Gaming Entrepreneurs in Game Server Hosting

Becoming a Gaming Entrepreneur – Shockbyte James Zinn

The gaming industry underwent a seismic shift in 2011, a year that marked the release of Minecraft, which is still one of the most popular video games more than a decade later. This sandbox player-hosted multiplayer-servers-based game has given rise to some of the biggest titles in the history of gaming, and it has become an inspiration for gaming developers across the globe for growing communities and allowing players to create their own stories. While Minecraft has given rise to some of the most well-known massive online server networks such as Mineplex, Hypixel, Skywars, Wynncraft, and many more, it is not the only game to foster online communities centered around hosted servers.

Games such as Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Rust, Ark: Survival Evolved, SCP: Secret Laboratory, and many more are centered around communities gathering together to enjoy the game and the world created uniquely by the server host. Games cycle in and out, though some titles remain popular. Minecraft and Rust server hosting remain popular even years after the games' respective releases. This power given to the server host is one that has the potential to make or break a server’s growth and can lead to thousands of players from all over the world gathering together at once. With such a gathering of people, there is also a large variety of ways to further monetize this traction, making for young entrepreneurs in the gaming community. If game server monetization is something you're interested in learning more about, take a look at the tips below.

Who Can Become a Gaming Entrepreneur?

There is an obvious misconception that to become an entrepreneur in gaming, you need an established community to take with you onto a server you establish, meaning you’ll need to be a fully developed content creator already. This is absolutely untrue, with an incredible example of this being the iconic success of Hypixel, starting as Minecraft map-building friends in 2013 who only established their server as a way to play on the maps for fun. With proper dedication to being a strong server host, and choosing a reliable server hosting infrastructure, anyone can find success.

A large portion of establishing a server that will grow in popularity is making one that you yourself would enjoy playing on. Gamers are generally looking for a kind community and reliable server connections with 100% uptime so they are able to play whenever they are feeling up to it. This provides the most consistent community for players and leads to steady growth of a community as you further advertise your server’s existence. Putting yourself into the mind of what a gamer would want shouldn’t be too hard, you probably are one!

More Ways To Grow Your Gaming Server

As naturally shown by some of the best Minecraft servers available, servers that provide the highest quality of gaming experience tend to draw the most growth and attention from players who are eager to join a new server. The first and foremost rule to follow when becoming a server host is to choose a reliable server hosting provider who can host a wide variety of games, with 100 percent uptime, a strong DDOS protection (for reasons we’ve spoken about in previous articles), and high-end customer support features to allow you complete flexibility in upscaling your server. This will be the backbone of your success as a server host for gamers.

From here it will become an independent movement in marketing and outreach to further get your server known by the public. There are many free online resources to make connections with players such as “Best Server Lists” that offer both advertising services as well as a seamless connection for players to find a new place to call their community. Other great places to try marketing is on social media such as Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Tiktok. Include clips that would entice you as a player to join that server, given you didn’t already own it!

How To Monetize Your Gaming Server

Growing your community is great and leads to a wonderful circulation of growth, server upscaling, and continued growth, but this can spiral into an unending (and potentially expensive) situation if there is no present monetization at hand to keep things afloat. Fortunately for server owners, there is a wide variety of monetization options available, from in-game options to tip jars that can allow player-funding of server costs. The easiest way to player-fund server costs is to use a Ko-fi or a Patreon and link it throughout your community.

Another way to further fund server costs and start your digital entrepreneurial empire is to use a server-based store such as Tebex or Fungies, which you can connect to your server internally, allowing players to purchase in-server skins, items, and accessories to further separate themselves amongst the crowd. In only a single month, Riot Games was able to make over $20 million dollars selling a skin in Valorant; it just goes to show how successful this strategy can be.

How To Make Your Gaming Server Fun

The biggest strategy shared throughout this post is to create a community a gamer would enjoy most, which, ideally, shouldn’t be too difficult to picture if you are one! This, though, may be easier said than done and deserves further descriptive reasoning behind exactly what choices are to be made depending on the game the server is hosted on. Hosting a server that includes “minigames” that are favorites among the title’s players is a surefire way to draw a community. Minecraft servers that feature Skyblock, Gmod servers with TTT, and Rust gaming servers with alternate specifications all garner their portions of the player base.

Server hosts can further differentiate themselves from the rest by making their servers unique, whether it be with an incredibly special ruleset or a selection of maps for players to play on. Fulfilling a niche is the best way to draw more players to your server, and retain your current players. Become the server other servers wish to emulate!

Teaming Up With Content Creators

As expected, a content creator’s community is among one of the best ways to draw attention to a server, and many creators are eager to find new places to make content! Whether it's creating Minecraft videos on your YouTube channel or live streaming on Twitch, a content creator could bring to light a mutually beneficial relationship and allow expansive growth of your community through exposure on their platform! Shockbyte is teamed up with a massive variety of partners in exactly this situation!

This idea extends to the modding community too, not just to Youtube or Twitch creators. If you were interested in creating an extensively modded server, or one with a multitude of plugins, reaching out to modders on sites such as Nexusmods or PlanetMinecraft could lead to extremely fruitful relationships. Minecraft YouTubers are some of the biggest on the platform, and the Minecraft community is nothing if not loyal to their favorite creators. Having one of the best Minecraft content creators use your server can be a game-changer.

Making Your Mark

Overall, there are a lot of important things to consider when committing to being a server host. Whether you’re hosting the server for friends and family or you're planning on monetizing your game server, you’ll need to worry about everything from server uptime to the correct number of player slots. There is a lot of independent commitment that is involved with being a game server entrepreneur which is why choosing a strong server host provider such as Shockbyte and OVHcloud can give you peace of mind when you need it most.

Interested in learning more about game server hosting entrepreneurship? Check out our partner's insightful blog post on how to become a gaming entrepreneur with game server hosting here.

The following was written by Shockbyte PTY. The claims, opinions, and views expressed below are those of Shockbyte and do not necessarily reflect those of OVHcloud US.