Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Running a Web Hosting Business : Game Servers? Profitable?

[DivineHost]

Hello,
I own a small hosting company currently. We only offer two services at the moment: Basic web hosting and reseller hosting.

I was thinking about extending my services to include Game Server hosting... I have heard that this is a VERY profitable field, is this true?

I'm not quite sure what Game Server hosting is about, can anyone really explain? I know it requires shell, but what do I need to have (preinstalled MUDs or what)?

Also, does hosting game servers put you at a high risk of Dos attacks?

Thanks,
DivineHost

[Dan L]

Well, they may open you up to DoS attacks and such due to hostile players, software bugs, etc, but generally, people get their own servers since the load is REALLY high -- not suitable for a shared environment..

[Ethical Network]

When you take things like Counter Strike into mind, the idea is costly at first, because you need a seperate server for each counter strike server that lease out. Counter Strike Servers usually run at about $50 to $150 USD depending on connection, max amount of allowed players, and so on. So it can take sometime before each server you buy even get paid off, and you start actually making money.

Not saying it is not a good idea, it can just be harder to get off the ground then a regular hosting company. But if I might recommend, I would wait on going on with these plans of yours, especially if you are thinking Counter Strike Servers, because there is talk that Counter Strike might turn to Pay-To-Play.

[cywkevin]

Dual Xeon 2.4ghz with 2 gb of ram should be able to do around 9-10 cs servers.

Course this all varies on your player count and overall usage.

[Mallclerks]

'Dual Xeon 2.4ghz with 2 gb of ram should be able to do around 9-10 cs servers.'

You also are not mentioning you need a EXCELLENT CONNECTION for that, You cant buy a dual xeon and run even ONE CS server very well from somewhere like rackshack, Which is somewhere that has horrible latency! You need excellent connections with no latancy to run any type of game server!

[2Guns]

You could run 9-10 mostly empty servers on a dual setup like that or maybe 9-10 scrim servers.

Im able to run about 90 Player slots (4-5 game servers) on a Dual 2400 MP (AMD) setup. But then again I focus more on smooth game play than packed to the brim laggy servers.


Game hosting does make money. However if you do it for "real" you will find the profits are slim.

[DivineHost]

My current machine:

Celeron 2.0 GhZ
80 GIG HD
512 MB RAM
100mbps connection (1000GB transfer allowed)

[EpicServers]

The game server business is very hard. Unless you feel you can fullfil a nitche, I would recommend against it. I was involved with a known game server business. We were grossing around 4 grand a month. But, we werent profitting very much at all. Plus customers are very fickle.

You are dealing with a lot of kids who will move to the next best thing in a heart beat, plus you will have to deal with the endless support tickets requesting sponsorship. Today, I still get randoms asking for sponsorship (1-3 a day) and I've been out for over 4 months now.

On top of that, you will constantly have to work on persons game servers because they will "tweak" the mods just right, and they will break it, blame it on you and your server, and be a pain.

The day I left the business - I decided to sponsor a known clan, gave them a nice private server for over 4 months, one day the server got a DDos attack and their match that night was going really slow. They pretty much ganged up, in my irc channel, and were saying how horrible the servers were, etc. I was using the Gamerz servers located at SM.

Again, only if you feel that its something for yourself might I consider it, or if you feel that you can support your game server business with other revenues.

[DivineHost]

Humm, sounds like fun to me :-D I'm gonna look more into it, see what profits are possible, ect...

[DivineHost]

Oh, by the way, what games are a MUST when providing game servers?
I know Counter-Strike is definately one, anything else?
How many servers can your run on one machine before having to get another one?

[Outofmymindy]

Day of Defeat is another very popular Half-Life addon. Natural Selection is gaining popularity, though I'm not sure exactly how much recognition is there.

One thing you may also want to try, is offering Ventrilo and Teamspeak servers to your customers. I've been thinking about just this myself, and looking at the Ventrilo licensing price, it would be a huge money maker, if you can find the right market and the right people to buy them. Ventrilo currently prices it's licensing at $.10 per slot on each server, and if you were charging just $1.00 per player slot, with 100 paid slots, it would leave you with a profit of $90.

Though I'd recommend keeping communications software on a seperate server from the game servers, I've been looking at www.jvds.com and their unmetered streaming media VDS plans. With a $90 profit after licensing, and $35 for their FreeBSD or RedHat/Debian Unmetered plan, you'd make a profit of $55.

Now I know it doesn't seem like much in the long run, but it could help offset game server costs, and would add up if you were to recieve a good amount of customers in the end.

[cywkevin]

Yep offsetting cost is important. True I didn't mention connection speed but thats a given for the industry anyway. And yes you can host 9-10 scrim cs servers without lag on a dual xeon if the rocket launcher is not enabled.

[innova]

Rocketlauncher in CS eh

Gotta get me one of those.

[EpicServers]

Half-Life and its mods are nice.

I would start looking into the HL2 movement, and be prepared to advertise heavily. Hopefully you can take a lead in that market, it will boom.

[2Guns]

Im actually trying to get away for HL and its mods.

Steam is a POS and updating the servers has become a large
hassle and vey time consuming.