[cod] Off-Topic: The Future of GSPs

Morpheus morpheus at clantoc.org
Tue Feb 2 14:02:23 EST 2010 

To answer to the first question, just see how the ISP in United States 
are beginning to cry about console and P2P-powered multiplayer games in 
general, as it increases the bandwith usage a lot, when they try to 
lower it.

Countries like Belgium, that still has quota-based formulas to access 
Internet, are also problematic to people wanting to run game servers and 
even just play (youtube and other streaming videos sites are enough to 
explode the quotas).

In France, even the best affordable fiber-based connection just powers 
30Mbps up, and by that, even a MW2 match, limited to 9-9, is totally 
crap. A relatively big part of the ADSL based connections just puts 
1Mbps up (even with at best 28Mbps down), most fo them don't get 256kbps up.

The reason is : if you want the quality bandwith of a GSP, your modem 
needs to consumes at least 10 times the power it uses at this day. And 
it costs a lot more year after year.

It's not home-powered servers that will be hurting GSPs : it's game 
publishers. But we should not continue to name them publishers : they 
are financials. That's about it. And we are NOT "good" consumers from 
their point of view. Very, very sad.


Le 02/02/2010 13:49, Mavrick a écrit :
> http://store.steampowered.com/stats/
>
>     Current Players      Peak Today             Game
>
>      52,770     115,175     Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 - Multiplayer
>      41,064     92,109           Counter-Strike: Source
>      37,281     76,473           Counter-Strike
>      11,740     19,492           Team Fortress 2
>      9,862     24,346           Football Manager 2010
>      8,704     15,340           Left 4 Dead 2
>      6,501     11,991           Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
>      5,272     10,630           Empire: Total War
>      4,346     10,229           Mass Effect 2
>      4,317     9,145           Condition Zero
>
> James Landi wrote:
>> 1st as for ISPs letting you use their network to host your server is 
>> never going to fly unless you buy their very $$ business account and 
>> even then you're not guaranteed a good low latency connection. 
>> Remember these systems are a closed system with a couple of 
>> connections to the outside world with very very bad routing 
>> habits/tables LOL.
>>
>> The problem lies with the developer and publisher.
>>
>> Like mentioned above, publishers want you to keep buying their 
>> product, IE every year for a CoD game.  But most important they don't 
>> want to compete with the community of mappers and modders who lately 
>> seem to do better work and under cut their own maps and mods, as well 
>> as being free.
>>
>> With this new MW2 model [sic], Activision can lock down their game 
>> and be the only one providing the extra content... oh at a price of 
>> course.  This is the model that has made them  a lot of money via 
>> consoles.
>>
>> It will be interesting to see how MW2's DLC for the PC works and if 
>> that will break the camels back in what is still a success both in 
>> sales and I hate to say it online players. Check out 
>> www.steampowered.com/stats .
>>
>> I for one will not help support a company who wishes to milk a 
>> franchise dry.  I don't post MW2 news on my site, I don't post press 
>> released from Activision nor do I comment on their game anymore. (OK 
>> thread is different). I simply will not help them market their ported 
>> console game to my community.  I'm sure they can get a well 
>> established and machore xbox community to take our place helping 
>> support their games.
>>
>> In the long run, I hate to say it but GSPs will have to diversify, 
>> they need to work on their relations with the big publishes to run 
>> their backend servers for ....dear I say.... their console support 
>> servers.
>>
>> We really need to watch Treyarch and their next CoD game as well as 
>> EA/Dice with the next MOH title, in regards to the server side of 
>> these games.  I think this will be the breaking point for GSPs. and 
>> PC gaming communities who spring up around these games.
>>
>> This time don't count on the these guys releasing a backend we all 
>> can support until we have code in hand.
>>
>> Jim Landi
>> Rudedog
>> FPSadmin.com
>> Microsoft MVP, Games for Windows 2009. 2010
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 2/2/10 6:38 AM, Midnight wrote:
>>> Yep.  The game publishers don't care about providing a good online 
>>> experience, because they don't want people to play the same game for 
>>> a year or more.  They want them to get bored with it as soon as 
>>> possible.
>>>
>>> Sadly the general population doesn't seem to care about spending $60 
>>> a week on new games, even though they really can't afford it.  They 
>>> won't realize this till their 40 and haven't a dime in their 
>>> savings.  Talk about expensive, buying all these console games only 
>>> to play them for a week, that's expensive.  Server hosting is 
>>> nothing by comparison when each guy is chipping in.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Oliver Warburton wrote:
>>>> I'm afraid it's all down to the average intelligence and 
>>>> concentration span of the console user.
>>>>
>>>> I recently talked to a friend who has just 'found' online gaming. 
>>>> 'Have you got Xbox live?' he asked.
>>>>
>>>> When I quizzed him about his gaming habits, he'd given up on the 
>>>> COD6 campaign mode- ' got bored'. And couldn't be doing with the 
>>>> multiplayer mode- 'too hard'. He's now moved onto another game, and 
>>>> will no doubt have bought another one by the weekend. I did try and 
>>>> explain to him how I've been playing games 'online' for something 
>>>> like 8 years now- recounting a tale of how I used to play CS 1.5 
>>>> for 8 hours a day obsessively, lol :) He just didn't get it.
>>>>
>>>> What's important here, is we remember that this is who the game 
>>>> makers are now catering for. We're a minority when it comes to 
>>>> gaming now. A real minority.
>>>>
>>>> Oliver Warburton
>>>> Managing Director
>>>> INX-Network LTD
>>>>
>>>> INX-Gaming.com
>>>> www.inx-gaming.com
>>>>
>>>> Become a fan of INX on Facebook!
>>>>
>>>> http://www.facebook.com/pages/INX-Gaming/11051264033
>>>>
>>>> On 2 Feb 2010, at 11:17, Midnight wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Ya I think CS Pro Mod is a huge step in the right direction, and 
>>>>> hopefully other projects will follow in their footsteps.  Sadly so 
>>>>> many noobs buy games for 10 hours of single player that it kinda 
>>>>> dilutes the power of a boycott.  And so many xbox players buy FPS 
>>>>> games now that it is hurting the PC side.  Everything is getting 
>>>>> watered down to the least common denominator which is basically a 
>>>>> $150 console and p2p hosting.  Sad.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Mavrick wrote:
>>>>>> Here in Australia they're introducing Fibre to Home under the new 
>>>>>> National Broadband Network, apparently it's going to cost over 
>>>>>> 14billion (of tax payers, you & me) dollars.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> However I don't see the end of GSP's, open-source will introduce 
>>>>>> a new breed of games that players, hardcore gamers and clans will 
>>>>>> be willing to pay the price to host on high quality servers, with 
>>>>>> high quality non-congested networks.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> escapedturkey wrote:
>>>>>>> I'm starting to wonder if the future of hardcore PC gaming 
>>>>>>> community (with a desire to run servers under their own complete 
>>>>>>> control) will be on open-source / independent projects; for 
>>>>>>> example, Warsow, Alien Arena, Nexuiz, etc.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> RedDragon wrote:
>>>>>>>> I think, it isn't the bandwidth.
>>>>>>>> The publisher heading is from dedicated servers to peer2peer. 
>>>>>>>> In some cases like EA/Dice the server are too expensive for 
>>>>>>>> most clans and communitys to rent them for a cupple of months.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> -RedDragon (clanleader)
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Am 02.02.2010 11:27, schrieb escapedturkey:
>>>>>>>>> Do you believe GSPs will become obsolete as home bandwidth 
>>>>>>>>> gets larger and hardware evolves faster and smaller?
>>>>>>>>>
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