The Way She Goes

[Jesse]

With the game server industry on the decline in terms of sales for established hosts and quality of hosts in general, would TCAdmin ever consider selling licenses exclusively through its enterprise license holders through some sort of agreement where if sales goes up by X amount then the license fee for enterprise holders is adjusted somehow so TCAdmin doesn't loose money from lost business and can reduce its own support costs by not having to support every noob that wants to start a GSP with no experience. As of current there is no way for anyone to regulate requirements in order to start-up a provider. Unfortunately tons of game server renters run around to every new GSP thinking they are going to solve all their bad host problems at rates and pricing that no one could ever solely rely on income to run the business full time. You need so many customers in order to sustain enough income which in turn makes the only way to start a GSP is to do it part-time after another job or you get kids in school running them.

 

The second problem with this set-up is that new games with ranked systems are only given to providers selected to host them by the developer. If the enterprise license holders (or some sort of GSP authority) were the authority behind which businesses were given the opportunity to start hosting game servers they could not only regulate the competition and not have new one location providers pop up like grass but it would also put them in a position to regulate who gets the ranked licenses and make sure all the appropriate hosts are getting the licenses and ones that are fresh grass seed are not. Why let the game creators choose who gets the licenses and not a solidified game server provider community/authority. Anyone who cannot provide good service to customers can have their ranked status removed by popular vote.

 

Let's be serious, why would Low Ping Game Servers, a brand new GSP get ranked licensing when a solid 8 year old host which many many many times the amount of clients like UltimateGameServer would not. That kind of stuff is only going to continue happening and no one can rely on the income of a business or market where crap like that is happening.

 

The industry needs some tuning! TCAdmin should consider this before bigger hosts continue to get ignore and get out of the industry as sales decline and get spread out through all the crap grass seed being planted today.

 

[ECF]

The reality of the situation is the game publishers make the rules now. From a business stand point I can see why they only allow a certain amount of GSPs to be authorized to host their games. Less support! And more security.

 

Their servers can be rented pretty much in any country by x amount of companies.

Now if publishers were to give out licensing like candy then there would be more support needed and a higher risk of ranked server files being leaked.

 

I am not agreeing or disagreeing with this business practice, all I am saying is I understand it. It is very similar to Vent. Anyone that wants a vent server can get one through the existing hosts. It sucks that a bunch of GSPs lose out by not having a license but Flagship is still making them same amount of $$$ with the current providers they have as they would with double the amount of providers.

 

It has long been a goal of legal GSPs to somehow regulate the industry. But this is simply not going to happen. This is where the game publishers picked up the slack and now are protecting their games.

 

One trend I see quite too often is companies (and I use the word loosely), are trying to fully automate game setups so they can just walk away and try to make some money. The lack of support then shines through and the customer is forced to go elsewhere to get their server. This business is very support intensive. The client will need support at some point, and some need more than others. Falter on the support end and you are doomed...

 

/End rant

[adamnp]

just like life, its all politics

 

have a baby by me be a millionaire!

 

One trend I see quite too often is companies (and I use the word loosely), are trying to fully automate game setups so they can just walk away and try to make some money. The lack of support then shines through and the customer is forced to go elsewhere to get their server. This business is very support intensive. The client will need support at some point, and some need more than others. Falter on the support end and you are doomed...

 

I agree 100% - Nothing of ours has ever been automated - want it done right, and done right all the time, do it yourself

 

I still don't see an AD up there..Def not available? :/

[Jesse]

Half the problem is renters use Google to choose their host and all the review sites simply suck or allow hosts to delete negative reviews. Hmmm - what can be done there. If all the ad space and traditional methods of advertising were rented by "the game server authority" and then sold to the GSPs within, any new GSPs could be blacklisted for not going through the approval system. And if enough people went through the authority site they would not get exposed to any bad providers and would avoid using the blacklisted ones.

 

It would need like over 800 backlinks according to the ones Google indexes linking to http://www.gameservers.com but getting that #1 spot on Google for the game servers keyword would be the trick for a site like that working.

[Guest Trevor1]

I am not starting a flame war or anything of the like. This is My OPINION

 

 

Jesse,

 

You obviously don't have a clue on how people run there business. There in it to make money and thats it. What you provide to your clients and how you take care of them will determine how long you stay in that business making that money. To get a few gsp's together to agree on something is never going to happen just because of the fact that we are all human and when the almighty bucks start talking, people will change their minds and do other things than what they agreed to. This happens every day in the real world just try reading the Wall Street Journal.

 

Crying and whining about why you didn't get picked for this and your company is up for sale basically explains why you are not a ranked provider. It took months of foot work and back and forth?s between DICE/EA to get LPGS listed as a ranked provider, just because you did not have the patience to stick with that kind of comment, shows how much you think of the customers. We encourage our customers to post feedback (Good or Bad), We will never ?delete/edit? any customers testimonials as this undermines both our company as well as the trust that we have with in the gaming community.

 

Granted not all people agree with the whole ranking system and locked down servers, I understand there stand point as I too believe that it will be a big strain on the whole GSP industry. But from a company stand point how many GSP?s all offer the same games ie: source based games compared to how many offer the newer games like BC2 and MOH to name a few. We went down this path to grow our business as the bottom line is we provide what the customer needs.

[Jesse]

You obviously don't have a clue on how people run there business. There in it to make money and thats it. What you provide to your clients and how you take care of them will determine how long you stay in that business making that money. To get a few gsp's together to agree on something is never going to happen just because of the fact that we are all human and when the almighty bucks start talking, people will change their minds and do other things than what they agreed to. This happens every day in the real world just try reading the Wall Street Journal.

 

You cannot compete with people running game servers "not for profit" or for fun. It is way to easy to start a GSP so that is why there are so many running <100 clients. If everyone could start up their own cell provider this easy we would all be buying cell phones from whatever friend is willing to run a few douzen clients for pennies hoping one day he will be the ultimate provider if he can just get enough clients.

 

There are reasons real estate companies do not charge under a certain rate because the same thing would happen.

 

If the big players (ie Enterprise license holders) and TCAdmin got together a huge amount of little hosts could be taken offline easily as well as prevent any new hosts from easily opening up with one location on shitty cheap bandwidth or old out dated servers.

 

Crying and whining about why you didn't get picked for this and your company is up for sale basically explains why you are not a ranked provider. It took months of foot work and back and forth?s between DICE/EA to get LPGS listed as a ranked provider, just because you did not have the patience to stick with that kind of comment, shows how much you think of the customers. We encourage our customers to post feedback (Good or Bad), We will never ?delete/edit? any customers testimonials as this undermines both our company as well as the trust that we have with in the gaming community.

 

I never applied for the ranked games because they are too intensive to make money at the rates you guys sell at. I could run a lemonade stand daily and make more money than some GSPs are making (but we're also competing with clans that can afford a box and rent out a couple game servers to offset their costs). I also never accused you of deleting reviews, I know of other companies that did/do.

 

Crying and whining

That's a flame if you forgot you mentioned that your post wasn't a flame. Maybe you forgot your [flame][/flame] containers.

 

And the reason I ended up selling it was because I lost 40% of my customers during the first couple months the new ranked games came out and people switched over since CSS, Gmod, MOH are all near decade old games. Focused on school because that trend was only going to continue and when I saw decade old GSPs who had gotten previous licenses not even get replies from DICE/EA it was clear the industry is too risky to ever try and make any sort of living off of.

[trancemode]

I have to agree with you.

 

If most gaming industry were just like Valve, everyone would win win and have more providers to choose from.

 

However, this world isn't fair and it is basically a monopoly just like cod black ops. =/

[Goran]

I just don't see the difference in the price? Most GSP's are offering slots for 0.99$ beeing ranked or not.

[Defcon|Rich]

just like life, its all politics

 

have a baby by me be a millionaire!

 

 

 

I agree 100% - Nothing of ours has ever been automated - want it done right, and done right all the time, do it yourself

/

 

Agreed. We set each game server up by hand just to make sure they're running correctly. Have been doing it this way for almost 9yrs now..

 

 

Automation is for people that have no idea how to do the same thing correctly more then once..

[dimitrifrom31]

Agreed. We set each game server up by hand just to make sure they're running correctly. Have been doing it this way for almost 9yrs now..

 

 

Automation is for people that have no idea how to do the same thing correctly more then once..

 

automation is good for tasks that dont require a "human brain", the time you save in server setup can be spent in customer support.

my game servers are setup automatically on one side and on the other I help each customer who needs to configure his game server (mods, settings, making tutorials, etc), teaching him the basics etc.

 

Setup automation is a + as you get your servers up in minutes so your customers can start playing for what they paid for asap.

 

When you need cash do you go to the cash dispenser or do you queue inside the bank to deal with the man?

there are tasks that shouldnt be automated, I 100% agree but server setup is definitely not one of them since theres no point of doing it manually. Been setting up servers manually for 5 years and switched to automation 2 years ago, got absolutely no regret

[Jesse]

I just don't see the difference in the price? Most GSP's are offering slots for 0.99$ beeing ranked or not.

 

Public servers were $1.50/slot not too long ago. Same games are now around $0.75/slot.

[proclan]

Public servers were $1.50/slot not too long ago. Same games are now around $0.75/slot.

 

Most providers are running games on dual quad core machines which run a hell of a lot more slots than the old dual/single cores. This means less server boxes and lower operating costs. Bandwidth pricing has also come down since then. Did you take a loss of memory pill or something Jesse?

[Jesse]

Most providers are running games on dual quad core machines which run a hell of a lot more slots than the old dual/single cores. This means less server boxes and lower operating costs. Bandwidth pricing has also come down since then. Did you take a loss of memory pill or something Jesse?

 

It's gone down but not by 50% lol... 40% tops if you're using cheaper bandwidth and a less than reliable datacenter.

[SickPuppy]

It's gone down but not by 50% lol... 40% tops if you're using cheaper bandwidth and a less than reliable datacenter.

 

Advancements in server and network technology results in lower operating cost. Smaller GSPs have lower overhead allowing them to lower their slot rates causing greater competition resulting in overall lower prices. If you don't restructure your business model to take advantage of these changes you will fail.

 

I predict that by 2012 the average slot rate for a game server will be $.50 a slot. This will force GSPs to consolidate their customers onto more powerful servers in fewer locations.

[LeeMkai]

Public servers were $1.50/slot not too long ago. Same games are now around $0.75/slot.

 

Not to mention a hell of alot of people now play on console rather than computer. Fact is its harder to sell servers to computers.

$1.50 a slot? I remember about 10 years ago when my father bought a UT server and was costing between the group of people he played with a total of ?120 per month.

 

That was back in the day when jolt.co.uk ruled it all.

[Jesse]

It was only 2 years ago lol... not all that long ago. We can compare to 10 years ago or simply look at the fact that there are more GSPs now, the markup is just lower, even if operating costs are lower.

[SickPuppy]

I fear that Peer-To-Peer is the future of online PC gaming. This will slowly kill the GSP industry off.

[Goran]

I fear that Peer-To-Peer is the future of online PC gaming. This will slowly kill the GSP industry off.

 

MW2 is a proof

[Samp-Direct]

MW2 is a proof

 

Indeed.

Now days any man and his dog can set up a GSP in reality. All you need to do is know how to click next on the installation of TCAdmin and you're done.

[Goran]

Indeed.

Now days any man and his dog can set up a GSP in reality. All you need to do is know how to click next on the installation of TCAdmin and you're done.

 

and how-to update punkbuster!

[Jesse]

I fear that Peer-To-Peer is the future of online PC gaming. This will slowly kill the GSP industry off.

 

Hard to compete when Sony makes a $700 system it is selling for $300... even the defense department made a super computer with 1700 PS3s or something. Basically getting an amazing deal on hardware if you have the know-how to hack it - I'm no defense department with a military budget tho!

[SickPuppy]

MW2 is a proof

 

EA games is testing the water with MW2. Other game developers are watching closely and will start to develop their own line of P2P games depending on the success or failure of MW2.

 

What we need is a server side app that would allow console players to play against PC gamers. That would give a boost to the GSP industry.

[dimitrifrom31]

EA games is testing the water with MW2. Other game developers are watching closely and will start to develop their own line of P2P games depending on the success or failure of MW2.

 

What we need is a server side app that would allow console players to play against PC gamers. That would give a boost to the GSP industry.

 

console fans would quit playing, getting owned big time even by PC newbies.

[lpgservers]

Jesse, wouldn't you consider yourself part of the segment your trying to isolate?

[Jesse]

Jesse, wouldn't you consider yourself part of the segment your trying to isolate?

 

You're going to have to explain the "how is that".

 

And I think I get what you're nipping at and really I'm fine with any host as long as they answer their phone during normal business and into gaming hours. Some ranked providers don't even have a phone number visible on their website, like I'm not sure how you get a license without a phone number on the site. There isn't near as many companies out in real life as online that actually don't answer the phone when potential customers call... forget conversion rates on a webpage - some sites convert up to 90% of customers that pick up the phone and call them (taken from an INC.com article). So why the heck wouldnt every site have a phone number with someone who answers the phone for as many hours of the day as possible. Its negligence like that among other things that cause many many many e-businesses to fail.

 

As you know game server clients switch providers like its their job because most places start off nice and support driven then fail to keep up the pace as everyone most recently saw with Xfactor. Any companies still around for the beginning have always had the support needed to run a business long term... it's no mystery why start-ups in business fail so often but the GSP marketplace is the best example for this.