Stutter, Freeze, Crash - Gaming Disruption Impacts 84% of Online Gamers

MANASSAS, Va., May 1, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Online and mobile gaming is exploding. It could have a revenue share of $48 billion in 2016, equivalent to 55 per cent of the entire game industry (Digi-Capital Report 2012). According to a new survey from LeaseWeb USA, a leading Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) provider, six out of 10 gamers experience unplanned server outages while playing their favorite games, and 20 percent of responded they get "angry", "furious" or "outraged" about it. In addition, 84 percent of online gamers have had games stutter, freeze, or crash on them while in the middle of game-play. The survey was conducted online and on the floor at last month's Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.

"Interrupted play tends to leave most gamers annoyed, and considering the rapid growth potential of the online gaming industry, investing in reliable infrastructure is becoming more important than ever," said Paul Grimwood, Business Development Manager of LeaseWeb and the man responsible for the company's gaming operations. "Having a reliable, scalable infrastructure is an important factor that will have an impact on determining the successful gaming companies from the not so successful."

LeaseWeb's gaming customer base boasts more than 40 gaming providers, including Sunset Games, a young, energetic games company whose game Tank Fighter, was recently made available globally via Facebook. While a whopping 89 percent of gamers say they spend less than 10 percent of their time gaming via Facebook, new multiplayer action games such as Tank Fighter, could turn the tide.

Tank Fighter is a real-time, fully synchronous, multiplayer action game that utilizes extreme combat between more than 100,000 players from around the world.  After running a series of ping-time tests, Sunset Games selected LeaseWeb for its global, high-speed network reach, as well as for their stable and rapidly scalable server environment.

Sunset Games is aware that even the slightest bit of network latency can seriously affect gameplay and scoring, which is why games companies know that reliability and scalability are critical to achieving success in today's competitive market. And, with 82 percent of gamers being members of the Millennial generation (between the ages of 18 and 34), the ability to meet their needs for on-demand, real-time gaming without any glitches or disruption is crucial.

In addition, the gaming survey revealed that iOS is poised to nudge past the PC as the most popular gaming platform in 2013 by a 1 percent margin. Mobile gaming is expected to surpass home console gaming in 2013, as 42 percent of gamers surveyed believe gaming on mobile devices will be more popular when compared with gaming on Xbox, Wii U, and PS3, supported by a combined total of 25% of respondents.

Of the mobile platforms expected to see success, iOS and Android dominate, with 33 percent of respondents stating that iOS will be the platform of choice for mobile, and nine percent stating that it would be Android. No respondents selected "smartphone – other" or "tablet – other" as mobile platforms they thought would be popular for gaming.

About the Survey
LeaseWeb polled 100 gamers at GDC San Francisco and online, via a SurveyMonkey survey between March 27, 2013 and March 29, 2013.  The margin of error is +/- 9.78 percentage points.  The full survey results are available upon request.

About LeaseWeb
LeaseWeb is a leading Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) provider serving a worldwide portfolio of 15,000 customers ranging from SMBs to Enterprises. Services include Public Cloud, Private Cloud, Hybrid Hosting, Colocation, and Dedicated Hosting supported by exceptional customer service and technical support. With more than 60,000 servers under management, LeaseWeb provides infrastructure for mission-critical websites, Internet applications, e-mail servers, security, and storage services since 1997. The company operates six data centers in the U.S. and Europe, all of which are backed by a superior worldwide network with a total capacity of more than 3.0 Tbps. LeaseWeb offers services through its various subsidiaries, namely LeaseWeb B.V. ("LeaseWeb Netherlands"), LeaseWeb USA, Inc. ("LeaseWeb USA"), and LeaseWeb Deutschland GmbH ("LeaseWeb Germany").

For more information, visit www.leaseweb.com.

PR Contact Information:
Gina Giachetti for LeaseWeb USA
510-858-8111
[email protected]

SOURCE LeaseWeb USA