[bf1942] Ranked Server Provider program details

[Christoph Nothegger]

On 14.08.2005 bf1942 at icculus.org wrote:
> I sympathize with you, believe me.  The only thing I can say that may
> make you feel slightly better is that you're not alone.  EA not
> responding to requests is par for the course because that's the way they
> are.  What I find interesting is that none of the ranked server
> providers on this list have really said anything of substance either.
> That is most interesting indeed.

For us, two of our reps talked to Ben Smith and others from EA at the
E3. That's how we made contact. So I can't help you with any email
contacts, sorry.

Basic program outline:
You need to have 10 free servers to become a partner. As soon as you
have 10 free public servers up, you can start renting out servers. For
every 10 servers you rent out, you need to put up one more free public
server.

So for 50 rented servers, you need to have 15 free public servers
hosted as well.

To be honest, I would be majorly annoyed if EA added even more trusted
partners in the US. Almost all EU countries only have one exclusive
partner (Germany: Krawall, UK: MP etc.). The US has loads of partners
(I'd say about 15), which means an over-abundance of ranked server
slots, really. We have many clients who have a hard time keeping their
servers full, simply because there are way more available slots than
players. And I assume others have the same issues.

Additionally, companies like MP or Krawall (no offense guys :) ) can
pretty much dictate the prices in their country. On US turf, it is
much more of a competition, which isn't necessarily bad, but profit
margins are way lower than in other countries for sure. Sure, you have
to figure in the different bandwith costs in different countries, but
when I see that Krawall is selling 16 slot ranked servers for IIRC 98€
in Germany (which equals about 125$ US), I can only envy them.

Greetz,
 Christoph

-- 
aka JohnnyK
WOLFGaming.net - where the gameplay is teamplay