Game Servers / Webhosting

Forbidden

Forbidden

Forbidden

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Joined
13 Jan 2005
Posts
628
Hey,

If in wrong section, please move. Thanks,

Im looking to start hosting lots of Game Servers and webhosting, Is there any place that I can read up on it? :) e.c.t


Thanks,
 
Anything specific you need to know? Unless you're reselling an established provider, you'll need to be confident with setup, administration and troubleshooting of all of the software you intend to run, as well as the operating system itself.
 
plus the markets pretty saturated with companies offering web and games hosting. You'll need to do something different or special to make any real headway.
 
Quite simply, I recommend you avoid the game server hosting market entirely. It's already highly saturated, the consumers (stereotypically teenage first person shooter addicts paying with PayPal) are less than desirable and the market is based on price over quality of service.

If you're renting a server at £250/month (that won't get you much in the UK, anyway), you're going to have to cram a good 10 game servers - each at £25/month - onto that machine just to break even. With modern game server requirements, that's a heck of a lot of load on that server. You'll have teenagers requesting sponsorship off you (if you decide to break into the industry, avoid sponsorship deals at all costs - the returns are useless), sending emails every 5 minutes while their game server is down (usually down to their own stupidity), cancelling their contract with you to sign up with a cheaper providor each month and all the while they'll threaten to sue at the drop of a hat (eg. "My servers bn down 4 an hour, ill sue if you don't giv me meh money back!!!11").

Avoid at all costs to be honest :)
 
It’s true hosting is very saturated but still quite profitable especially if you go down the VPS and managed server route.

As with any business start up there’s a lot to consider. I wish you the best of luck.
 
Me & a friend run a large free web hosting company (7000 uniques visits a day) & it's hard work.

You also need a lot of money to get started, as the first few months your server(s) will not pay for themselves, but as you find clients and users and get more popular it'll get easier, its just started & getting problems that's hard.
 
Takes a lot of work, but I enjoy it and it's been good. Few problems here and there but we've always got through it and put it behind us.

Lots of people target our free web hosting, try to DoS us and hack us but we won't let that bring us down.

Sometimes it's not nice especially when something goes wrong. Me & my friend both enjoy running it though ;)

Overall has been brill.

Craig.
 
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Fair enough. :)

I'm leaning towards the viewpoint that offering the free services is more trouble than it's worth. I guess it helps with marketing?
dunno.gif
 
Ad clicks are starting to pay for the server again, we had a few months where the clicks were rubbish but that was mostly due to the string of problems we had, all sorted now & server's basically paying for itself now :D

I suggest any company that runs a service for free and have their own servers have atleast have ads on their 404 pages and website pages, even only $5 a day (I work in $ for our servers and income as other admin is canadian) can pay for a pretty decent server.
 
Forbidden said:
Thanks for your replys is there any website with tells you how to set up your server, Connection needed e.c.t
Click to expand...

To be honest, if you dont have the experience to set the server up, you're going to find it very hard to make a decent amount of money
 
Forbidden said:
Thanks for your replys is there any website with tells you how to set up your server, Connection needed e.c.t
Click to expand...

Connection needed? 100mbit but you'll get that as standard with most dedicated servers.

As for setting it up... that's a bit of a vague question. Install your web server software, install ftp software, perhaps configure mail if you're intending to offer it, security harden, install the games you wish to host. Any help?

I agree with the other comment though. If you don't know what you're doing, don't bother offering it as a commercial service. Every man and his dog has done the same, saturated the market, made it very difficult for established providers and destroyed consumer confidence. I'd suggest getting some experience administering a server in a small office environment first before inflicting yourself on the web ;).
 
Basher said:
To be honest, if you dont have the experience to set the server up, you're going to find it very hard to make a decent amount of money
Click to expand...

Not really, you could always get a server wizard (www.serverwizards.com) to help you with the technical side of it, you just need to know how to handle customers etc.

We even have a server wizard as neither of us know Linux back to front like the Server Wizard does.

Servers from thePlanet have cPanel/WHM, Apache, MySQL etc. preinstalled.
 
Craig321 said:
Not really, you could always get a server wizard (www.serverwizards.com) to help you with the technical side of it, you just need to know how to handle customers etc.

We even have a server wizard as neither of us know Linux back to front like the Server Wizard does.

Servers from thePlanet have cPanel/WHM, Apache, MySQL etc. preinstalled.
Click to expand...

In my opinion, to make it in this industry you need to know what you're talking about. How can you support an architecture which you don't understand?
 
That's true, luckily we understand it.

But I'm saying you don't need to know how to 100% set the server up, you just need to know how it works and a bit of the technical side to give support.

Craig.
 
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