The Game Is Installed. Now What?

Above: Installation, tech setup, and ongoing software updates are included in every TSGG partnership – this has proven to be a key to success for many of our partners, says Ryan Hurley, National Account Manager at TSGG.

Moving into competitive socialising is a commercial decision. Making it work is an operational one. Here’s where the real work begins.

Most operators who install social gaming know why they’re doing it. The commercial case is clear: longer dwell times, stronger group bookings, a revenue stream that complements the bar. What’s less clear, until you’re in it, is how to make the experience consistently deliver on that promise.

The questions that come up most often from new partners aren’t technical. They’re operational. And they start on day one.

Getting the installation right, from the start.

Installation, tech setup, and ongoing software updates are included in every TSGG partnership. But the part that determines whether a venue hits the ground running is staff training. A well-installed game that staff aren’t confident with is a missed opportunity every shift.

TSGG trains venue teams on how the games work, how to introduce them to guests who are new to either the format or the technology, and how to keep a group engaged once they’re playing. That last part matters more than it sounds. The difference between a group that plays one round and leaves, and a group that stays for three, is often how the experience was framed in the first two minutes.

How do we engage larger groups and corporate clients?

This is the question that opens the most doors commercially – and the one operators feel least equipped to answer without experience behind them. The format matters as much as the game itself. A corporate team-building evening of 40 people needs a different structure than a Saturday night walk-in crowd.

TSGG’s Playbook – The Hangar – includes tested event formats built specifically for these occasions – among them Dart Quiz, a format that blends trivia and live darts play for groups of up to 250 participants across multiple booths, coordinated on a single screen and led by a host. It turns a standard darts installation into a programmable events platform. Knowing that format exists, and how to sell it, changes the conversation with corporate clients entirely.

Dart Quiz in Action

Drawing on experience built across venues, and years.

TSGG has been running OCHE venues and supporting partners across different markets for eighteen years. That operational experience – what works on a quiet midweek evening, what a corporate group of 80 actually needs, how to recover when something goes wrong at 8pm on a Saturday – isn’t something a new operator can build quickly on their own.

Partners can draw on that knowledge – through training, through The Hangar, our Playbook, and through ongoing dialogue with the TSGG team. And occasionally, where it makes sense, TSGG can step in more directly: helping run a tournament, hosting a Dart Quiz, or supporting a launch event. Not as a contracted service, but because making a partner’s first big event go well matters to us as much as it does to them.

How do we set pricing?

Pricing is the question operators are most reluctant to ask, and the one that most directly affects commercial performance. Set it too low and the game feels like an afterthought. Set it too high and walk-in conversion drops. The right answer depends on the venue, the guest mix, and how social gaming sits within the broader offer.

TSGG works through this with every new partner – not with a fixed formula, but with the context that comes from having had the same conversation across hundreds of venues. The goal is pricing that reflects the value of the experience and makes commercial sense from the first week of trading.

What this means in practice.

The operators who get the most from social gaming aren’t necessarily the ones with the best venues or the biggest budgets. They’re the ones who understood from the start that the installation is the beginning of the partnership, not the end of it.

The game earns its place when the people running it feel confident, the events fill up, and guests come back. Getting there takes more than a good product. It takes the experience to know what good looks like.

The Social Gaming Group supports every partner from installation through to ongoing operations – with training, event formats, marketing assets, and commercial guidance built into every partnership.

👉 Talk to us about making social gaming work in your venue →