Why you should hire a Private Server Developer (For your Game Studio)

Overview

Private servers are unofficial fan versions of live service games, recreating past eras or providing new content for older titles that players have grown to love. These projects are an exciting rapid development space where top talent meet to share their love of game development and design.

• Developers engage in a fast development cycle with immediate feedback, working closely with players to deliver the best possible experience.
• Private server scenes are highly competitive, with each project attempting to present their best design vision of the game.
• Small team sizes ensure contributors develop many different skills to make their game successful and continuously retain player interest.
• Designers must balance modern gamer's expectations with archaic systems, while retaining the nostalgic feel most players are seeking.
• Working without reference source code necessitates technical proficiency, modifying client memory, mapping packets and decoding data files.

True passion

Developers for private servers are usually unpaid and work tirelessly out of their passion for game development and design. More than mere idlers with aspirations, these developers overcome all boundaries impeding their ambition to build a real game with live players. Often pushing the technical possibilities of older software and putting in endless hours of effort despite no monetisation or potential risks associated with "grey area" IP usage.

Battle tested

Rapid iteration with minimal overhead and frequently launching new content means that pro-active developers go through the content release cycle, receive immediate feedback on their system and gain experience faster than in any other environment. Designs must work well and progression must be suitably balanced to keep players engaged update after update.

Multi-skilled

Working on a private server involves a vast skillset: Developing new content, handling updates, diagnosing live issues, testing features, collaborating with open source projects, collecting community feedback, iterating on designs, optimising databases schemas, structuring server architecture, streamlining deployment processes and developing far beyond the game, into website functionality, discord bots, support tickets and continous integration.

Level playing field

Private servers are a true meritocracy where weaker projects drown in a sea of obscurity. There are no investors propping up failing games, only players who enjoy and support what is well produced. With zero marketing budget, servers are carried alone by the quality of the content they provide, their approach to balance and their ability to continuously provide compelling entertainment within an aged game that competes with newer releases.

Meeting of minds

With all of the unique challanges and exciting opportunities, private servers attract top tier technical talent. On various projects over the years, I've met countless peers who are lead engineers at companies such as Google and Meta or work on technologies for NASA and SpaceX.

Optimisation experts

Often without any revenue, private servers operate on budget hardware at cost, which must serve a stable experience to thousands of players concurrently. This means developers pay close attention to bottlenecks and become masters of writing high performance code.

Strong teamwork

Private server developers collaborate with many people all over the world, with different aptitudes, temperaments, personalities and varying degrees of investment. Working on a passion project can lead to conflict, which must be handled appropriately to thrive and maintain momentum as a successful team.

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