Re:Review my startup idea: Multiplayer game servers on demand
by mryan on Tuesday May 24, 2011 @07:13PM
(#2582096)
Thanks for the feedback and good wishes snikolic.
I was in a similar situation to your customers - I would rent an L4D2 server for a few months, then let it expire if I was spending "too much" time on a new game. This was the initial inspiration for Cloudfrag.
It sounds like you might have some interesting ideas and experiences in this area - if you would like to share, my email is in my profile.
Thanks again!
I started a game server hosting company years ago, and my biggest challenge was renewing existing customers. Customers rarely lasted for more than 2-3 months or so. My business's biggest enemies were customers' parents (a lot of gamers are under 18, after all), and in-game clan/community politics (groups break up, people switch games/communities, etc.). I know these things seem petty, but it's hard to achieve growth without strong renewals.
I suspect that a lot of potential customers hesitated during the buying process for these same petty reasons: they were uncomfortable with the risks of prepaying for a month (or 3 months or 6 months) of services, knowing they might lose interest in the game, have their clan break up, or get grounded by their parents.
If this is as serious an impediment to finding new customers as I think it was 7 years ago, then on-demand game servers may be the solution.
Good luck!