An interview with Johann 'DjoDjo' THIESSON, fondator of Verygames, leader leader in the world of game server rental; who is our server partner for LAN79 Gold Edition. So At LAN79 you will play on the very performants Verygames servers and meet 5 persons of the Verygames Staff.
<lan79|fL> First, could you talk to us about who you are, your professional background, and Verygames?
<DjoDjo> Hello, my name is Johann Thiesson, i'm 26 years old, and i'm awarded a diploma by a school of computing in Paris (EPITA). I've started playing CS a lot in 2000, and, since 2004, I wanted to link my two passions: online gaming and informatics. There was a big comunity of players, on the 32 slots servers we were administrating (=SIM= and Free.fr servers) Quickly, with all the experience we get, we thought that we had to rent servers (i had an associate at the beginning); so Verygames was created during the 2004 summer. We began to rent one server, then two, then three, and we subleased them as dedicated gaming server. The next step was to buy our own servers, we bought them the faster we can, question of profitability. We started to have a lot of customers, cause our offer was really cheap and competitive with regard to the market. Moreover, we worked immediately on all the services we can propose to our customers via the administration panel on the website. Thereafter, the word of mouth worked very well. Concerning the investment, we injected approximately 5000 euros of our pocket to buy the first machines; all the rest we bought was thanks to the profits we made, little by little. In the starting up, it was machine by machine, then it was 10 by 10, now it's 60 by 60 :)
<lan79|fL> Afterward, how was made the opening towards the German market, then European?
<DjoDjo> Today, we are only installed in Germany, it's nearly one year that we made our first steps in that country. The balance is that it's very hard to launch into another country; it is necessary to persevere during months to adapt to the local market. The differences are huge at many levels: communication, cost, kind of offer,...and there is much more competition, it's certain. But the market is also bigger; Germany is in the center of Europe geographically speaking, and when we speak about milliseconds of latency, the geography matters a lot. Many players of the bordering countries rent gaming servers based on Germany, especially eastern European gamers, or the Scandinavians; the increase of the international matchs strengthen this "strategic" position. At this time, we have a healthy situation financially on this country (i mean we don't loose money), but it was not the case during several months. While waiting for that the customers are rather numerous, it's thanks to our good presence in France that we can support this kind of international project.
<lan79|fL> You're seriously involved in Esport now, for exemple with the ESL, can you tell us more about?
<DjoDjo> As regards the esport, at first we were interested in it only little because, it is necessary to say it, the players who play high level do not represent a big part of all the players. Many play for the pleasure, even if they're having teams; and, commercially, it is difficult to make offers which correspond to both profiles. Then we made at first offers "consumer/general public" as we say, but necessarily the high-level players make the mixture by saying that they do not appreciate our services; but these were not specially sent to them in that time. Today, we succeed with Dedigames to create an offer that can fit everyone's whishes, with two differents choices:
- the Dedigames offer, with the renting of one processor's core, without any limitation concerning the number of servers managed by the core.
- the DediGames PRO offer; the quality is the same as the previous offer, but with a limitation of only one server for the core you are renting.
The PRO offer is cheaper; even if it seems weird it's normal, and you can also rent several core (from 1 to 4). It's an innovative concept, and it's going to need, I think, a small lapse of time so that the offer is understood well. But what is sure, it's that it goes to the direction of the players.
<lan79|fL> This leads us to the lan79; Verygames is THE official technical partner of this event. What convince you to support that lan? __ <DjoDjo>__ We only made a few lans as "organizer". We began with the Godzilan in 2007, then the Gamers Assembly in 2008; so it's quite new for us finally. We can't do that before because it asks for many resources, so material, as human and financial. What pleases us in this lan, it's at first the exceptional organization, let's give it its due. Everything is made for the comfort of the players, and we share the same vision at Verygames. The players have to be satisfied, or you will not succeed in that business. Then, it's an international large-scale LAN, that means on one hand that it's reappointed and thus of quality, and on the other hand it's very interesting for us who are developping our activities abroad. There is much more reasons: the bocapôle seems to be an awesome place, and all the scheduled activities looks really interesting.
<lan79|fL> Last year, there were some important problems with the servers, what do you planned this year?
<DjoDjo> For reminder and to understand our role, on a LAN at the technical level there is the network, the electricity, and the servers. We will take in charge of the server part. We will bring several QuadCore (the same that we are using for Dedigames). For lan79, there will be only one dedicated server hosted on each core, so only 4 cs servers on each machine, for an optimal gaming quality. Next, the VG staff will be on the spot: 5 persons to organize the installation of the server, and ontrol that everything is going well during the lan. We shall have a stand, on which all the special material for gamers will be available on the sale, as we make it for every LAN.
<lan79|fL> Will you take care of the source TV? Can you tell us if there will be some for the groupstage phase or simply for the playoff?
<DjoDjo> We shall also take charge of SourceTV effectively; concerning the broadcasting of the groupstage, it's a good question, I can't answer it for the moment. Another point, we shall supply training servers for every team during the lan. It means that each team will have its server with an FTP and RCON access during the whole event. Several FFA servers will be naturally at disposal, on various modes.
<lan79|fL> What is your choice concerning the vocal communication software: teamspeak, mumble, or ventrilo?
<DjoDjo> Mumble, it's the future: freeware, excellent quality, unbeatable latency.
<lan79|fL> Will you take in charge of the scorebots on irc?
<DjoDjo> It's not our role, I think that it's rather the admins of the tournaments that are going to manage that.
<lan79|fL> Thanks to answer my questions, i let you the last words.
<DjoDjo> Thanks to have allowed me to present VG, it's rare :) and rendez-vous at LAN79; and in the meantime, connect to the public server at your disposal at this address: 77.111.201.70:27015
