Decentralization seems to have taken the internet by storm. I saw an article on Habr and realized that I work in the same network. I just never tried mining; I actually run a gaming club.
Last October, I opened an esports computer club called 59FPS in Perm. It was established as a base for hosting esports tournaments, and everything was going well until... well, you're all aware of the epidemic, right? Below is a story about how the club manages to operate almost normally during the crisis thanks to distributed gaming.
The Story of Opening the Club
I have been leading the Perm branch of the Russian Computer Sports Federation for several years. We have been working for a long time, but all this time, development has been hindered by a lack of modern equipped venues for hosting esports competitions. Thus, it seemed logical for me to create such a venue myself. They say, “If you want something done well, do it yourself,” and that’s exactly what I did. Eventually, I opened a computer club with powerful equipment and a comfortable environment for players.
After we opened, we started receiving feedback. Judging by it, the club turned out to be quite good.
Club Equipment
The space isn’t very large, with only 20 gaming stations, but they are arranged in a way that is comfortable for esports athletes. The stations are equipped with the aim of hosting esports tournaments and training gamers.
Here are the specifications of the machines:
- CPU AMD Ryzen 5 3600. Number of cores — 6, frequency — 3.6 GHz.
- RAM DDR4 16 GB PC4-21300 2666 MHz Corsair, 2 x 8 GB.
- VGA Palit GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER JS PCI-E 3.0 8192 MB.
- Network connection — 500 Mbps.
The Epidemic and Operating Mode
Almost since we opened, visitors started coming to us. Well, why not? Computer clubs have certainly not died out — they are still quite popular among those customers who value team spirit during the game and personal contact with other players. And even solo players occasionally come to watch and play.
Overall, business has been going pretty well. However, unfortunately, the club opened, as mentioned earlier, in October, so we could only operate in normal mode for a few months.
Even after the virus was reported in Europe and Russia (but before the quarantine was announced), visitors continued to play. The last few days before the quarantine saw a slight decline in attendance, but only on certain days. Overall, revenue remained at the same level, and there were no issues with that.
Unfortunately, we had to close on March 28. I thought the club could last until the official mandatory days off (March 30). But no — on March 28, when several eSports athletes were training at the club (they were participating in the qualifying round for the Russian eSports championship), police officers arrived. Law enforcement reminded us that the club needed to be closed. We had to comply. Now we only hold competitions online.
Searching for new opportunities
We had to close the club, and I found myself among those whose business suddenly stopped generating income. Even worse — it became unprofitable from the first day of quarantine, as regular payments did not go away. Utilities, rent, etc. — all of this still needed to be paid. I started looking for ways to earn from the resources that remained — equipment and a stable internet connection.
Many computer clubs started renting out gaming PCs during the quarantine, providing machines to private users. We also decided to give it a try and opened up applications for temporary use of gaming machines. But we didn't dive in headfirst; we exercised caution. We began to thoroughly check those who wanted to play at home on a powerful computer. As it turned out, our caution was justified: 5 out of 6 applicants had unresolved debts with enforcement officers. These were debts from loans, fines, and taxes. The amounts reached up to 180,000 rubles, and the debt amounts hadn't changed for many years, or had even increased. This only meant one thing — the person had no official source of income from which the officers could deduct the debt or part of it.
Accordingly, if such clients, for any reason, are unable to return the computer or return it without all its components, even if they go to court and win, I will not be able to get my money back or the equipment. The risk was enormous, especially given the current situation, which is why I decided to give up the "gaming PC rental" service and come up with something else.
I was able to find a suitable option fairly quickly. In the community of computer club owners, systems for distributed gaming were actively discussed — the Drova and Playkey services were most often mentioned. The risks here were much lower than in the case of renting, so we decided to give it a try.
I chose Playkey — simply because its headquarters is located in Perm, my hometown. Not only did the 'family' ties play a role, but also the desire to help gamers from our city improve their gaming skills, plus provide the opportunity to participate in esports competitions.
Network connection
I submitted an application on the website, and I was contacted immediately. Work began on connecting the equipment to the service. During the project implementation, some issues arose, but they were quickly resolved — fortunately, the support from the company was reasonable and knowledgeable. The main issue was related to the fact that the processors in my servers are from AMD. They're less common in gaming machines, so the connection was somewhat more complicated. I also had to remove the M.2 SSD from the machines because, according to support staff, they interfered with the proper functioning of Playkey software. But we quickly resolved all technical difficulties. As I was explained, the version of CentOS used by the service for installation on client PCs did not support this type of SSD. The issue was later resolved with a kernel update, so now it's no longer necessary to remove drives from computers for use with the distributed network.
Computers connected to the distributed network become nodes, whose resources are available to gamers who want to play in the cloud. At the moment a gamer connects, the service finds the nearest node to them and launches the game there. serverAdditionally, for the gamer — low latency, game quality approaches that of gameplay on their own PC. Meanwhile, the company and the partner providing the server receive payment.
How much does the club earn using the service?
Each machine generates $50 per month — this is a fixed payment. The contract stipulates an amount of 130 rubles per day, which totals 78,000 per month with 20 machines operating in the network.
This is about 6-10 hours of loading for each machine each day.
However, about 60% of this amount goes to the expenses associated with the club's operations. Primarily, these are utility payments — electricity, internet, etc. Plus, there are the club's expenses that could not be frozen during the quarantine. The net profit is about 30,000 rubles per month. Overall, this is not bad, as the fact that the business is not incurring losses is already good; we will not close down. After the quarantine ends, training for the esports players will resume.
I believe that the distributed work scheme will continue to develop in the future, as it benefits everyone, both the participants in the network and the services that offer this scheme. My club continues to operate, and you could say that it is full of gamers, albeit virtually, even during the quarantine. For those in Perm reading this article, here is the address — ul. Sovetskaya, 3. It is located next to the sociocultural space 'Zavod Shpagina.'
Source: habr.com
