This question goes out to anyone that plays any steam games that run on servers....How do they host their servers? I mean, what would it take to start something like www.velocity-servers.com up? I am really new to this kind of stuff so sorry for the newbness:(

Lots and LOTS of money :-P

This question goes out to anyone that plays any steam games that run on servers....How do they host their servers? I mean, what would it take to start something like www.velocity-servers.com (http://www.velocity-servers.com) up? I am really new to this kind of stuff so sorry for the newbness:(
Yes it would take a lot of money to start your own server rental business, but you could just get a pretty nice dedicated server to run a few personal game servers, if thats all you wanted to do.

Entering the GSP business is not as expensive as you may think, but of course some initial investment is required. It takes a lot of time, a lot of effort, even more dedication, and a hint of luck.

You'll of course need machines, a site, control panels, etc, no different than any other web based business.

Best of luck :)

You dont always need to have your own boxes to start off with, there are a few gameserver companies which allow reselling. Basically, a client signs up to you, and you buy a gameserver off this other company, at a discounted price.
May not be the best method, but certainly the most cost affective for a new, small gameserver company

I've never tried it myself, but I've been told from people who do run their on GS businesses that it's rarely worth the hassle these days.

The turnaround you make for your invested in both hardware and time is very very small, and you really do need to have 24/7 true dedicated support since a lot of GS' are quite unstable.

Plus, unless you have a lot of money to start off with, it's very hard to compete with the big guys like GameServers.com and their in-house developed, fully featured Control Panel.

Game Servers Rental takes alot, and i mean ALOT of time. As previous posts suggests.

Unless you are available 24/7 then you will need to hire staff. This of course costs money on top of your basic setup, Dedicated Servers, Control Panel / OS Licensing.

You also have to think about your initial costs. Chances are your going to need a relatively powerful and expensive server for hosting your game servers, which won't come cheap, and then how are your going to host your company website, on th same box? I don't recommend this, although i have known companies that have.

Uptime is also very important. I'm assuming your a gamer yourself, and therefore you will known the important of the servers being online. When client servers start getting full and "populated" they don't want them to go down, AT ALL. Should they happen to, you'll be dealing with mass amounts of complaints - Should you have the customers!

Competing with GameServers, Velocity Servers, won't be easy. Not many customers won't want to leave there existing providers, as it means downtime and change of IP addresses (Important to many clans and public communities with popular servers.) You also need to think about how you are going to compete.

The bottom line is the industry for game servers is very demanding, you need to be able to provide support, low latency and reliable servers. Also, don't be surprised if someone 12/13 year old steals there parents credit card and purchases an expensive server without permission. Chances are they'll try claim it back in a fortnight, and Paypal aren't too good at protecting there sellers.


Don't start up the business until you've done your research, and don't get me wrong, if you believe you can do it, do it! ;)