Why Pay More for Less? One Gamer’s Passion Project Challenges Traditional Servers

TL; DR: Is it time to rethink your current game server? If so, you’re in luck: We chatted with Imad Qadri, the founder of BerryByte, who turned his passion for gaming and expertise in infrastructure into an affordable server rental service. With plans starting at just $10 a month, BerryByte is a gem in the rough — one that is dedicated to giving gamers the performance they want without the hefty price tag.

While I write professionally, I also enjoy dabbling in creative work on my off days. Early on, I learned about The Rules every aspiring author should know: Never ask family or friends for feedback on your drafts.

Instead, writers should work with alpha and beta readers. Though their roles differ slightly, both types are a) knowledgeable and b) ready to provide feedback on everything from characters and plot to structure, pacing, and writing techniques.

If you’re not a writer, you may wonder why you wouldn’t ask friends or family. After all, you’d ask their opinion on a new haircut and trust them to tell the truth, right? The reason is simple: While friends and family mean well, they often don’t have the expertise to offer helpful, constructive feedback.

This core rule is partly why I love shedding light on creators and entrepreneurs who offer expert solutions. Just like you’d go to a hairdresser for a great cut or a therapist for advice, it’s important to rely on those who have the right experience.

So when I learned about BerryByte, a game server rental provider, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that its Founder and CEO, Imad Qadri, has a lengthy background in cybersecurity, infrastructure building, and gaming.

A game server made by a gamer with expertise in servers and security? OK, now you’ve got my attention.

BerryByte started as a passion project and was officially launched at the tail end of the pandemic in 2021. As with many startups, BerryByte was founded because Imad wasn’t able to find the kind of gaming servers he wanted anywhere else.

After all, necessity is the mother of invention. Or, as Toni Morrison said: “If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.”

“I’m studying cybersecurity and am a gamer too, so it all kind of fits together,” Imad explained. “And back when I was looking to start my own server, I noticed that some features were missing.”

One of those missing features was consistent pricing. Young companies often face the common challenge of keeping prices competitive in the long run because, as they grow, their expenses also rise — which makes it harder to maintain low prices.

It’s a bit like the episode from “The Office” where Michael Scott starts his own paper company to compete with It’s a bit like the episode from “The Office” where Michael Scott starts his own paper company to compete with Dunder Mifflin. He quickly gains a lot of clients because he’s offering the cheapest prices in town, but his accountant warns him that selling more at such low prices is unsustainable. “At these prices, the more paper you sell, the less money you’ll make,” he says. “Your prices are actually putting you out of business.”

To avoid a similar fate, BerryByte is currently working on owning its infrastructure, which will help lower costs for customers and the internal team. With server prices starting at just $10/month, I think it’ll be interesting to see how their pricing evolves in the coming years.

“This way, we can cut off the middleman and focus on as much cost savings as possible, both for the customer and our end,” Imad said. “Otherwise, we have to rely on the middleman’s prices to determine our own. But now that we’re taking our own control, we’re going to be able to expand and scale accordingly.”

Another big move Imad mentioned is upgrading BerryByte’s network infrastructure. Although it is registered in the U.K., BerryByte currently has six data centers in Seattle, Dallas, and Ashburn. And, just a few weeks ago, Imad said BerryByte locked in a couple more racks with a local data center provider in Texas.

“It’s an ongoing project right now, but these locations cover most of the US demographic pretty well,” he added.

Expansion toward the Asia-Pacific region and Australia are also on the horizon.

With BerryByte, you can rent your own game server for more than a dozen games, starting at just around $10 a month. Not a bad deal, right? So if you’re ready to dive into some gaming, here’s the lineup of all the games BerryByte supports with starting prices:

• 7 Days to Die: $9.95/mo
• Abiotic Factor: $9.95/mo
• Deadlock: $9.95/mo
• Enshrouded: $9.95/mo
• HumanitZ: $14.95/mo
• Minecraft: $9.95/mo
• Palworld: $9.95/mo
• Project Zomboid: $9.95/mo
• Rust: $9.95/mo
• Satisfactory: $14.95/mo
• Sons of the Forest: $14.95/mo
• Soulmask: $14.95/mo
• Terraria: $4.95/mo
• Unturned: $9.95/mo
• Valheim: $9.95/mo
• V Rising: $9.95/mo
• Nightingale: Coming Soon

And if you can’t find the game you’re looking for, just let BerryByte know and they’ll consider adding it to the library.

BerryByte isn’t just a game server host, though. You can also buy dedicated servers (we’ll go over that later) and virtual private servers (VPSes).

Its VPS plans come in the form of two tiers: VPS Elder and VPS Pro. We’re going to go a little backward and start with the top-tier plan first.

Here’s what you need to know about VPS Elder:

• Hardware: Ryzen 9 7000, Gen 4 NVMe SSD, DDR5 RAM
• Network: 10Gbps + DDoS Protection
• Locations: Dallas, Seattle, London

“VPS Elder is always on the latest hardware,” Imad explained. “Right now we’re actually working on a hardware refresh for VPS Elder plans and migrating to the new Ryzen 9000 series platform that just came out.”

Plus, there is no “CPU stealing,” as Imad put it — which is another way of describing when a virtual machine (VM) or program doesn’t get enough CPU power to run the way it should.

The Elder plan sidesteps this problem, though: “Elder also offers dedicated cores, which makes sure that the The Elder plan sidesteps this problem, though: “Elder also offers dedicated cores, which makes sure that the customer has exactly 100% access to the resources they’re paying for at all times,” Imad added.

Generally, the Elder plan is built for more demanding workloads. It’s best for high-traffic websites, gaming servers, machine learning (ML), and big data processing.

If you don’t really need the latest tech or you’re working with a budget, then you’ll want to check out VPS Pro:

• Hardware: Ryzen 9 5950X, NVMe SSD, DDR4 RAM
• Network: 1Gbps + DDoS Protection
• Locations: Dallas, Seattle, London

“VPS Pro is designed for clients who want a good balance and might not have the budget for top-of-the-line performance all the time,” Imad explained. “Pro is on the Ryzen 9 platform anyway, so the performance is already pretty high.”

The Pro plan is perfect for hobbyists, websites, WordPress, and databases without compromising great performance or a good price.

You’ll notice that both these plans offer DDoS protection. That’s because BerryByte is one of the few providers offering always-on, game-ready DDoS protection, included 100% free with every server.

“With my background in cybersecurity, we developed custom DDoS mitigation filters in partnership with transit providers, delivering terabit-scale capacity to withstand L3, L4, and L7 — application or game-targeted — attacks,” Imad added.

Oh, and here’s some more good news: If you already have a server and want to make the switch to BerryByte, its support team will transfer and configure it for you at no extra cost.

Remember Palworld? You know the game — adorable critters you can battle with, or, as Imad put it, “It has the elements of Pokémon with guns, and who wouldn’t want to play that?”

At its peak in early 2024, Palworld was so popular that BerryByte was selling 20 to 30 servers per hour. For context, before the game went viral, BerryByte typically moved 20 to 30 servers per day.

Although demand eased shortly after, the Palworld developers kept the excitement going with frequent updates.

“They released Power Sakurajima update along with Xbox dedicated servers,” Imad said. “We’re seeing similar trends in demand now as we did back in January. It’s clear that as games get their updates, there’s a direct correlation with the demand for dedicated servers, too.”

As the gaming landscape continues to evolve, BerryByte is keeping pace with the demand for tailored experiences. It recently released brand-new dedicated server plans, which Imad said “are being adopted by large gaming communities like hotcakes.”

BerryByte’s new dedicated plans are totally buildable — choose your bandwidth and speed on some of the latest Ryzen 9 hardware (Ryzen 9 5950X, 7950X, and 9950X), ranging between $199 and $279 per month.

In web hosting, dedicated servers mean your entire website gets its server just for you — essentially giving you all the resources you need. The same concept applies to gaming. Dedicated servers give your game its own server which means you get better performance, better latency, and more control over the configurations.

Basically, dedicated game servers are the dream for handling large multiplayer sessions or custom setups.

So, if you want to play with friends and customize your settings (like world settings in Palworld), BerryByte’s new dedicated servers will literally be a game changer.

Imad also hinted at some major plans.

“Our long-term mission is to create a user-eccentric multiplayer gaming platform beyond just servers. We’re currently building an all-in-one user platform from the ground up,” he said.

So you’ll have to wait until our next piece to learn more.

Until then, if you need affordable, reliable, game server hosting, BerryByte is the answer. With multiple locations to choose from, you can ensure the lowest latency for nearly two dozen of the world’s most popular multiplayer games.