

Review my startup idea: Multiplayer game servers on demand - mryan

Hi HN,<p>I have just put up the landing page for my soon-to-launch startup, Cloudfrag.com, and I would really appreciate some feedback. Many of the ShowHNs of late have suffered from a distinct lack of detail in their landing pages. I am hoping mine does not suffer from the same problem.<p>http://www.cloudfrag.com<p>The traditional model in game server hosting (for PC games such as Minecraft, Left 4 Dead, etc.) is to charge a flat monthly fee, regardless of how often the server is used. As you are tied to one particular game when renting a server (or must pay a fee to change games) this becomes less cost-effective if you play a variety of games.<p>Cloudfrag is my attempt at solving this problem for myself and other gamers - the site lets people run their own servers, but they only pay for the time the server is actually running. This should make it a lot cheaper to have your own game server, especially if you either don't play much, or play a wide variety of games. It is currently in closed beta, and will be going to public beta soon.<p>I am keen to receive feedback on the landing page and the idea itself, so do let me know what you think.<p>Thanks,<p>Mike
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patio11
Differentiating based on pricing alone is tricky. I'd suggest convenience of
setting up dedicated servers -- 0 to frag in 15 seconds or less.

In terms of pricing, charge hourly _but_ have an easy discounted
day/week/month pass option. (1 hour for $0.25, 1 day for $5, 1 week for $20, 1
month for $40 -- I have done no market research, these are just to show the
discount curve.)

I strongly suggest selling credits rather than doing actual utility billing.
Gamers are pathological customers in a lot of ways. Wait for credit cards to
break, massive fraud issues, etc.

I do not like Cloud* branding for someone who is not selling to developers.
That doesn't seem to communicate value to the customer for me, since Cloud is
a meaningless buzzword outside our industry. MultiplayerOnDemand, your strap
line, sounds better. (GameOnDemand?)

In terms of getting users for this, you have many options. Advertising rates
for gamers are low... for a reason. You probably monetize better than
T-shirts, so that is a definite plus. I would start trying to recruit folks
for it right now, individually -- your gaming buddies, clans, what have you.
If you can't give it away, you'll never be able to sell it.

~~~
mryan
Thanks for the feedback Patrick.

I had not thought about the day/* pass option, so far I have been looking at
hourly rates. Users will deposit funds to their account, and when the server
is started the cost will be deducted from their balance. I definitely do not
want to get in to utility billing, it seems like a headache I don't want!

Wrt the name - I came up with it on the spur of the moment and did not really
think about it much after that. Cloud is indeed irrelevant to a lot of the
target market, so MultiplayerOnDemand might be a better option.

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staunch
1) I think you could charge in 24 hour increments pretty easily. Maybe the
longer the server is running the cheaper it gets, so you could incentivize
people to leave them up for longer periods of time.

For example (not real prices) maybe $5 per 24 hours and then $16 per week then
$22 per month or whatever.

That way it's easy to take no risk at $5, but if you end up wanting to keep it
up you're not paying $5 x 30 days which would _suck_.

2) I don't think you need to have the server end automatically. Letting me
close it myself would be fine as an option, especially with the payment scheme
I outlined above.

3) Let use prepayment. They fill up their account with $100 and when it runs
out there's no overbilling. This adds a huge sense of security to the buyer.
Probably also let people pay on-demand if they want by leaving a credit card
on file.

4) Latency is _soooo_ important. Offer servers in west/central/east coasts. Do
not use shitty oversubscribed bandwidth providers!

If you do Urban Terror or BC2 I'll try it out for sure. Good luck!

~~~
mryan
1) The charges will be in hourly increments to keep things simple. I might
explore different options in future.

2) I'm not sure about this one, I think it might need to be an option the user
can set. I would hate to be in the position where someone asks for a refund
because they forgot to turn their server off. It could be ok if there is a big
warning that ensures they realise they have to pay if it is left on.

3) Yes, definitely pre-payment. Credit card on file is a nice idea, I will
look at that in future.

4) Couldn't agree more. There will be multiple locations so people can choose
the closest one.

Thanks staunch, I appreciate the feedback.

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snikolic
This is a really cool idea.

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!

~~~
mryan
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!

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JonLim
Very cool - my friends and I are fairweather online gamers, we really prefer
to play with each other via co-op or maybe once in a while we run TF2 or L4D2
on a whim. An on-demand service would be great.

Feature request (not sure if it's there): would love to be able to start a
server, and send out email invites to friends with clickable join links that
would connect them to the server.

Related: if you need help with designing, sending, and managing emails
(especially for that last feature), I'd be happy to help. I'm the Product
Manager for PostageApp (<http://www.postageapp.com>) and we're all about
email. Let me know if I can help!

~~~
mryan
It sounds like you and your friends are the type of people I am building this
for.

Email invites are on the to-do list, although I am not sure whether or not I
will enable that for the beta yet. I haven't thought about the implementation
yet, but I will keep you guys in mind.

Thanks for the feedback!

~~~
JonLim
Then please let me into the beta! Haha, no problemo though, I always dream
about booting up my server and hosting for a limited time, but it's always
such a pain in the butt to manage it all.

If you can do it at a reasonable rate, would be a very happy customer!

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not_chriscohoat
I like the look of the landing page...it's clear, concise, and descriptive.
And the design isn't overwhelming. From a UI standpoint, I approve.

One thing that might be helpful is labelling the games you do intend to
support. That was the first question that I had. I see at the bottom you can
view images of TF, Minecraft, Left 4 Dead, etc...but it would help if you were
a little more explicit. It has those 3 listed under "Games, Games, Games", but
I would love to know about the "many more". Overall it looks really nice!

~~~
mryan
Thanks for the feedback!

I'll work on making the games list more prominent. As for "many more", I'll be
posting a poll to see what gamers would like to play first.

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baconner
Great idea Mike. A few years back when i gamed online more I would've been all
over a service like this.

Have you ever used webex, gotomeeting, etc? It'd be slick if you could make
the startup experience a bit like those so you can start your server and get
the connection details into your friends hands in one step.

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JoachimSchipper
Question: can multiple people chip in some money for a server? Would it make
sense to allow this? (E.g. a group of friends may wish to split costs.)

~~~
mryan
Yes, this will be possible - I will go in to more detail in a blog post, but
essentially you will be able to create a group of people who can pool
resources, and then pay for servers with funds from that pool.

It might not be in the beta - if not, I will add it soon after. I have a few
features aimed at groups/clans, as anecdotal evidence suggests they are the
people most likely to pay for a server.

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ColinWright
Clickable: <http://www.cloudfrag.com>

