New playground for adults

This is a column about adult entertainment, but not the kind that some naughty minds will spontaneously think of.

It will be about a brand new concept in the Quebec landscape: a games room for adults. The equivalent – ​​with alcohol and metal darts – of amusement centers filled with out of breath children running through mazes before diving into plastic balls.

Its name: The Rec Room. The concept imagined by cinema giant Cineplex has taken up residence in the Royalmount shopping center, as announced in 2019. The first customers will be able to enter the doors on Monday.

The brightly lit space surprises with its vast expanse. There are mainly arcade games, but also a few short bowling alleys, pool tables, air hockey, two restaurants, including one with table service and a terrace overlooking the park. Private rooms can be reserved by businesses or families to celebrate a birthday.

A stage will host singers, comedians, karaoke, DJs. The Cineplex website even advertises painting parties to create a work of art. “We provide the equipment, so no matter your experience level, all you have to do is show up, order a drink. » In other branches, you can throw axes, practice archery, play mini-golf and ping-pong, but not in Montreal. However, we promise that activities will change over time.

What is especially striking is how much games have changed since the days of dark arcades with a somewhat shady clientele.

Forget the row of small, slender boxes all the same, with a single moderately responsive controller to move Pac-Man or Donkey Kong. We are really somewhere else. But we didn’t realize it since the arcades have almost all disappeared from Quebec.

“Today, with technology, it’s no longer just pinballs! », said Daniel Seguin, vice-president, national operations, of Cineplex, introducing me to the “unifying concept”. In fact, virtual reality headsets are everywhere. Each of the 80 games is imposing, different from its neighbor, full of lights and screens.

Cineplex already operates 10 other The Rec Rooms elsewhere in the country, including one at the foot of the CN Tower in Toronto. In Quebec, the Régie des alcools, des courses et des jeux (RACJ) had to agree in 2019 to modify its regulations for Cineplex to come along, because its games bring in “virtual tickets” that can be exchanged for money. merchandise. If you’ve ever been to Niagara Falls, you know what it’s all about. Arcades and small ticket meters are omnipresent.

The RACJ admitted to me that it did not know why devices that allow you to collect points or tickets that can be exchanged for a pencil or a teddy bear were prohibited. Since the legislative change, we have slowly seen them appearing in children’s playrooms and laser tag.

But when you look at how popular entertainment complexes are in the United States, you wonder why they’re taking so long to develop here. South of the border, the concept was popularized by the company Dave & Buster’s, whose shares are traded on the NASDAQ. In its last fiscal year, revenues reached 2.2 billion US (3 billion CAN) and profits, 127 million US (178 million CAN).

In Canada, Cineplex doesn’t really have any competition in its new niche, other than restaurants like La Cage where groups of friends meet to watch Canadian matches on screens. We can also think of bowling alleys, but the Rec Room clientele is undoubtedly younger. According to Daniel Seguin, the 18 to 34 year old group is the largest. Even if you can walk around with a cocktail in hand, be aware that children are allowed.

While inflation continues to weigh heavily on the budgets of many households, we cannot ignore the question of the cost of activities.

To have fun, you must first purchase credits which will be recorded in a bracelet. For $10 you get 40, while $25 gets 160 and $100 gets 790. Each game costs 4 to 8 credits. This means that with $10, we can test between 5 and 10, which is reasonable.

Those who prefer the cinema can always watch a film in one of the five cinemas. The Rec Room at Royalmount is the only one in the country to include a cinema.

As you might expect, cinema attendance is no longer as high as it was 10 years ago. VHS tapes, DVDs, and streaming video didn’t kill it, but from 2015 to 2023, Cineplex saw the number of customers drop from 77 million to 48 million. It therefore became imperative to diversify sources of income.

After focusing on an activity that requires silence, Cineplex is now investing in a concept that provokes screams of joy during good shots at darts and billiards.