I’m on a bit of a roll!
Having thought about creating a few free flash arcade game sites for a while, number 2 site in 1 week is now online. Please visit and play all the latest flash arcade games here Free Online Flash Arcade Games.
I used WordPress for ArcaderGamers.net and a plugin called MyArcadeBlogPro. The developer runs a website and community forum over at Netreview.de. I highly recommend this plugin, if like me, you love WordPress (because you don’t have the design eye or time to create your own site) this plugin does what it says on the box. Literally a few minutes to install and you’re done. You will spend more time creating the google ads and downloading games than worrying about creating a great looking Arcade games site.
Once I have integrated the new site with MaxCDN (just added the CNAME today, so waiting for the dns to propagate), I’ll start the CDN testing. Now the real fun part is starting!
Well I managed to get the new free online flash arcade games site up and running, with the purchase of an arcade games site script from avscripts.net. I highly recommend this avarcade pro, it’s a clean piece of work, unencoded, easily modified and has everything that you need built in and everything that you don’t is left out.
Visit www.ArcaderGames.com to play some of the free online flash arcade games!
Warning! Some of them are very addictive!
I got the site using MaxCDN easy enough, took about 10 minutes modification and wrote a script to update the database locations for url’s and images. The MaxCDN origin pull, makes light work of everything, as you do not have to upload files anywhere (as you do with Limelight, aka Rackspacecloud). MaxCDN pull the images and files from your website the first time anyone visits your online flash arcade website (oops was that another plug for free online flash arcade games websites? 
) and then caches them within it’s edge caching servers. Pretty impressed with MaxCDN actually, full review on them to come a little later though, when I have enough data to put together something meaningful.
Well finally got access details to MaxCDN’s system and managed to setup a CNAME for my testing ‘Origin Pull’ site. Note to self, next time a coupon doesn’t apply to an online order, go through with purchase and ask questions later.
I sorted out 4 domain names to use for new online arcade websites last night, these will be tested with multiple cdn’s. I also purchased a few licenses of an arcade script and a WordPress arcade plugin to test performance and ease of use etc.
I’ll review those here too, as there are a few misleading things posted around the internet I found when researching for template/ready built arcade scripts. Oh and I got sorted out with an online advertiser who will be supplying the games for the sites and for the games revenue (that will hopefully come from the new sites 
)
Onwards…
I made a mistake when signing up with MaxCDN last night, not following through with the paypal payment as the coupon that I found at WHT hadn’t been applied.. anyway, seems that they have replied with details and the correct invoice to pay, so I’m all set there.
Currently looking for a decent arcade script to put up on a new site as well, there are a few good ones, will evaluate as I usually do (at length) but the ballpark is abot US$50 for a decent one with a couple of thousand games. I’ve always wanted to do an arcade site, now is the time and to test it over CDN too. Of course there are a few free WP themes for arcades too, although I think I will want all the features that the paid script includes, auto uploading games from Mochi etc. Fun.
CDN’s (Content Delivery Networks) and Cloud are huge buzz right now, especially as more and more providers establish themselves into the mix. Gone are the days where you were restricted to dealing with a large corporate such as Akamai and their ‘impossible to reach unless you have enough money’ or are ‘important enough’ for them to speak to you.
It’s perceived that Akamai are the best in the business at content delivery, as they have pop’s just about everywhere.
These days, CDN’s are popping up with resellers of the likes of Akamai, although some of them do still restrict who can use them – One such provider that I looked at recently, would only accept companies with either a USA or UK office address. So, humm, folks who want to test the service outside of those countries are plumb out of luck. No matter, there are others to test, Limelight resellers (aka Rackspace is one) and they allow you to test with no initial outlay at all, just paying for what you use bandwidth wise. Another CDN that I found over at WHT (webhosting talk dot com) is MaxCDN (www maxcdn dot com), who you can get started with by prepaying (currently US$39.95 for 1000GB of traffic). MaxCDN do origin pull too (more on that when I test them out and report back). Still hunting for an Akamai reseller that will sell to me, to do some testing to see what they are really like first hand.
So it seems that CDN’s are in reach by the humble sole these days, at a reasonable entry fee. Lets see how the signup with MaxCDN goes, so that I can compare their service to the rackspace cloud (limelight). More to come on this subject for sure. Probably the first place to start will be ‘Why do I need a CDN?’..
