A Key Economic Indicator

[JasonF]

Operation Gaming

 

http://www.operationgaming.com/ - already shut down

[jbiloh]

Many large GSPs have failed recently.

 

Something I've been watching recently is what's unfolding at Branzone. Their website banner doesn't seem to bode well either.

 

I hope they right the ship.

[JasonF]

Many large GSPs have failed recently.

 

Just curious which of the big boys failed?

[Steven Crothers]

They just stopped advertising one day :\

 

Branzone was one of the leaders back in the day iirc. Haven't heard much from them since.

[ptadmin]

ClanBaseLive

Operation Gaming

 

Are the most recent closures then I am sure alot of small companies that no one has even heard of have folded up also.

 

Puppy your idea is ok but personally my opinion is some of the smaller GSP's that didnt spend money in search engine optimiziation I dont think deserve the hits when they spent no money on it.

 

Unfortunately this industry is hard knock and some GSP's do such stupid cheap prices that its just for sure they will not turn it into profit.

[SickPuppy]

Traffic on the Branzone website is down to 550 hits a day and like most of the big guys they are trying to generate short term cash flow with the 50% off sale.

[VicToMeyeZR]

They were not that big- maybe 80 customers if that.

Talked a big game, but in the end boom .

I've been picking up their clients over the last week or so, then picked up about 15 thurs/friday when then slammed the doors on them.

 

Well if that true, then how did they afford $5000/year for the AA honor, and have that many POP's? no one with 80 customers can pay for 7 active locations, and 4 more on the way. ? Either they lied to everyone, or you are misinformed.

POP Locations: Chicago, IL; Dallas, TX; London, UK; Los Angeles, CA; New York, NY; Seattle, WA; Korea; and coming soon Atlanta, GA, Germany, Hong Kong, and Moskow

[SickPuppy]

ClanBaseLive

 

Puppy your idea is ok but personally my opinion is some of the smaller GSP's that didnt spend money in search engine optimiziation I dont think deserve the hits when they spent no money on it.

 

Then you set a minimum Hit limit per day to join and if your site does not meet that number you have to pay a penalty to join. All funds collected from penalties would be paid to the members that did meet the minimum hits per day requirements.

[VicToMeyeZR]

why should you have to spend money on SEO? No one has to spend money on SEO... It not like you pay google to hit your site more often. As long as you code it right, it will work well, and get good scores with the crawlers.

[SickPuppy]

why should you have to spend money on SEO? No one has to spend money on SEO... It not like you pay google to hit your site more often. As long as you code it right, it will work well, and get good scores with the crawlers.

 

Yes people do pay Google for Ads and hits on their websites

[KingJ]

Basic SEO is quite easy, submit a sitemap, ensure you have good metatags, use mod_rewrite and try and get as many links as possible. You can pay people to do it for you, but it's not really worth the money unless you're a big site and have already optimised to your limits.

 

The success of Google Ads is very limited I find, I think out of all of my spending on them i've only had one or two customers. There are much better ways.

[VicToMeyeZR]

Yes people do pay Google for Ads and hits on their websites

 

SEO and Google ADS are completely different. SEO is FREE........You just have to configure your pages correctly....

 

You are talking about charging GSP's and giving that fee to the others for something that is FREE. SEO is FREE. Can I not make that any more plain.

[jbiloh]

http://www.aim2game.com, (site offline) anyone know what is going on there?

[VicToMeyeZR]

Hmm, not sure

 

Administrative Contact:

Aim2Game, LLC

Matt Lehner (webmaster@aim2game.com)

+1.8883438224

Fax: +1.8663030961

2250 East Tropicana Ave

Suite 19-675

Las Vegas, NV 89119

Guess you could call him or send an email.... Not sure why poeple are not just posting something letting people know whats going on.. ?

[Defcon|Rich]

Just curious which of the big boys failed?

 

None that I know of. From the two referenced Operationgaming was in business since 2007 and wouldn't rank medium size by any standard. Branzone is still plugging along from what I can tell so I'm not sure either way..

[HGN-Daniel]

Branzone's total servers have dropped by half over the last couple of years according to their live stats. Looks like they aren't doing as hot

 

December 2007: http://web.archive.org/web/20071120172800/http://www.branzone.com/stats/all.php

"1030 players out of 12748 slots on 589 servers."

 

Now: http://www.branzone.com/stats/all.php

"1421 players out of 5121 slots on 219 servers."

[JasonF]

That list does not contain CoD WaW game servers which he probably has a ton of so those numbers should not be trusted.

[HGN-Daniel]

They only have 15 call of duty 4 servers.. I don't think they're that popular in the WAW community from those numbers

[jbiloh]

They only have 15 call of duty 4 servers.. I don't think they're that popular in the WAW community from those numbers

 

I'd tend to agree, but I could be wrong.

 

Regardless Branzone is one of the original and I hope they turn it around. The (public) numbers aren't pretty.

[SickPuppy]

Branzone's total servers have dropped by half over the last couple of years according to their live stats. Looks like they aren't doing as hot

 

December 2007: http://web.archive.org/web/20071120172800/http://www.branzone.com/stats/all.php

"1030 players out of 12748 slots on 589 servers."

 

Now: http://www.branzone.com/stats/all.php

"1421 players out of 5121 slots on 219 servers."

 

Damn we have almost 300 servers running now and our 2009 target is 500

[Derek]

Damn we have almost 300 servers running now and our 2009 target is 500

 

Your 300 servers are 99 cents a slot there 220 servers are 2.99 a slot.

[Defcon|Rich]

Your 300 servers are 99 cents a slot there 220 servers are 2.99 a slot.

 

+1 Good point.

[SickPuppy]

Your 300 servers are 99 cents a slot there 220 servers are 2.99 a slot.

 

My profit margin is 68% theirs is probably closer to 40%. My business is growing at an average of 4 customers a week they are dropping an average of 7 customers a week. You do the math.

 

+10 Excellent point.

[Defcon|Rich]

My profit margin is 68% theirs is probably closer to 40%. My business is growing at an average of 4 customers a week they are dropping an average of 7 customers a week. You do the math.

 

+10 Excellent point.

 

 

I really don't want to get involved in this but I have to ask how you could possibly know how many customers another company is picking up?

 

FYI. When you get to 4+ new customers an hour you can brag..

[studeggle]

My profit margin is 68% theirs is probably closer to 40%. My business is growing at an average of 4 customers a week they are dropping an average of 7 customers a week. You do the math.

 

+10 Excellent point.

 

Rather strange statement from someone who has posted numerous times that anyone charging more then a buck is overcharging and ripping off customers.

Over charging and ripping off customers = very high profit margins, so if you speak the truth before then why would you think someone doing so has a low profit margin. :?