Why We Host Our Own Servers (And Why It Matters)

TL;DR: We went from cloud hosting to self-hosting our infrastructure. Performance is better, costs are lower, and we're not at the mercy of someone else's SLA.

The Journey Through Hosting Hell

We've been around the block. Started with shared hosting like every naive server owner does. Quickly realized that doesn't scale when you actually care about performance.

So we went the dedicated server route. Tried all the big names - DigitalOcean, IONOS, AWS, OVH. Each had their strengths. None were perfect. Eventually landed on serverstarter.host and honestly? We loved them. Great support, solid hardware, no complaints.

The Reality Check

But here's the thing about running game servers: your revenue fluctuates. Our paying playerbase dropped. Not because people stopped playing - we still have a solid core of repeat players who keep coming back. But the money wasn't matching the hosting bills.

I could've done what most server owners do: slap in more pay-to-win garbage to squeeze more cash out of players. Instead, I remembered I used to do this for a living. Hardware engineer. Server guy. Datacenter work.

BTW, shared datacenters look like this... most video game companies use shared data centers:

Why was I paying someone else to do something I could do better?

Bringing It Home

Just over a year ago, we went self-hosted. Built out our own infrastructure. Got ourselves a direct connection to a major backbone network.

The results? Our latency is so good that most of our players are based out of Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. Not because we're trying to target those regions - they just found us because the connection is actually playable from that far away.

Performance isn't just better - it's night and day different. No more waiting on support tickets to restart a crashed instance. No more "our upstream provider is having issues" excuses. It breaks, we fix it. Usually before most players even notice.

The Point

This isn't a flex. This is about control and commitment. We're not running Nuclear Gaming to maximize profit margins. We're running it because we give a damn about hosting quality servers without pay-to-win nonsense.

Self-hosting means:

• Better performance for you
• Lower costs for us (which means we never need pay-to-win to stay afloat)
• Complete control over our infrastructure
• No corporate middleman making decisions for us

Could we grow faster on cloud infrastructure with VC money and a bunch of pay-to-win mechanics? Probably. Would it still be Nuclear Gaming? Hell no.

We're building this the right way. On hardware we own. For a community that actually matters.