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iGame is a gaming service provider sponsored by local internet supplier iBurst. Operating as iBurst’s gaming division, iGame has grown quickly to become a leading server provider alongside SGS. We caught up with Jonathan "Xerowing" Smit to find out more about iGame’s take on gaming in SA, future titles, and the recent trend that developers are following by moving from dedicated servers to peer to peer (P2P) hosted games. 

Could you start by introducing yourself, and explaining your role at iGame?

I am the iGame Online Manger, responsible for the iGame servers, community experience and overall direction of the portal itself.

I am basically iGame's Duct Tape Boy

What is iGame?

iGame is a online gaming services provider, a portal and a community structure.

Founded more than 3 years ago, it has been developed by myself and iBurst as a phased rollout of a full gaming solutions provider for online gamers.

What are some of iGame’s goals?

At its core, iGame is focused on providing gamers and the larger gaming community with a stable environment to play in. Dedicated to delivering a safe, user friendly experience, our main goals are to be the service provider that every gamer turns to for their online gaming requirements.

Currently, what games are you hosting servers for?

Currently iGame hosts the following titles with multiple servers:

Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare, Call of Duty World at War, Quake 3, Quake 4, Enemy Territory Quake Wars, Trackmania Nations Forever, Unreal Tournament 3, Day of Defeat Source, Wolfenstein, Left 4 Dead, Heroes of Newerth, Teamspeak FTP ( Zombie Server )

Any exciting up and coming games that you will be hosting servers for that you can share with us?

We are always interested in hosting the latest titles as they become available.

Currently , if dedicated servers are supported , the following games have been selected as titles for future  servers:

Left 4 Dead 2
Section 8
Bioshock 2
Battlefield Bad Company 2
Battlefield 1943

What are some of iGame’s proudest achievements?

I think seeing players flood our server for the first time for me was probably the greatest achievement to date. We started out small , with test servers 2 years ago and only had around 5 players, including some of the staff, playtesting on them.

Our Wolfenstein Atomik hitting No1 in Global Rank on Gametracker was a big day for me personally, ask anyone, I'm a bit of a fanboy.

What do you think of competitive gaming in SA?

Competitive gaming in South Africa is growing at an exponential rate, with more players being converted to play online on a daily basis and with Internet access penetrating as deep as most households, the possibilities for Competitive gaming are limitless. With the support of Gaming portals like ourself the competitive gaming arena can be grown and expanded to accommodate the growing playerbase.

With no MW2 servers coming online, do you think that players will simply stick with CoD4 for longer?

Well, without going into a rant about how we were all left out in the cold on MW2, I think what we will see in regards to CoD 4 is that it is fast becoming the “new” Counterstrike.

With the game available almost everywhere at lower pricing as the GOTY edition and with its lower system specs and local only bandwidth requirements, I think the title is here to stay.

Add to that the nearly limitless possibility of Modding and you've got a title that rivals Half Life and Counterstrike for longevity.

There is a certain Mod that I've personally been keeping an eye on that iGame will definitely be hosting once released, more details will be available over the course of the next month.

What are your 5 favorite games of all time?

System Shock 2
Bioshock
Resident Evil 2
Silent Hill 4
Deadspace

Name the last game/next game you purchased/will purchase?

Last game I purchased?

Hmmm, I buy quite a lot of games to be honest :(

The last title I purchased and enjoyed was Wolfenstein.
For work though I purchased Modern Warfare 2 though to see if there was something we could do about the current situation regarding the title.

As for the next game, I'll pretty much be buying everything that comes out, work wise it'll be Left 4 Dead 2. Personally though I'm really looking forward to the release of Bioshock 2 and Assassins Creed 2 in Quarter one next year.

So is there anything that can be done about the Modern Warfare 2 situation in its current form?

Nope, not even forcing it to console works.

Is this something that could potentially be fixed with an update?

It is possible, although I doubt we will see anything regarding this anytime soon.

What’s your take on the recent P2P trend that seems to be characterizing new titles?

With many of the latest titles dropping support for dedicated server structures, the current trend of P2P only Multiplayer seems to be here to stay.

While I know that developers are opting for this type of infrastructure for their titles because of the US and EU markets (high speed internet connectivity and extremely low cost Bandwidth) I do see this as having an impact on playability in countries such as South Africa.

While I don't think it will necessarily decrease the popularity of Online gaming in our country, I do see it impacting sales and the overall longevity of titles in a big way. Titles with dedicated server support are simply more popular, for longer periods of time than their P2P counterparts in our current gaming market.

Thanks for your time Jonathan.

Find out more about iGame and the servers it currently operates here.

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