Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Web Hosting : Hosting for flash game site

[mfston]

Hi,

I will use Wordpress to create a typical flash gaming site with a forum, a whole lot of bandwidth-eating games and a few articles. (I promoted my previous site through flash games which proved extremely successful)

I need pretty good reliability, digg "survivability", fast MySQL and a lot of bandwidth, hopefully for less than $20/month. A few gigabytes of diskspace should do for now.

I was considering Dreamhost until I heard MySQL queries are horrendously slow (a fellow game programmer recommended them for their high bandwidths). I'm using A Small Orange for a smaller site of mine and it works great, only they don't offer the kind of bandwidth I need for a reasonable price.

Right now, I'm thinking about Network Solutions $13.30 mo "Advanced" plan.

Any suggestions/help/opinions?

Thanks in advance,
Mfston

[dprundle]

What kind of bandwidth are you looking for? I run a few flash game sites and an extremely popular one and have never had bandwidth issues. A few of my games are viral on myspace also.

[amdcomms]

Might be an idea to get a VPS for a little bit extra dollar. Least then you will have dedicated resources and the option to move to a dedicated server if your bandwith levels increase

[mfston]

Dprundle, I have a hard time giving any specific numbers, but I expect a lot. I'm actually re-launching a site that has been offline for a longer period, but through that time has received nearly 1000 unique visitors daily (through a link in ONE flash game released in March, last year). I can't exactly recall what the traffic looked like at its worst but I think the absolute spike was 20,000 visitors (after being dugg), otherwise maybe around 3000 daily.

Amidcomms, I have been considering it but I'm hesitant as the ad market for gaming sites is so saturated, I'm worried the site won't cover the expenses.

[cabron]

With that many visitors you better get urself at least a vps if not a dedi. An arcade site is very sql intensive and with so may uniques you will certainly get the boot.

[mfston]

Really? Any suggestions for a reliable and affordable VPS then?

[Shaw Networks]

Whichever web host you end up choosing, try to get a free trial first. If you want your website to be digg-survivable you'll want to make sure that your hosting during non-peak times loads instantly. If you experience any slight lags during non-Digg situatins, then a full on Digg rush will certainly bring down the server.

[rrhodes]

Hard to say what you need without know what load your site will put on a server. Bandwidth was one of your concerns but how much do you really need?

Without knowing these numbers it will be hard for you to find a host that will meet your needs.

[mfston]

Rrhodes, it's hard to predict because I can't tell the future
I expect my new game to get dugg, and I suppose that could mean something like 25,000 visitors x 1.5 mb (if they load the whole game) = 37 GB on the worst day, and maybe anywhere between 15,000 - 5,000 visitors the rest of the month. As I'll offer more than just one game, it's very hard to predict how much bandwidth each user will use. Say 0.5 MB each (everybody won't play a game) meaning 10.000 users x 30 days x 0.5 MB = 150 GB

So maybe around 2-300 GB bandwidth a month would do?

[mfston]

I guess I could swallow $30 - but where can I find reliable VPS that give at least 300 GB monthly bandwidth for that price?

[cabron]

The vps isn't the only problem. Management for the vps is. Do you know how to manage a server?

[mfston]

Cabron - I have no idea. I have no experience whatsoever of anything above shared hosting.

[Soskel34]

mfston - if you can afford $50/month, I would try servint

[Dougy]

BigVPS can handle what you need.

[Noble-Cast]

A VPS server would be best.