{"id":11478,"date":"2011-04-28T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-04-27T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-29T22:00:00","slug":"mweb-gaming-an-integral-part-of-sa-s-internet-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/business\/11478-mweb-gaming-an-integral-part-of-sa-s-internet-future","title":{"rendered":"MWEB: Gaming an "integral" part of SA's internet future"},"content":{"rendered":"

Earlier this year we caught up with MWEB’s CEO of MWEB ISP Derek Hershaw, who explained to us<\/a> that the ISP was in the midst of formulating a dedicated strategy with which to approach the gaming market.<\/p>\n

MWEB has since been very open with MyGaming, discussing WoW latency issues<\/a> on its network. The ISP also launched 53 new games<\/a> on its network, including Bad Company 2<\/a> and loads more<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In contrast to MWEB’s enthusiastic determination to reach out to gamers, Vodacom told MyGaming<\/a> that it viewed the gaming market as “potentially limited” due to there not being enough local gamers with dedicated 1MB\/s broadband connections. <\/p>\n

This declaration  came after Vodacom shut down its local gaming portal as well as game servers which were launched during Vodacom’s gaming initiative which launched in April 2009<\/a>. <\/p>\n

We caught up with MWEB’s Head of Digital spokesperson Nathier Kasu to find out if MWEB still feels positive about the local gaming market, and whether or not it still feels like gaming is an important and viable market to explore in SA.<\/p>\n

“We are investing in this area as we believe it is an integral part of the future of the Internet,” said Kasu, going on to share some of his own views on the broader social implications of online gaming, ” There are also many social lessons we can learn from MMO’s which we believe will have just as a profound impact on our daily lives as the advent of social media. The line between the real-world and the digital world is blurring and gaming is a very large part of how people are expressing themselves in the digital world.”<\/p>\n

\"MWEB<\/p>\n

Having said that, MWEB is not currently planning any packages targeted especially at gamers. “Whilst we believe there is merit in exploring this, we have to date focused on ensuring our core product set is optimised for online gaming,” said Kasu. <\/p>\n

Currently MWEB is focusing on online PC gamers via a deal brokered with GameServers, but the ISP also believes that the console market is worth exploring in the future, with Kasu himself being impressed by the “strides in the capabilities” that consoles are making as “purpose-built gaming machines.” <\/p>\n

We also asked Kasu what MWEB has learned from its Call of Duty: Black Ops launch last year:<\/p>\n

“Things have been going very well since the launch and we see some very impressive activity on these servers across our Cape Town and Johannesburg hosting environments,” said Kasu, admitting that MWEB did experience “some technical challenges at the launch initially due to the game itself having some quirks, then some engineering related issues on our network affecting the playability of the game in online multiplayer mode. It was also the first time we were hosting games with gameservers.com and needless to say we had some teething issues to iron out very early on.”<\/p>\n

“We’ve since launched Homefront and Crysis2 and these are performing very well based on user feedback and our own experiences playing the games,” said Kasu. <\/p>\n

We finished by asking whether MWEB would consider any competitively priced high-capped\/uncapped unshaped accounts suitable for online gaming. “My own experience is that the amount of GB’s is less of an issue – It’s the shaping and prioritisation of traffic that makes or breaks a gaming specific offering,” said Kasu.<\/p>\n

“We strongly believe that the uncapped model is where we need to go, and rather work on the shaping and prioritisation policies of the uncapped products so it serves the needs of online gamers. That said, the discussion around an unshaped high-GB product and lowering the barriers to entry is one we constantly engage in.”<\/p>\n

Do you play games on MWEB’s servers? Do you play games using MWEB’s broadband packages?<\/a> << Share your experience in the forums<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We chat to MWEB's Nathier Kasu about the ISP's plans for the gaming market<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":161,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/161"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11478"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11478\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}