A new laser tag arena has opened up near me and you may be
surprised to hear me say this, but...I'm not exactly in love with it. I'll just
tell you why I had a less than favorable first impression and I'll try to make
this a constructive criticism because I really do want all laser tag to thrive.
I had showed up at this new FEC several weeks ago only to
find that, although the rest of the business was open, the laser tag arena had
not yet been cleared to open for players. Sigh, but OK, I understand that
delays happen and the manager told me they should be ready to go in two days.
And yet, by the following weekend (when I called ahead rather than just showing
up again) I was told there was still no tag open. That was a few weeks ago, so
when I at last heard through the grapevine that their tag arena had finally
opened I made plans to check it out.
There were two employees at the front counter when I walked
up to purchase my game pass. Neither initiated a greeting. I had to start the
conversation myself, which consisted of only four words from the
employee..."ten dollars" and "sign here".
So that was my experience before even getting into the arena.
And as for the arena itself? Well, I'll start with a positive...they do have a
pretty arena. It's obviously a CW design with a few elements I don't recall
seeing before.
However, it is rather
unbalanced with the green base on an upper level (there is only half of a
second level as the ramps take you to an upper deck that only runs along one
side of the arena) and the blue base in the center with the red base on the
lower right side.
I walked into the briefing room alongside a family group of
five that included a couple of younger kids. A proper division of this group of
six players would have been two teams of three and I would have tried to be
helpful to the little ones as this appeared to be their first laser tag
experience. The two game masters played the introductory briefing video. Then
the two employees had some discussion between themselves. One employee said
that he'd already played a few games in a row so the other could play again
this time. Ok...
So one of the employees (we'll call him Karm...maybe short
for Karma) announced that we would be divided into two teams (so far so
good) and he would also play as his own one player solo team against all of the
rest of us...sigh. THAT is where Karm made a big mistake! This is a new
business (and a very corporate FEC at that) and while I have no problem at all
with employees stepping in to fill out or balance a game as needed I think it
is a HUGE mistake to let them feed their own ego by playing hard or going solo
against the paying general public while they are there on the clock. I've seen
this happen all too often (usually at locally owned establishments that are a
bit more lax), but that's no excuse to start out with this poor practice.
Usually I find that it's the corporate FECs that tend to be more stringent with
their policies about this.
There was no reason for him to play at all, let alone as a
separate solo team of one, and especially not against presumably inexperienced
players (hey, he doesn't know me from Adam...he probably figured we were all
fish in a barrel). Whenever this scenario is set up it means that the one solo
player has ALL the targets available for tagging for the most potential points
while the players on the other teams have significantly less targets, meaning
inevitably less potential points from the start. It messes with the fairness of
the game as the odds heavily favor the one solo player taking the top score if
they are even moderately skilled. It's mildly annoying when it's a customer
doing it, but totally unacceptable for an employee to pull that move in a
public game.
Please understand that I'm not saying this with any concern
for my own score. My goal this game changed when I heard what he had in mind
and instead I decided to settle it like a laser tag vigilante! Rather, I say
this because a new laser tag business will simply not be well served by this
practice continuing. This place is less than eight miles from an established
tag site operating with the very same tag system so customers do have other
choices and most will not pay a premium per game just to have new staff members
try to farm points on them. The staff should be there to make sure customers
have a safe and enjoyable experience, not just to play free tag for meaningless
bragging rights.
Well, since that's how they decided to separate the teams, I
decided if this guy was going to act all "Cody" in this game that it
was now ok for me to play harder than I intended and be a bit more renegade.
Please understand I did NOT make a point of going after the other team unless
they happened to land right in my path. Instead I focused all of my attention
on keeping this guy's pack down for as much of the game as possible. That's the
only way to counter the one man solo team approach. I took my bases and made
sure I had the points. I also accomplished a bit of my earlier goal by helping
the young ones to at least get a team victory. And in the end I feel like I
settled the game in the appropriate way…yes, I beat his solo score.
So now here's the constructive part of my criticism. This is
a perfectly easy thing for a business to fix. With a new business especially
it's important to start out with clear employee expectations. I am not a fan of
the blanket rule that some corporate centers impose saying employees can never
play in public games. That can be equally counterproductive if you have someone
(like me) show up at an off-hour and want to play when there is nobody else
around. And sometimes you really do need a more experienced player to add
proper balance and an employee might fill that need perfectly. There are
sometimes appropriate situations for this. These things happen often enough and
at those times it is perfectly reasonable for a staff member to participate
because they are making sure that you walk away as a happy customer. And in
those instances I really WANT the employees to play well and give me a
challenge. But when there is a group of paid customers ready to go and the game
is not in need of any extra balancing then the employee (guided by a best
practices policy from the management) should know enough (i.e. just have some
good common sense) to not insert himself into the game unnecessarily. Come back
and get good at the game on your own time, not your employer's and not the
customer's. That's my two cents on that matter. And for the record, with this
as my initial reaction to this site I decided to exercise my consumer’s choice
to leave after that one game and did in fact go eight miles down the road to
play elsewhere for the remainder of the evening. So, while I'm always happy to
play in a new arena, I hope this account provides food for thought because you really
only get one chance to make a first impression.
Comments or Questions?
Contact: Tivia@tiviachickloveslasertag.com
Websites: www.tiviachickloveslasertag.com
and www.photonforever.com
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