Submission + - Online gamers bypass Internet with private network (networkworld.com)
jbrodkin writes: "Amidst all the political and moral rants against video games, sometimes it's easy to forget about the real victims of video game violence: the people with slow Internet connections who just can't shoot their virtual machine guns fast enough. A Missouri startup called GameRail feels the pain of latency-challenged online video gamers, and has developed a private network that routes game traffic from PCs to about 10,000 servers hosted by online gaming companies. Essentially, it allows online gamers to bypass the Internet, the company claims.
For players of first-person shooter games, GameRail's target market, "the higher the latency the slower the bullets and you can't dodge out of the way," says John Alden, vice president of business development. "With lower latency, you can shoot better, faster, and react faster."
GameRail is initially focusing on first-person shooters because the quality of those games is heavily dependent on latency, Alden says. Latency matters less in fantasy role-playing games like EverQuest and World of Warcraft. GameRail serves PC players exclusively for now, but Alden says the company's plans include developing peer-to-peer connections between Xbox Live players for "LAN-like connectivity.""
