Okay, so I'm 17 and I've been running websites for a few years now (an assortment of content sites, blogs, and forums). I've been lucky to have a few good months, and generally get over $1000 for doing practically nothing. This didn't feel right. I wanted to earn my money, so I decided to challenge myself, and choose a business where I would have to put some serious effort into, but I could still do. I decided to become a game server provider, but focus on a particular game (Crysis). After months of preparation (SEOing the site, learning all I could - I knew nothing about server hosting before getting started) the game, and my business launched. Cost wise, I'd spent about $1000-$1200 before the business was even up. I'd gone from knowing nothing about server hosting to having installed and configured the software, setup the billing software, and managing the server via remote desktop - as you can see I had to learn a lot, and was really trying. The business launched 1 week ago today, the game's multiplayer is a flop, and I've received 1 customer (with the lowest paying package), and it feels horrible to know that I did everything right, my servers are running great, and it's flawless...but because of the game developers/publishers made some very dumb mistakes, the multiplayer sucks (and this was one of the most anticipated games of the year) and the business is dead. The money isn't the biggest problem (but $1000 is still $1000), it's just that this is the first time I've actually tried to make a successful business, and it failed. It just leads me to believe to make the kind of crap I've made in the past is the better way to make a living (I don't run MFA's or anything, my sites are just pretty crap due to lack of effort).
Nice to see that someone tries to make an effort. So are you saying that nobody plays Crysis multiplayer because the developer made the game suck? Are the business dead for the other game servers too or is it your advertising that sucks? Cant you just switch game then?
Other game server providers host multiple games, so it doesn't matter if one game isn't too popular. My whole competitive advantage was that I could offer better support etc as I was simply focusing on Crysis, which the developers did screw up in the multiplayer department. My advertising is the best it can be. Ranked #1 in Google for: - Crysis Servers - Crysis Server Hosting - Crysis Server Rental Paid adverts on Crysis-Online.com