Mana Bar

Mana Bar is the first Australian cocktail bar and video gaming lounge located in Brisbane, Australia within its biggest night-life and entertainment district, Fortitude Valley. The bar held its opening event on March 20, 2010. The bar allows visitors to play current generation gaming console free or charge while enjoying video game themed drinks. The bar is open seven nights a week and often runs special events such as prizes, giveaways, live entertainment and special guests.

The Mana Bar is a collaboration between Guy "Yug" Blomberg, co-creator of Australian Gamer, Pras Moorthy, senior designer at The Creative Assembly, video game journalist Ben Croshaw, and Shay Leighton, creative director of local cocktail bar The Bowery.

History
The idea was first conceived by Australian Gamer co-creator Guy Blomberg, in December 2007 after a house party in which Guy himself noted the successful combination of alcohol and video games made for an excellent social environment. Guy was later joined in this enterprise by Ben "Yahtzee" Crowshaw, Pras Moorthy and Shay Leighton. After years of planning and several pushed back opening dates, the Mana Bar opened on March 20, 2010, making it the first ever Australian venue allowing patrons to both consume alcohol and play video games. It is also reported that there are only a handful of venues in the world that offer a similar experience. Despite the 50 person capacity of the venue, the opening night saw over 100 line up, with the waiting time for some reported to be up to three hours long.

The Mana Bar has received significant media coverage from prime video game and geek culture sites including Kotaku, Destructoid and Gizmodo. and Joystiq

Video game industry relations
The Mana Bar has strong ties with the video game industry, and has been used by developers and publishers as a promotional venue where they can preview or launch their games. This has included the launch of Blazblu, the Halo: Reach multiplayer beta, Just Cause 2 and Raskulls all being playable at the venue prior to the official launch of the games, the latter being a preview exclusive to the Mana Bar.

Politics
In March 2010, the Legislative Assembly of Queensland released a report into alcohol-related violence, suggesting a connection to violent video games. On April 20, 2010 the Mana Bar responded to the report, stating that there has not been a single violent incident within their present four weeks of operation, and encouraged the Queensland Government to include the Mana Bar in their future studies.