Game hosting

[LeaksyFX]

EDIT!!

 

Well i found how! A guy that hosts game servers,ts3 servers and VPS helped me,he showed me what do i need and from where to get it! The Needed stuff costed me about $200-$400 (It has blown my budget away,but helped!). Now i just need to create an interactive website, with cpanel and all that stuff.I got the servers from OVH,with about $59,99 monthly fee,with VAT.I want to thank everyone that replayed and helped me!

 

 

Edited March 16, 2018 by Ashh_x3

[NelizMastr]

As a business? 

 

Well, what kind of connection do you have? Speeds, commercial or residential etc. (especially upload matters).

 

What's your budget?

 

Ever considered a VPS instead of hosting locally?

[Bsmith]

starting a business on something while you aren't capable of getting the essentials set up through your own research is a bad idea.

 

as mentioned above me, there are a lot of factors that come into play including location, upload/download speeds, bandwith capacity, budget, commercial or residential and then we are still ignoring front end and back end support, license fees, power issues, upscaling, downscaling etc.

[NelizMastr]

41 minutes ago, Bsmith said:

starting a business on something while you aren't capable of getting the essentials set up through your own research is a bad idea.

 

as mentioned above me, there are a lot of factors that come into play including location, upload/download speeds, bandwith capacity, budget, commercial or residential and then we are still ignoring front end and back end support, license fees, power issues, upscaling, downscaling etc.

Not to mention the existence of SPOFs, like the single internet connection and possibly single server to start with. You really need to be very comfortable with networking, servers and customer support (and also book keeping / finances) to really do something like this. 

 

Just hosting a few minecraft servers isn't something you should even try at home. Perfectly fine to do that on a VPS.

[Sir Asvald]

On 12/03/2018 at 3:06 PM, NelizMastr said:

Perfectly fine to do that on a VPS.

I'd like to add my 2 cents and say that using VPS for hosting game servers is a bad idea.

 

Following reasons;

 

1. it is a Virtual Server which means you're limited to hardware given to you. 
2. people will most likely use their own VPS on the same host machine, therefore, the more the VMs the less resources available

I've had multiple VPS running with 16GB ram and 8 cores 16 threads, slow as day. There were at least 10 VMs running on the host machine.

 

 

[connbob]

Hi. 

I help with a GH company. My two cents is that you need to have the time, effort and money to put in to it.

Panel wise, you've got 2 options really; TCAdmin and Pterodactyl.io

Pterodactyl is well worth it in my eyes, and it's what we use, but you require more skill to get it setup as you have to write custom scripts for games and so on and so forth. Additionally, Pterodactyl doesn't include a mod manager or FastDL if any of them were requirements. You can develop these and there are many developers who would be willing to do that if you paid.

Also, there is a discord for support where many people will help you out.

 

TCAdmin has most of the features listed above, but has awful Linux support, crashes every second of it's lifetime and is a complete and utter shambles. TCA support isn't awful, but you will probably end up with a janky version of TCA from all of the fixes they push for your specific installation. TLDR; TCA is not worth it if you can put the time into Pterodactyl.

 

Additionally, you need a selling point, something that sets you away from the crowd. Pterodactyl isn't the popular option at the moment, but it is the best and most stable I've seen, so it is a good selling point. Don't cheap out on prices, but offer a good price correlating to your service quality.

Imo, too many companies are being run by inexperienced people during holidays. I've known people who didn't even know how to setup either of the two options above, and others who didn't even know how to use basic commands in most linux distros. 

Tag me if you want anything else answered

Conn

 

PS: Run the panel, TCA or Pterodactyl, on a VPS and the server daemon on a dedicated server with good single core performance. Rent them at a reputable host, ideally with DDoS protection. OVH may be a good place to start for decent priced servers. Hetzner auction servers have not got DDoS protection (AFAIK) but offer cheap, decent servers with good quality service and good support (through phone).

Also, TCA costs £15 per node and pterodactyl is free and open source.

[connbob]

On another point, the website is also important. The best billing software is probably WHMCS, which is about £15 a month, but some webhosts provide it for free, which could be worth looking in to to start, and often these offer reseller webhosting, which allows you to look into that aswell as games.

 

 

[AngryBeaver]

Depending on the investment you are willing to make initially... the options can be large or small.

 

If you are willing to invest in the 3rd party consoles and deployment software then this can be pretty straight forward... then it just comes down to the matter of having enough hardware for what you are wanting to do.

 

I did a little dabbling in the game server field. I even still run a few from the basement of my home (I have a good deal of server stuff). That being said there are a few sites out there that let me rent dedicated machines at a good price, I would rent a few, then advertise my website. I didn't go with the automated game server software that would actually spin up the servers, but I did use the game console software to make it more straight forward on how users had access to the game server they were renting (didn't need to give them RDP).

 

So in general people would buy a game server, I would take 5-15 minutes to quickly set it up per request. Most of this was automated via scripts I put together or picked up from outside sources. Then I would toss them the email that it was up and that they could use the console on the website to manage their server. 

 

As users increased, I just purchased more hardware... so I wasn't fronting a lot of money so less risk involved. That being said it was very successful for about 6 months, then activity started to drop as the main games I was supporting started to lose popularity. So then I had a lot of people spread out over many servers (which is where the bleeding issue begins)

 

So now I had many less users, but they were spread out on many different servers... so I couldn't just close the server without causing issues. I ended up having to schedule a day for down time (several times actually which wasn't popular with people) to consolidate the machines (not an issue if you use cloud hosting). This consisted of moving all of the data off the machines to the new ones I was consolidating to, talking with the datacenter to get routing setup so I could retain the IP's from the previous boxes (else people would not be able to easily find the servers). 

 

That cut the cost of my server rentals, but I still had a lot of different IP address I was paying for (which is much less thankfully). This meant that I was again profitable, but the games continued to become less and less popular so after needing to consolidate the servers a few more times.. I decided I was pretty much sick of doing all of the work and didn't feel like messing with the 3rd party software... so I decided to get out of hosting on this scale.

 

I worked out a deal with another game hosting company so that I could offer my loyal server renters something as a way to saying thanks. I think I ended up getting them a 25% discount for 6 months from another company that I had a relationship with.

 

Anyways that was my experience. If I was to continue to offer more games and such I could have been more successful, but I was catering to a specific game with very specific needs that most other game server hosting companies were not meeting which lead to lots of lag and bad AI interactions. So once I had word start to spread about the performance... it scaled up pretty quick.

[dionkoffie]

I would start small. Don't invest an amount you're afraid to lose. I've seen a lot of friends who invested $500 in a 'hosting company' and ended up losing more than what they invested in it. I'm not trying to demotivate you, but just be careful.

 

Try buying a couple small desktops and host a VPS or a few gameservers on it. 

[AngryBeaver]

On 3/12/2018 at 8:12 AM, Ashh_x3 said:

Hi!

 

I've always wanted to start a game hosting bussines. But i don't know how.Can i get a little help for the needed software and other stuff (like what kind of machine/server etc..)

 

-Thanks!!

After looking at this again.

 

If you don't know HOW. Then chances are you are not going to be successful. We can give you advice and give you some software to help fit your needs, but without knowing all of the other HOW's you are still going to run in to issues.

 

You will need to have some basic understandings of how servers (linux and windows) operate, networking, vms/vps's, setting up 3rd party software, scripting, and a good understand of hardware and how it correlates when it comes to hosting requirements.

 

If you are lacking in these areas you will be forced to hire someone who isn't, which will only make your starting investment higher and lower your profit margins. So in the end, just because you have always wanted to start one, doesn't mean you should without first taking the time to learn all of the concepts that can help contribute to being successful. 

[connbob]

8 minutes ago, AngryBeaver said:

After looking at this again.

 

If you don't know HOW. Then chances are you are not going to be successful. We can give you advice and give you some software to help fit your needs, but without knowing all of the other HOW's you are still going to run in to issues.

 

You will need to have some basic understandings of how servers (linux and windows) operate, networking, vms/vps's, setting up 3rd party software, scripting, and a good understand of hardware and how it correlates when it comes to hosting requirements.

 

If you are lacking in these areas you will be forced to hire someone who isn't, which will only make your starting investment higher and lower your profit margins. So in the end, just because you have always wanted to start one, doesn't mean you should without first taking the time to learn all of the concepts that can help contribute to being successful. 

In agreement with this.

If you have a decent understanding of Linux, that's good, and it won't be too big of a leap, but I've seen people who can't even use Linux want root access to mission-critical servers for idiotic reasons, and it's really painful to see.

[AbsoluteFool]

Not to be the idea killer here, but starting "game hosting" company has been dead ideas for years by now. There is so many good options for paid game servers out there, companies with millions to scale upon. So yeah as business i would say forget it. But if you really want to try and are willing to start very very microscopical small. you need

 

• Good networking knowledge
• Servers aprox 3Ghz CPU and lots of RAM
• Good server system knowledge ( i believe RPM linux is what most hosts use.)
• Good internet connection (commerical) 100mb + up and down speed. (Recommended 1GB)
• Firewall, DDOS protection
• Switches
• Serval External IP addresses

This is the basics if you want to scale. As i said before it's kinda a dead idea, very much like hosting FTP servers for someone else. My advice would be start with friends and scale from there, but be prepared that it won't work.

[LeaksyFX]

On 3/12/2018 at 3:19 PM, NelizMastr said:

As a business? Yes

 

Well, what kind of connection do you have? Speeds, commercial or residential etc. (especially upload matters). I Have a solid internet speed from about 70Mbps to 100Mbps, Residental

 

What's your budget? About $50

 

Ever considered a VPS instead of hosting locally? Yes its to exprensive!

 

[connbob]

3 hours ago, Ashh_x3 said:

 

You'd be stupid to host it locally.

Do you have any experience in Linux? Any experience hosting any games at all?

[Donut417]

4 hours ago, Ashh_x3 said:

 

Most if not all ISP's in the US will NOT allow you to run a server on their connection. While you can get away with it, if its only a few people playing on the server. If it starts sucking down bandwidth, they will throttle you or disconnect you. They are in the right to do so, under the TOS YOU agreed to when you signed up. I know for a fact this will apply to Comcast and AT&T. 

 

So before you find yourself with out internet, you might want to rethink your strategy. At minimum you need to look at a Business Class connection. Not to mention hardware, software, payment processing, etc. Do you have a business plan? Do you have the knowledge and skills? Are you going to register as a business? If so have you look in to payroll taxes and business taxes? Remember when you own a business you legally have to pay yourself and take payroll taxes out of that generally. 

[NelizMastr]

11 hours ago, Ashh_x3 said:

 

Too slow, and your budget won't give you the ability to provide a decent service to your customers. You underestimate how much bandwidth populated game servers need. If your upload isn't symmetrical to your download speeds, you're especially SOL. All of this aside from possibly violating the TOS from your ISP.

[LeaksyFX]

15 hours ago, connbob said:

You'd be stupid to host it locally.

Do you have any experience in Linux? Any experience hosting any games at all?

I have some experience in Linux.I have experience hosting a game server for CS:GO and Minecraft.