Web hosting for a flash arcade?

[Jimp]

Hey guys, thought this would probably be the best place for me to post this.

Im looking at setting up what is essentially a flash game arcade. It will have other purposes, but flash games will be the focus point.

One of the first things I need to decide (along with a website name...) is which hosting company I want to go with. The only company Ive used before were Dreamhost, who had fairly good service but the uptime didnt seem all too great.

Initially there will only be a small amount of traffic, but I want the option to scale my hosting plan easily as I (hopefully) gain more visitors.

Does anyone have any suggestions for good companies or starter packages? i dont want to pay through the arse, but I would rather pay more for a faster and more reliable service than go for the cheapest option - I want this to be a quality site.

Cheers in advance!

[smulse]

I am with MediaTemple on their grid-service, they're very good.

However, having said that you should consider a dedicated host, or at very least a VPS if you're anywhere near serious about this. You'll have dedicated resources, better uptime, more control etc, even for a small scale site loading thousands of flash files per day is going to whore resources and you'll find yourself struggling on a shared hosting account.

[Jimp]

I do very much like the look of Media Temple, how reliable is the grid service?

Thinking about it, a lot of the game traffic will be lifted from mochi, but dont want to limit myself to this at all, and I still want to be able to cope if I get any big traffic spikes. I also want to host a couple of other smaller sites on the plan but they shouldnt reach anything near the arcade.

The only problem about getting a dedicated server off the bat is the cost. I dont know how long it will take for me to get any decent amount of traffic, the majority of which ill be getting through self sponsorship of games, I imagine its a fairly slow process getting a decent stream of visitors.

I just dont wanna be paying $100's for dedicated hosting if I only get a few thousand hits in the first 6 months, which I imagine is likely!

Cheers for the help man

[Jessii]

What you can do is get the site up and running and see how much traffic you get and how much bandwidth you use. Then as you see that increasing or you have outages, then you know it's time to upgrade.

[Jimp]

Yup i know, thats why I just want to start with a basic plan. I have access to hosting at the moment but its shared and I want to get my own with full control.

HostPapa have some good reviews, any good?

[citricsquid]

It depends massively on what you want to achieve. If it was down to me I'd go with a cheapish company like dreamhost with a view to move onto something more suited to the needs of a large flash site if it went well. Personally, what you have right now and goals make perfect sense to be ran from dreamhost or a similar company, but you need to make sure you've got the money and time to quickly upgrade. This is the problem with the internet, traffic is never guaranteed, your site can be hugely popular one day and the next it's gone.

I would personally recommend you go with dreamhost or hostpapa and take a look at a dedicated server provider (or vps with cdn) for the future in case it goes well, if it does then make sure you've got the understanding to quickly take a hold of it, if your site goes down for more than a day then you're going to lose your traffic, because the flash game site market really isn't a market that has loyalty, people will come and go as they please. You're not providing a unique service. (speaking from experience).

[Jimp]

At 10/28/09 03:28 PM, citricsquid wrote: It depends massively on what you want to achieve. If it was down to me I'd go with a cheapish company like dreamhost with a view to move onto something more suited to the needs of a large flash site if it went well. Personally, what you have right now and goals make perfect sense to be ran from dreamhost or a similar company, but you need to make sure you've got the money and time to quickly upgrade. This is the problem with the internet, traffic is never guaranteed, your site can be hugely popular one day and the next it's gone.

I would personally recommend you go with dreamhost or hostpapa and take a look at a dedicated server provider (or vps with cdn) for the future in case it goes well, if it does then make sure you've got the understanding to quickly take a hold of it, if your site goes down for more than a day then you're going to lose your traffic, because the flash game site market really isn't a market that has loyalty, people will come and go as they please. You're not providing a unique service. (speaking from experience).

Cheers citric was hoping you'd stop by here.

Hostpapa looks great at $5 a month, but its a bit of a scare thats the only plan they do, wont it be a pain in the arse when i need better hosting? How reliable are they, how much traffic would I need before that $5 service isnt enough and ill need a dedicated server?

How about dedicated servers then, are mediatemple worth it or are you just paying for the "brand"? Ive also been recommended knownhost, any experience with them?

Cheers for the help guys!

[robin1232]

marketing technically I think its a bad idea, because there are already so many and I don't think you can get it popular even when you have original idea's

[DFox]

Take a look at Godaddy virtual dedicated servers. I think they're great. I've had my VDS plan through them for about five years now, and I've never had a problem.

[Rustygames]

Start small, get some cheap ass hosting. Then if the site gets bigger, upgrade your servers accordingly, you don't necessarily have to stay with the same host.

I use www.axishost.com and they're reasonably good and their prices are fair

[Jimp]

Cheers Matt, I think thats pretty much the plan now. ive been looking at ihost and hostgator aswell, there are so many god damn hosting companies! How much does it really matter who I go with at this early stage?

I dont want to be facing downtime or anything but it looks like most of the basic packages are very similar. Shall I just pick someone reliable that I like the look of and go for it?

[citricsquid]

At 10/30/09 08:15 AM, Jimp wrote: I dont want to be facing downtime or anything but it looks like most of the basic packages are very similar. Shall I just pick someone reliable that I like the look of and go for it?

uptime is always a problem and it's one of the thing that matters the most (if you want to retain visitors). If you go with a huge hosting company the chances of downtime causing any major problems are small, but the chance of server problems because of a large amount of customers is increased, but if you go with a smaller company then you're risking them disappearing or not having the funds to put into action server switches if the server you're on does die.

I would personally recommend you try hostgator, they're a very good company (form what I've heard review wise) and have minimal downtime and they're not going anywhere soon.