What is needed to run a game server?

[overlord20]

I have had a lot of experience with this... I have seen providers come and go. I am not saying its going to be hard or easy or anything. I just know a majority of the people are going to go with a server company that advertise data centers rather then not. Former owner of FPSGS states "not smart, but possible" about hosting out of your basement. Which supports what I am saying. Your more likely to make money by going through a data center.

 

[wafflehammer]

Well give me some information to back this up. I gave the ways on how you would profit from my way. So show me something that shows it's still worthwhile going your way.

Even if it's only $100/mouth per computer at a datacenter within 10 months that could buy you a pretty good computer but with doing that you're going to be buying that computer over and over. My way after the cost of the computer is paid off it's just the internet/electric bill.

And again, those people are for companies that are larger than what I'm aiming for.

farmer's market vs wal-mart. I'm wanting a small customer base. No use going with wal-mart if a small market can get me by.

 

[overlord20]

Who do you plan to be your customer base? Go for it but your going to need more then a "few" customers to profit off a server. Going to need Demo servers since you don't have any reviews. And prove the customer why your WV basement server is better then the data center in Chicago and Denver and Dallas.. You will only be serving to East coast then (nobody in central US or Western US wants a server on the East Coast) which shrinks your customer base even more.

What happens to all the "potential" customers if you run out of room? Doesn't leave much room to grow easily.

Proof that its NOT smart to run basement servers? I got that info from a the former CEO of a major server company. They were a great Company that I will be doing business with as soon as they come back online. I am not making this out bigger then it is. Trust me, dealt with a lot of clans and a lot of people on the subject finding the right company for me.

Also if you could link me the 5 sources of .79 cent servers you found. I want to try out there demo servers to see if they are any good.

 

[wafflehammer]

See this is what I'm talking about.......I'm pointing out information and backing stuff up...but all I'm getting from you is "ugga ugga data center me smash" lol. If you was to provide information on these datacenters and back up their cost effectiveness then I'll look into it more.

Oh yea, it won't be in WV. It'll be in PA (outside of Pittsburgh) once I move. Still only the east coast but as said before, I'm not wanting to run a huge company that goes global.

Demo servers is easy. Since there will obviously be no costumer base at first just run servers for popular/requested as demo servers for people to test.

I am aware that I'll be aiming at a small consumer base and that I'll need each server at like 75%+ load before it becomes profitable.

 

[Oreo]

Whats all this bad news about gameservers ?

I have rented many London based servers with them, and get a very reliable connection and my ping is around 20 or 30 on my crap 3mb DSL connection, the only other GSP to offer me the same low latency is UKgame. Gameservers respond to any of my support tickets within 10 minutes no matter what the time is.

Currently renting a battlefield server with multiplay.co.uk, and it seems fine - no lag at all and perfectly stable.

And this is just my opinion but i wouldn't rent a server with it only being on a 10mb cable connection. I'm sure it's not quite the same but if i play over Virtual lan networks and my friend hosts CoD5 servers on his 10mb cable connection my ping is around 90 to 130. F that

 

[overlord20]

Whats all this bad news about gameservers ?

I have rented many London based servers with them, and get a very reliable connection and my ping is around 20 or 30 on my crap 3mb DSL connection, the only other GSP to offer me the same low latency is UKgame. Gameservers respond to any of my support tickets within 10 minutes no matter what the time is.

Currently renting a battlefield server with multiplay.co.uk, and it seems fine - no lag at all and perfectly stable.

And this is just my opinion but i wouldn't rent a server with it only being on a 10mb cable connection. I'm sure it's not quite the same but if i play over Virtual lan networks and my friend hosts CoD5 servers on his 10mb cable connection my ping is around 90 to 130. F that

I have tested many BFBC2 and Cod4 servers to prove my point. They are just spotty as **** in US. NFO FTW (if i could afford it)

 

[synergy]

I think you could try the basement thing, but Overlord's right...customers are going to want proof of stability and redundancy. If you can't prove to them that the server will be up for like 4 nines (99.99%--as is a data center's SLA) then you are going to have to drop your price to like half of what other game server providers are charging. Then you're cutting into your profits just as much as paying higher prices for data center space.

I would definitely give it a shot at your home though. If you buy the hardware you can still co-lo it at a data center if you decide to go that route down the road.

Another important thing to consider is the security. You're going to have to configure firewalls and everything so that you stay free from hackers. Once you have a server out there and it's advertised to the gaming community it's also advertised to the hackers and they WILL try to get into it.

 

[wafflehammer]

I do see where overlord is coming from with the data-center and reliability but deep down I still think it would be a possibility. I've seen it happen before, I'm sure it'll happen again.

You should have to keep in mind that it's smaller scale. Sure if I wanted to manage more than 5 I would defiantly without a doubt in my mind go with a data-center. But with this small amount it seems manageable.

BUT just to research more into that point I'm going to start going around forums that discuss games/game servers and getting the popular opinion on if anyone would even think about going with a residential type setup.

EDIT: Okay, so I posted on 3 different forums that mainly discuss gaming/computer hardware.

Forum1:
First two replies - Both are pretty positive and say they wouldn't mind as long as the connection/hardware was up to par and offered similar service compared to other places.
Third reply- Claims he actually hosts his own gamer server. And linked some website that records up-times of servers and claims his was up 99.8% of the time. (I know, it's just probably a personal server but it's still proof it's possible to keep them up and running and not be laggy)

Forum2:
First reply - Uhm...well this dude appears to be the "admin" of this forum. Rambled on about how you can rent servers by the hour/day and blah blah. No clue what he's talking about..I think this site just lost all credibility lol.

Forum3: Nothing yet :C...still

 

[overlord20]

If your interested in reselling. https://www.nfoservers.com/partnersandreselling.php

 

[wafflehammer]

If your interested in reselling. https://www.nfoservers.com/partnersandreselling.php

lol I'm seriously starting to think you are either

A: seriously biased in their favor

or

B: you're profiting in some way ...(which would mean A too lol)


Not trying to be mean..but I you haven't really added much of anything to this in the way of facts..you just keep copying n pasting their website or saying I should go through a data center lol

edited the forum replies