Profitability

[Kemik]

Hello all,

Unlike website hosting where you can fit a large number of clients (obviously depending on web space, bandwidth, etc) on one box we are much more limited in this market both at the prices we can offer and the number of slots/servers we can fit on one server.

My question is... is game server providing only profitable with high spec servers that are bought and co-located?

I've worked out that you would only need to sell a small number of slots to be profitable when co-locating, however the amount of profit decides the payback period of the servers.

However, due to the large amount of resources a game server takes up, especially 100 tickrate servers, I've worked out (using estimates) that entering the industry via renting dedicated servers and leasing out game servers would provide a very small profit and maybe even a loss.

What other indsutries have you been in and why would you choose game server providing over those?

[Drocona]

Well all I can say is that you need some income already, you can't just start off a GSP from scratch very easy. A dedicated server for example can cost you 200$ per month very quickly. Well before you have some customers to break even you already lost 5 months for sure (unless you make a waiting list before u go live).

What I'm doing at the moment is getting enough income from webhosting to rent a dedicated server from the income. Then rent game servers from that one and build up.

The specs of the servers really depend on waht you want to host on it. For example I have a 1GHz P3 which can easily host a 20 man server.

[Kemik]

Just an example here.

I rent a:
Intel Pentium D 830 - 3.0GHz, 2 x 1Mb cache **Dual Core**
1GB DDR2 ECC SDRAM
1 x 80GB 7200rpm SATA
3000GB Bandwidth per month

That costs me £100 per month.

I find that a 10 slot, 100 tickrate server thats full starts to get choke. I'm guessing that's due to different things.
After downgrading that to a 66 tickrate server the dedicated server can happy support 16 slots at 66 tickrate which are full (along with other 4 servers that are running and empty).

I just don't see how charging average prices can make you profitable using dedicated servers. I have the clients. In fact I have made up £82 of my dedicated server bill in the first month but I dont want to put any more servers on the box because it will affect my friends servers.

As you can see I'm £18 down, without Billing panel, advertising, etc costs added on.

Looks like it really is better to buy a box and co locate it, as right now I'd be making around £30 a month profit.

[Kemik]

Basically, at the moment my dedicated server is full.... yet I'm still making a loss while charging £1.50 per 66 tick slot.

Is it possible to make a profit using dedicated servers?

[Drocona]

well just charge more, I know alot of GSP's that ask 1.50 for 33 tick.