Website Idea

Copper_pipe

My ambition would be to create and run my own online gaming website. (Xbox,Ps3,Pc). I would chage a small fee per month and use this money as prizes for the various tournaments.(1-2 euro per month).
Can anyone tell me the difficulties of doing this?

enviro

Competition from PSN and Xbox live would be a difficulty. If you can get a small % of their users to switch or use your service as well, it could be viable.

Costs of hosting ect... may be high, I'm not experienced in this particular area but I would make an estimated guess that it would not be cheap to run a service of this type, for example servers.

In saying that if you factor it all into your costs and ensure you are covered by the subscription fee you charge (including leaving a mark up/profit for yourself) you might have a shot.

The biggest challenge in my opinion will be getting players to use and pay for the service. Especially as PSN users are not use to a fee paying system as it is, where as Xbox user are familiar with it.

I like the idea of prize money for winning tournaments/games. That is your USP in my opinion.

Copper_pipe

enviro wrote: »

Competition from PSN and Xbox live would be a difficulty. If you can get a small % of their users to switch or use your service as well, it could be viable.

Costs of hosting ect... may be high, I'm not experienced in this particular area but I would make an estimated guess that it would not be cheap to run a service of this type, for example servers.

In saying that if you factor it all into your costs and ensure you are covered by the subscription fee you charge (including leaving a mark up/profit for yourself) you might have a shot.

The biggest challenge in my opinion will be getting players to use and pay for the service. Especially as PSN users are not use to a fee paying system as it is, where as Xbox user are familiar with it.

I like the idea of prize money for winning tournaments/games. That is your USP in my opinion.

thanks for that , i think 1-2 euro per month is a reasonable price to pay for the chance to win some more in tournaments

Copper_pipe

Anyone have an idea of the various costs I would have to pay?

PCPhoto

in theory its great but costs will* include such things as ...

Location (hiring a tournament location might cost monsy especially as it will consume a fair amount of electricity)

insurance (most hotels or venues require some form of insurance before such events are permitted)

Security (either you or venue must have some sort of security - what happens in the event of an argument/dispute if/when things get out of hand )

payment - how to people pay you the couple of euro subs fee ? (if you accept payments online you are usually liable for a percentage hit)

Creating a website/hosting a website - These all have associated costs, design , programming etc etc.

* costs may not be necessary but are advised if you want to be professional and not seen as a chancer trying to make a couple of quid.

Copper_pipe

PCPhoto wrote: »

in theory its great but costs will* include such things as ...

Location (hiring a tournament location might cost monsy especially as it will consume a fair amount of electricity)

insurance (most hotels or venues require some form of insurance before such events are permitted)

Security (either you or venue must have some sort of security - what happens in the event of an argument/dispute if/when things get out of hand )

payment - how to people pay you the couple of euro subs fee ? (if you accept payments online you are usually liable for a percentage hit)

Creating a website/hosting a website - These all have associated costs, design , programming etc etc.

* costs may not be necessary but are advised if you want to be professional and not seen as a chancer trying to make a couple of quid.

For the tournaments the matches will be played online and results posted on the website. no hotels or locations needed.

Copper_pipe

I only think the costs would be web hosting, domain, design ? anything else im missing?

The Apprentice

Am i dont know but the above needs clarification from yourself..

I read that u want to create a website to do all this, and you have received replies to the tune of running a seperate server with competitions etc.. like a clan server and charging €1-2


To run down what it costs for both.. roughly

Website.. Very little in fact at the start but once u build up customers, unique visitors you,ll need a vps .. which are in fact cheap cheap ..

1. Domain name.. €7
2. Hosting (Yearly) €50 might have to upgrade to vps .. (€120-150)
Vps will be low scale.. just upgrade as you see fit,
3. Design of website, forum type, or wordpress drupal ??? ( Do it yourself ) For what your doing with it , you,ll learn the basics before you need to spend 3-400 u need to be getting 3-400 unique visitors per night. Because you,ve learned the basics you know what needs to go into it, less likely you will get ripped off.. overcharged


Gaming Servers .. €100 a year.. for decent sized one.. again how much do u want to spend... 30 man servers 40 man are cheap as chips..

In my opinion use the website to funnel traffic to and from the server and upgrade as you see fit, you have no real set business model only what i raised above.. You need to decide what direction u head etc ?

Monotization .. website, Affliate sales, Adsense and Montly Vip memberships.. Laser Targeted Monthly Newsletters with competitions etc.. If u have the traffic you will eventually get sponsered by the big gaming companies to push their product.

A partner im involved with runs one of the biggest gaming niche websites in europe.. Pulls approx $5000 a month in different forms of revenue.

As far as im aware he does have the gaming servers, private ones for the site and he runs montly score comps , mdk ratings etc etc. Runs also a few fun cod and other type battlefield games.

I rent him a dedicated server which is a ****ing beast of a yoke for pittance ..

Unlimited Traffic
Intel® Core™ i7-920 Quadcore
RAM 16 GB DDR3 RAM
2 x 750 GB SATA-II HDD


The above comments are helpfull from the others in some ways but u need to nail down what Exactly you want to do with it, what direction it needs to go and what competition you have. We can help you from there if u wish then !!

In all honestly, u could suck 6 months for under 100 notes if u wanted to give it a try..

Cheers buddy.. best of luck

Copper_pipe

Thanks for that, The tournaments will be run as follows,

16 people pay 2 euro each
I make out the table for who plays who
Each person is sent a copy of the table
The competitors can arrange when they wish to play.

A invites B to a game and game commences.
Winner Posts result, and the loser confirms result

Copper_pipe

Anyone else see any flaws?

The Apprentice

Well to be honest i dont see you making money on the tournaments

It might be a novelty monthly thing that i might enter but for serious, i woiuldnt be putting 2-4 euros a week into something i can get for free elsewhere.
Ure gaming server has no usp.. All the same and nothing new.. ?

If you had a good following and did a monthly tourny it would be fun, and also i have a mdk of 2.8 or so and i get hammered. People that are good good, are just going to cream the winnings every time and its gonna be nigh impossible to get the nubs in for a bit of fun..

Website if done right shall eventually earn some gold coins if u run it right.