What do you recommend for hosting my game for download? The distribution file is like 400mb. I wanted to have the link on my own website.
For testing with my friends, I had put the file on Google Drive, but I don’t reckon that would work for mass distribution.
I am quite noob in this regard, so spare no details if you have advice.
I usually use GameJolt, Itch or Indiedb.
Amazon S3
You could host that on a Tomcat server (it’s java which make things easier) on a RamNode VPS for less than $5/month:
Amazon S3 is the cheapest and very reliable (4 nines) option when it comes to storage-only, since you don’t need compute capability, let alone a full virtual server.
You can even calculate your estimated per-month costs here: https://calculator.s3.amazonaws.com/index.html
Let’s say you live in the UK and may require 4GB of total storage and your game will probably be downloaded 100 times per month, then you will be charged 22 UScents per month (edit: wrong calculation) $2.25 per month.
And you can create temporary public links to your private resources on S3 among other things.
Gee, that’s very cheap! I’ll have to check it out too.
I always assumed that Amazon was the premium service used by big companies and would be expensive.
He mentioned 400mb download, you mentioned 1000x per month = 400GB/month = $34.65, according to that calculator.
Edit: right, you changed it to 100x per month… and corrected yourself in the pricing too, so you were 2 orders of magnitude off 
Bandwidth is still expensive :point:
RamNode looks like slightly better value then.
With the ‘256MB CVZ’ OpenVZ HDD option you pay 8$/quarter ($2.66/month) and get 256MB RAM, 1 CPU core, 120 GB storage and 1000GB/month bandwidth:
These VPS providers massively oversell. With S3 there is no overselling (you pay what you use), hence it’s more expensive. If every customer of RamNode would actually use 1000GB, their pricing would be unsustainable at $2.66. (S3 would charge you $88.00). Having said that, by all means pick the cheapest (for non-critical applications)
Interesting, makes sense.
Do you still use Linode, Riven? If you had the time and energy to switch, would you host jgo on Amazon S3 or a VPS?
AWS/S3 is merely a directory-tree with files and access-control, you cannot host JGO on it
Hi
I admit that it might be a bit difficult for a newbie but I advise you to have your own server at home especially if you want to work for years on your game. You can use a cheap low energy single board computer (Raspberry Pi, Internet Cube, …) for the hardware. It requires a domain name and preferably a fixed public IP address. I wrote a very long tutorial about that:
It gives you full control at the price of full responsibility but if you do the “right” choices, you’ll waste less time later. Moreover, I think that lots of people overestimate the risks in terms of security. I succeeded in avoiding lots of attacks with a very few simple rules.
By the way, if your internet service provider gives you a fixed public IP address for free or if you pay only a few dollars per month for the VPN, my solution can become even noticeably cheaper than some other solutions suggested in this thread.
If you need any help, just let me know. If you’re really scared by the amount of things to learn, you’ll probably choose another solution.
That’s a very comprehensive guide, thanks for posting!
Where I live, static IP addresses are quite expensive, 10$ per month.
https://www.telstra.com.au/broadband/extras
Is it the same in Europe?
It’s a nice guide indeed but it’s not as “simple” as that. ISP’s won’t let you host your own server willy nilly not to mention availability, reliability and robustness without even thinking about security yet. Ease of use and maintenance also have value.
@gouessej could use a little less propaganda ( for lack of a better word ) though. I mean the hammer and sickle logo isn’t very flattering for one thing. :d
There is plenty Free Web hosting in internet – with 400gb+ or even unlim bandwidth
+there are many file hosting with wait 30 sec to download
Or you can use Google drive or similar ^^
(steam 100$ for game + free bandwidth XD)
@jonjava
IMHO: Sorry but: that racism (or similar words) to criticize someone for their site logo and life position.
Its not so simple as it looks – custom server can’t help with censorship
– it can be blocked in 1 minute by IP (or even by server internet provider)
“until you not dangerous - no one cares about you”
and even sites like “Pirate Bay” may live for years and years
– but if “they” want – they can block it in all form less then 1 day
p.s I support “gouessej” position to be independent ^^
(until his action not harm others)
why? because hi at least trying change something in better way
Yes, trying to be independent may go wrong way and its f**k up something important XD
But we don’t know future)
(believe you or not but in couple 50-100 years people will be paying for Air)
pp.s IMHOOOOOOOO “Amazon S3” is full crap
@Icecore
I’m being racist? Really? Do you even know what it means? What makes the hammer and sickle logo any less murderous, reprehensible or pathological than, say, the swastika?
I’m all for criticism by the way. I think it’s vital for a free society to be able to criticize anything and everything. That goes both ways of course.
Blah blah blah :cranky:
Back on topic please, or I’ll wake the chatchat monster from it’s slumber.
It’s “free” (included) with some ISPs but some others are very expensive (about 18 € per month). I only know the prices in France. It’s a lot cheaper for the professionals and associations in general.
I respect your opinion even though I disagree with you. You’re right about the ISPs, that’s why the VPN is highly recommended, maybe it’s not clear in my tutorial.
Maybe my sentence can be misunderstood. The blocking by the ISPs is “easy” to drive inefficient, you can use the DNS of the FFDN or Opennic. I can ask Franciliens.net to give me another public fixed IP too and domain names aren’t very expensive. I have lots of solutions to drive blocking inefficient.
Yes, constructive criticism is ok for me but no freedom is absolute, you benefit of it in certain limits, there is a frame. This frame is vital for a society too. It’s off topic so I won’t talk about that further.
Back on the topic: My suggestion is viable, my server has been up most of the times since August 2016, I make some backups. I don’t claim to be able to resist huge DDOS attacks. If you really host only a game, you’ll probably never have to undergo such attacks. There’s nothing magic. I’m just a human being, I can make some mistakes. If anybody has some documented suggestions to do about security, I’ll be glad to read them Let’s learn, that’s why we’re on Java-gaming.org, we learn every day ;D I wouldn’t write a tutorial about those topics if I was a total newbie and maybe JGO is attacked a lot more than my few websites.
The strawmanning is real ITT.