What a PC bang is called around the world: the 2000s internet cafe

The names at a glance

The shop is almost the same everywhere. Rows of computers, payment by the hour, friends sitting side by side playing the same game. What differs is the name, and the memories attached to it.

Korean PC bangs: StarCraft and cup ramen

PC bangs spread to every neighborhood in Korea in the late 1990s, when high-speed internet and StarCraft arrived together. Four friends sat in a row, formed a team, and when they lost they queued up the next game. When they got hungry they bought a cup of ramen at the counter and ate it next to the keyboard.

Until a full smoking ban in the early 2010s, many of them were thick with cigarette smoke. Today's PC bangs advertise high-end PCs and cooked food, but for people in their 30s and older, a PC bang still means that hazy air and the smell of cup ramen.

Indonesian warnet: the billing timer and paket malam

Warnet is short for warung internet, meaning an internet stall. When you sat down, a billing program in the corner of the screen counted your remaining time, and when it ran out the screen locked. The paket malam, a cheap all-night deal, filled the seats fast on weekends.

Search "game warnet jaman dulu" (old warnet games) in Indonesia and you get a long list of names like Ragnarok Online, Point Blank and DotA. Simulation games where you run your own warnet are still popular, which says a lot of people miss those days.

Vietnamese quán net: Võ Lâm after school

In Vietnam it is called a quán net or tiệm net. In the mid 2000s the martial arts online game Võ Lâm Truyền Kỳ and the rhythm game Audition took off, and the quán net near any school was always full of kids.

There is one scene that always comes up when Vietnamese people talk about quán net. You said you were going out to do homework, and then mom or dad opened the shop door, walked in and dragged you out by the ear. People tell it laughing, but almost everyone has been through it.

Taiwan's 網咖 and China's 网吧: 泡麵 and 包夜

Taiwan's 網咖 is short for 網路咖啡店, an internet cafe. Many remember playing 楓之谷 (MapleStory) and 天堂 (Lineage) while eating 泡麵 (cup noodles) at the seat, and shops that sold drinks and simple meals were common.

In China it is called a 网吧. The signature memory is 包夜, paying once to play all night, with online games like 传奇 and Counter-Strike in heavy rotation. There were ID checks to keep minors out, so for students back then a 网吧 was also a place you sneaked off to.

Brazil's lan house: Counter-Strike 1.6 and printing homework

Brazil's lan house takes its name from shops where PCs were linked by LAN cable to play together. Counter-Strike 1.6, Tibia and GunBound were the regulars, and Brazilians still search "jogo de lan house antigo" (old lan house games) to find games from that time.

In an era when many homes had no computer, a lan house was both a game room and the neighborhood's window to the internet. You looked up school homework and printed it, wrote a résumé, and played a round with the time left over.

Japan's ネットカフェ and Thailand's ร้านเกม

Japan's ネットカフェ (ネカフェ) is a little different. Manga fills the walls, and the drink bar and partitioned booths are the center of it, more than games. Shops that focus on games often go by a separate name, gaming cafe.

In Thailand it is a ร้านเกม (game shop) or ร้านเน็ต (net shop). Kids went straight there in their school uniforms after class to play Ragnarok or Audition, and for many Thais the ร้านเกม remains a picture of after-school life.

That old internet cafe, as a game

Dumb Game Lab's PC Cafe Tycoon is an idle management game where you inherit a back-alley PC cafe your uncle left behind and grow it into the best shop in the country. You place seats, set up a ramen station and hire part-timers. It runs in Korean, English, Japanese, Chinese (Traditional and Simplified), Vietnamese, Indonesian and Thai, so the shop that went by a different name in every country can be reopened in your own language.