We all tell a little white lie every so often.

No… your bum, doesn’t look big in that extra extra large swim suit.…..
I’ve only had three pints…
Moi, eat the rest of your pizza? How very dare you.

There’s the odd white lie, and there’s blatant lies. Unfortunately when it comes to stretching the truth, some internet businesses are no different, and neither are some server hosts. Whether it’s a Call of Duty 4, Team Fortress 2, or Counterstrike server host you are looking for, here’s three common porkies to beware of when choosing the next host for your clan’s gameserver:

• Do they really offer the 24/7 support advertised?
• Are they really hosting gameservers from their own datacentre?
• When they talk about we is it we, or me?

The great 24/7 support server host lie

Sometimes I feel like a stuck record going on about this one. I probably am.  But it does erk me those one-man server hosts (see below) claiming 24/7 support. If your bank claimed to be open 24/7, and it wasn’t, you’d call your local outsourced call centre and give them a jolly good piece of your mind.

So it shocks me, frequently those server hosts that use the whole 24/7 support thing as the main selling point. Telephone numbers that always go through to answer machine. Emails and support tickets unanswered for days. If only gameservers weren’t so important, and out lifeline! In fact, I had a shock the other day. My own public Call of Duty 4 server went down. I was shaking with fear. I nearly had to go out. Can you believe it? Luckily I was able to phone myself, and got the server rebooted.

But what if you’ve already bought a gameserver from a server host that claims 24/7 support when they don’t? Would it be acceptable for the server to go down at 6pm on a Friday night, and your server host doesn’t respond until Tuesday?

Some server hosts think the fact a website is potentially online 24/7, and that you can fill out an online contact form at 4am, means they offer 24/7. Don’t fall for it. They might think it means support 24/7 . It doesn’t.

My gameserver host has their own datacentre

This comes a close second on the lie scoreboard to the 24/7 myth.

There’s nothing wrong with not owning a datacentre. Let’s face it, if you are in the know you’ll understand already a minimum datacentre budget is going to cost you upwards of half a million to kit out. So it’s not really practical budget wise, for gameserver hosting.

But what is a concern is those hosts, that copy and paste data centre specs from their dedicated server host, and conveniently pass it off as their own.

Beware. Not knowing you do get found out for this, says a lot about this kind of server host.

Server hosting, to we or not to we

That is the question. There’s nothing wrong with a one man company. I’m sure you wouldn’t tip your window cleaner off his ladder, because the window washing waster doesn’t have 30 employees. Well you might if you are a tad sadistic, or he’s not cleaning the windows very well (my window cleaner, beware). The same logic applies to a game server. There’s lots of single man (or girl) server hosts working 8-10 hours a day, and providing excellent service.

But what if the me suddenly becomes a we. The server host that tells you you need to contact support, but it’s actually the same person. The clan server host that claims he has 3 support staff….but he’s actually paying them with a COD 4 server and a bag of nuts.

Being liberal with the truth, stretching the truth, or outright lying?

All my personal opinion, but a hopefully a few pointers to keep you informed all the same

Until tomorrow

You wouldn’t know there is a credit crunch on. Houses being repossessed. People out of work, unable to go to the pub, or eat out at their favourite restaurant. People staying in with cheap bottles of vodka, and turning to old games. The economy collapsing before us.

So why are gameserver providers getting cheaper?

Well at least, you wouldn’t know if you were a gameserver host. Ever day I witness an ongoing challenge to host gameservers cheaper, and ‘better’. Claims of more affordable. Affordable to the person renting the clan server, perhaps. Affordable to the provider hosting the server?

It really hit me just now, when someone on MSN Messenger just claimed we were expensive because he could get a 32 slot Call of Duty 4 gameserver for £23.  BTW, that’s £23 for 12 months. Blimey. Ok, so there’s cheap, and there’s…..suicidal. Some people are thick.

I don’t think so. A few facts to consider:

• Power and rack prices have increased up to 6x what they were 4 years ago.
• So gameservers are far more costly to host on dedicated servers.
• Game server customers expect more, and rightly so.
• Granted server hardware is more powerful, but that doesn’t cancel out the huge cost increases.

‘Affordable’ versus ‘Cheap’ clanservers, the myth uncovered!

So you might ask, why do gameserver hosts price themselves so cheap? What do you call affordable game servers.  And I won’t try and claim this applies to every host. Economies of scale means larger hosts can push out gameservers at a cheap price, because their overheads are lower.

But the kiddie host with the one old colocated server, pushing the old 50p a slot. Do me a favour. It does not add up. So back to the point, why are these clanserver hosts doing it so cheap? And is it affordable?

In a nutshell, no.

Such gameserver hosts are very often:

• Running at a loss, because it’s only £20-£30 to lose each month
• License fees, what license fees? Are you sure your Ventrilo / Teamspeak 2 server is authorised. I’m sure you wouldn’t want it going offline halfway through a war
• Not offering the 24/7 support they claim. Do you think someone doesn’t sleep to lose money? I’d have them commited if they were.
• Unable to compete with the big players. They cannot beat their level of support, uptime, and promises. There’s nothing unique in what they offer. They are just another one of many gameserver hosts. So what’s the *only* thing they can do? You guessed it, price. They make themselves Cheaper. And most definitely they’ll be the cheapest gameserver host on the internet. Yeah, right

So why are affordable gameservers better?

With total reference to the above, any gameserver host worth its salt will not be looking at whether they can pay their hosting bills at the end of the month. They will be looking at the next 12 months, and beyond that.

I would like to think an honest, and affordable gameserver provider will not pluck prices from the sky, in order to compete on the only thing they can do- being cheap.

Clanserver providers that price themselves as affordable, are thinking about keeping in business, and won’t be running away with your rental fees.

To the boys, you remember what you were told about cheap girls? Well gameservers aren’t any different.

And finally, remember. If it looks too good to be true. It probably is.