently looking into saying a form of thank you for your donation amount after we open the new building...

This has to conform, however, to GoFundMe's rules that our campaign cannot contain raffles, sweepstakes, giveaways, or promotions to be offered in exchange for any donations.]

-Our goal is to reach the $2 million capital requirement.

--This gets us the loan and buys the equipment needed to cover the basics.

-First Real Goal: $500k

This amount would give us enough to acquire just the land. We'd run another fundraising campaign afterward to get the first building built and then the gaming building. The longest out of all the plans, but we're not afraid of a little video game grinding session.

-Second Real Goal: $2m

This amount is Land plus the first building paid for. Sustainability for the win! Now, we need to pre-lease them out and use the income to fund the gaming building.

-First Stretch Goal: $8m

Yeah, that is a LOT of money, but well worth it if that means playing on RTX 4090's before the end of next year. Of course, that's if we had this money by the end of 2022. We could sign for the land and tell the builders to draft the final blueprints immediately. If it takes longer to fundraise, the build time would be extended, but we could build the gaming building First with all the capital secured.

-Second Strech Goal: $8.25m (+$250k)

--Upgrades to interior design; spaceship, retro, and the look of RGB gamer setups are all on the table right now.

--More than just retro arcade. Brand new arcade setups using swipe cards for low-cost, day pass play times.

--All new Xbox series X, PS5, and upgrades to the monitor choices for single-player console setups. (+online subs)

-Third Strech goal: $8.5m (+$250k)

--Redesign the gaming building to include more specific categories of gaming (Depending on public reaction)

---Larger eSports centered, or double down on arcade, PCs, and Consoles

--- Add more food varieties, hiring of more dedicated food staff, adding in of anime themes for serving staff

-Third Strech Goal: $9m (+$500k)

Congrats! You funded the entire project plus all the upgrades!

-Final Strech Goal: $9m-$10m

If gamers can open a lounge with 16,000 square feet of eSports awesome, Why not 30,000 sqft? Or make it one HUGE building!

--Swapping buildings with the retail location would almost DOUBLE the gaming space. ESports on a scale that rivals the national venues. How cool would that be!