Use case · Gaming
Gaming
Gaming — studios and publishers running online games — needs infrastructure across the whole operation: low-latency game servers, scalable backends, strong DDoS protection, and the ability to absorb the dramatic spikes games bring. Dedicated, well-connected, bare-metal infrastructure delivers the performance and economics sustained game operations need, and EU hosting keeps player data sovereign.
Key points
- Gaming operations need infrastructure across the whole stack — game servers and backends.
- Low latency and strong performance are central to the player experience.
- Games are heavily targeted by DDoS, so strong protection is essential.
- Games bring dramatic spikes at launch and events that the infrastructure must absorb.
- Dedicated bare metal suits sustained game operations, in the EU for player-data sovereignty.
What does gaming infrastructure need?
Gaming — the studios and publishers who run online games — needs infrastructure across the whole operation of a game, from the real-time game servers players connect to, through the backend services that support the game, to the delivery and scale a game's audience requires. Running an online game is a substantial infrastructure undertaking, combining latency-sensitive game servers, scalable backend services, defence against the attacks games attract, and the ability to handle the dramatic swings in load games see. This makes gaming a demanding sector for infrastructure, where the performance, reliability, and economics of the infrastructure bear directly on the game and its players.
What unites gaming's infrastructure needs is that games are performance-sensitive, heavily attacked, prone to sharp spikes, and dependent on player trust, so the infrastructure must be fast, defended, scalable, and reliable together. A game that lags, gets taken down by attacks, buckles at launch, or loses player data fails its players, so all of these matter. This page looks at gaming as a whole; the specific workloads — game servers and game backends — are covered on their own pages, while what follows takes the operation-wide view of what running online games needs from its infrastructure.
The full stack: game servers and backends
A game operation runs a full stack of infrastructure: the real-time game servers that run matches, and the backend services — accounts, matchmaking, progression, leaderboards, and more — that support the game around the play. The game servers are latency-sensitive, running the live simulation players connect to; the backend is an application-and-database workload persisting player data and providing the online services; and together they make up the infrastructure a game runs on. A studio or publisher must provide for both, since players experience both — the responsiveness of the game servers and the reliability of the backend services.
These two parts have different demands, so a game operation needs infrastructure suited to each, working together. The game servers need low latency, strong per-core performance, and DDoS protection; the backend needs scalable compute and reliable databases; and both must scale and stay reliable. We provide infrastructure for both sides of a game's stack — well-connected, high-performance servers for the game servers, and scalable compute and reliable databases for the backend — so that a game operation has the infrastructure for the whole game, the real-time play and the supporting services together, which is what running an online game requires.
Latency and the player experience
Across a game operation, latency and performance shape the player experience directly, because players feel lag and slowness immediately, so low latency and strong performance are central to gaming infrastructure. The game servers must respond to players quickly, which needs low latency and strong performance, and the backend must be responsive too, so that signing in, matchmaking, and accessing progression feel quick. Players notice and are frustrated by delays anywhere in the experience, so the whole operation benefits from being fast and responsive, which the infrastructure underpins.
Delivering this means well-connected infrastructure near players for the game servers, and performant infrastructure for the backend, so the whole experience is responsive. Game servers located near players and well-connected keep latency low; strong per-core performance keeps the game simulation fast; and a performant backend keeps the supporting services quick. We provide well-connected, high-performance infrastructure suited to gaming's latency and performance needs — for the game servers players connect to and the backend that supports them — so that a game operation can give players the responsive experience they expect, which is central to a game's success given how directly players feel latency and performance.
DDoS and security
Games are among the most heavily targeted workloads for denial-of-service attacks, so strong DDoS protection and security are essential across a game operation, since attacks that take down game servers or backends disrupt players. The competitive and social nature of games leads to routine attacks on game servers and the infrastructure behind games, so a game operation faces these attacks as normal, and unprotected infrastructure can be taken down by them. Beyond DDoS, the operation handles player data and accounts, which must be secured. So defending the infrastructure — against denial-of-service attacks and to protect player data — is a core requirement of gaming.
Providing this means DDoS protection that keeps game servers and backends available under the attacks games face, and security for the player data the operation holds. Protection that absorbs and filters attack traffic keeps the infrastructure reachable by players despite attacks; and securing the backend protects players' accounts and data. We provide DDoS protection and secure infrastructure for gaming, so that a game operation's servers and backends stay available under the attacks games routinely face, and player data is protected — defending both the availability players need and the data they entrust, which is essential given how heavily games are targeted.
Scale and the spikes games bring
Games see dramatic swings in load — enormous spikes at launch, around events, and when a game goes viral — so gaming infrastructure must scale and absorb spikes that can far exceed steady load. A game launch can bring a flood of players at once; events and updates draw surges; and a game catching on can grow explosively. These swings are more extreme than many sectors face, and handling them is critical, since a game overwhelmed at launch or during a big event gives players a poor experience precisely when attention is highest and the stakes for the game greatest.
Handling this means infrastructure that scales with the player base and is provisioned for the peaks, across both game servers and backend. More players need more game server instances and more backend capacity, scaled as the base grows; and launch and event peaks need capacity ready or quickly added. Provisioning for the extreme peaks games bring, not just steady load, prepares the operation for its biggest moments. We provide infrastructure that scales a game operation with its players and for its spikes — game server capacity and scalable backends, provisioned for the dramatic peaks launches and events bring — so that a game holds up at the moments that matter most, rather than buckling when players arrive in force.
Cost and control for game operations
For sustained game operations, the economics favour dedicated bare metal, and running on infrastructure the operation controls gives the performance and command games benefit from. A game running continuously, with its game servers and backend busy, is well-utilised, and for such sustained operation, dedicated bare metal at a fixed cost is usually more economical than on-demand rates for capacity that is busy most of the time — and games can be large operations where this cost difference matters. Bare metal also gives the full, consistent performance game servers need and control over the infrastructure.
On-demand capacity retains a role for the extreme, temporary peaks games see — a launch surge, a big event — where paying for temporary capacity to handle a spike, atop a dedicated base for steady load, can make sense. So a game operation often pairs a dedicated bare-metal base, economical for its sustained load and giving full performance, with the ability to handle temporary peaks. We provide dedicated bare-metal infrastructure for the sustained load of game operations, where its economics and performance suit, and will help handle the peaks games bring — sizing the infrastructure to a game's real pattern of steady operation and dramatic spikes, which is how gaming infrastructure is provided economically.
Sovereignty, and where VV Internet Hosting fits
Game operations hold a great deal of player data — accounts, progression, and the personal data of European players — so where the infrastructure runs governs that data, making sovereignty a consideration. VV Internet Hosting is incorporated in the Netherlands, within the EU, so gaming infrastructure hosted with us runs under European jurisdiction and outside the direct reach of the US CLOUD Act, keeping player data under European law. For games serving European players, hosting in the EU — which also suits the latency of serving European players — keeps their data sovereign.
We host well-connected, dedicated bare-metal infrastructure for gaming: high-performance servers with the per-core performance and low latency game servers need, scalable compute and reliable databases for backends, DDoS protection against the attacks games face, and the scale to grow with players and absorb spikes — in EU datacenters under European jurisdiction, well-placed for European players. This suits studios and publishers running online games who want performance, defence, scalability, economical dedicated infrastructure, and European sovereignty. We are clear about our limits: we provide the dedicated infrastructure a game operation runs on, not the game or its software, nor a managed game-hosting platform. We are the dedicated, sovereign, well-connected infrastructure for gaming — and if that fits your game, we can host it well.
See also
Questions
Gaming, answered plainly
Common questions about hosting for Gaming.
What infrastructure does an online game need?
A full stack: the real-time game servers players connect to, which are latency-sensitive and need strong per-core performance and DDoS protection; and the backend services — accounts, matchmaking, progression, leaderboards — which are an application-and-database workload persisting player data. Both must scale, stay reliable, and be defended, since players experience both the game servers and the supporting services.
Why do games need such strong DDoS protection?
Because games are among the most heavily targeted workloads for denial-of-service attacks — the competitive and social nature of games leads to routine attacks on game servers and the infrastructure behind games. Unprotected infrastructure can be taken down, disrupting players. So DDoS protection that keeps game servers and backends available under attack is a core, essential requirement of gaming infrastructure.
Is dedicated or on-demand infrastructure better for games?
Often both. Sustained game operations — game servers and backends busy continuously — favour dedicated bare metal on cost and performance, more economical than on-demand for capacity busy most of the time, with full consistent performance. On-demand capacity suits the extreme temporary peaks games see, like a launch surge, atop a dedicated base for steady load.
Planning Gaming infrastructure?
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