http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/081707-gamerail.html?nlhtl=0827lanalert1&A Missouri startup called GameRail feels the pain of latency-challenged online video gamers, and has developed a private network that routes game traffic from PCs to about 10,000 servers hosted by online gaming companies. Essentially, it allows online gamers to bypass the Internet, the company claims.
For players of first-person shooter games, GameRail’s target market, “the higher the latency the slower the bullets and you can’t dodge out of the way,” says John Alden, vice president of business development. “With lower latency, you can shoot better, faster, and react faster.”
Politicos such as Hillary Clinton and her crusaders against violence in video games will be horrified. But at $11.99 per month, with a free 30-day trial, players of Counter-Strike and other online shooters might be tempted to give it a try.
In beta since October, and available commercially for the past three weeks, GameRail has partnerships with game companies and various residential broadband providers in most of the nation’s largest markets, though it is focusing on “square states” like Utah, Colorado and Arizona, where latency tends to be high, Alden says. Alden claims GameRail reduces latency by 20% to 80%.
“At the point that gamers’ traffic would go onto the Internet is where it goes [instead] onto our network. Our subscribers download a thin client and we map their connections directly to the data centers where there is a high density of game servers,” Alden says. “We don’t do residential broadband and we don’t do hosting. We just collapse the routing.”
A typical Internet connection can require many “hops” that increase the millisecond delays in the data exchanges that happen between gamers and game servers, Alden says. It’s like flying across the country on a plane but having multiple stopovers.
“Outside of Boston, if you wanted to go to Los Angeles, you’d prefer a direct flight,” he says. “But for a gamer, you’d fly Boston to New York to Chicago to Denver and then you’d get to L.A.”
GameRail is initially focusing on first-person shooters because the quality of those games is heavily dependent on latency, Alden says. Latency matters less in fantasy role-playing games like EverQuest and World of Warcraft.
“The quality of your network connection has a significant impact on where you can play and the quality of the game playing,” GameRail states on its Web site. “When you are competing, the players with the fastest reactions usually win. The quality of your Internet connection to the server has a significant impact on how the server views your reaction time. A lower latency connection (low ping) gives you an advantage over players on higher latency connections (high ping).”
GameRailÂ’s not saying how many customers it has. Through its relationships with broadband providers, up to 25 million homes in the United States and 9 million in Canada could be directly attached to the GameRail network, Alden says. GameRailÂ’s initial rollout targets Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, St. Louis and Seattle, and GameRail expects to expand its network to an additional 17 cities in its next phase.
Any gamer with a broadband connection can take advantage of the service, though the connection to the GameRail network will be indirect and slower if your Internet service provider does not have a partnership with the company. GameRail has direct connections with Cablevision, Cox and AT&T, but not Comcast.
“We have multiple Internet connections in every major market,” Alden says. “We’re trying to build it so at worst case they’re one hop away [from our network].”
GameRail serves PC players exclusively for now, but Alden says the company’s plans include developing peer-to-peer connections between Xbox Live players for “LAN-like connectivity.”
_____________________________________________________________
US only.
