The online gaming world has changed considerably from the early days of gaming. No longer are you stuck playing solo, and no longer are you stuck playing against a bunch of strangers. If you want to have a weekend gaming marathon with a bunch of your friends, the easiest thing to do is to set up your own online gaming server. This allows everyone to connect to the same dedicated gaming server and not have to worry about finding everyone on a commercial server open to the world of users. Strangers won’t be able to disrupt your play. When new versions of games like Minecraft or Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) get released, people flock to the publisher-owned game servers. People pay monthly fees to access these servers. There are plenty of players to interact with on these servers. CS:GO is a first-person shooter (FPS) game, so there are plenty of people to kill there, too. If you configure your own dedicated game server, not only can you share it with friends, but you get to play god and choose the game options for yourself that you want. You’ve now decided to create your own dedicated gaming server. Now what? First, can your home Internet connection handle the demand? For most people, the answer is yes. With a 25 Mbps download/10 Mbps uplink, you can support a small group of friends. But if you want to host a public server, the answer is no. In addition to the home server option, what many people decide to do is to rent dedicated servers. There are two options here. You can rent a preconfigured game server for a specific game. You pay a small amount per person per month and a fixed amount for the server. This works great if you don’t mind using the default configuration. What more people do instead is rent dedicated servers but instead do the installation themselves. That way, they can add the game mods they want and enable any other configurable options, just like with the home server. What must you worry about with your own server? We all like to get an upper hand in games if possible. There are lots of ways to cheat with these games. There is something called VAC (Valve Anti-Cheat) you can configure to help detect cheats, but cheaters are always trying to get the upper hand. You hope to not have to worry about that when playing with friends, but you never know. More important, though, since it is now your dedicated server, you have to protect it from hackers, and you really need to understand Linux, too. If you’re more a Windows person, you might need help in configuration. Dedicated game servers allow the shared world to be controlled somewhat. But what can you play there? The exploration and crafting game Minecraft is definitely the biggest one here. FPS-type games are also extremely popular. Other games include the previously mentioned CS:GO, Day of Defeat: Source and Half-Life 2: Deathmatch. One thing you’ll find in common with many of these games is that they are Steam-Powered. This is a platform for creating multiplayer online games. Don’t be afraid of it. It helps create a common, secure, reusable baseline for the games. The key thing with playing games online is to have fun. Setting up your own dedicated game server can be lots of work, but it allows you and your friends to enjoy the shared experience the most. While it might be fun killing strangers in an open world, being the last person standing in your dedicated environment will give you bragging rights for some time, at least until the next adventure. Finally, make sure to have a look at this article we wrote on the most popular games played online via dedicated server.