At the crux of growth for online gaming, arguably, Counterstrike was at its peak.While playing COD now on our XBOX might seem normal, or a right, 15 years ago the whole concept of playing against a friend in another room via a network cable dragged through two rooms was thrilling. While Valve receive a lot of bad press usually because then they release software updates it can cause problems with gameservers, they have earned respect , they deserve an incredible amount of credit.And with the recent blockbuster Modernwarfare 2, there were NO dedicated game UPVC Butterfly Valve Company servers for the game instead Activision set up a 'match making' system again, much to the dismay of the game server enthusiast. To some, it still is. From the early days of Counterstrike, to the mega popular release of CS Source servers.Dice only allows a few number of 'trusted partners' to host their game servers.Since then, servers have evolved, rapidly. The growth of consoles will effect the numbers of PC gamers. But on the other hand, hosting game servers on Linux gives so much more freedom and scope!<p />It's only fair when talking about game servers, that we mention Valve. While Valve continue to release games on Linux and Windows, with free, easy access to the game files, game server hosting will never die. Multiplayer online gaming was a new drug for gamers, where Unreal Tournament on dialup was as good as online gaming was.1996 saw the appearance of a new form of gaming through the release of the game Quake. The servers ran on Linux as well as Windows (although with the early Call of Duty series there was always a delay for Linux binaries!). Counterstrike was the ultimate competitive game. In fact, watching people play COD is nothing compared to CS!In 2003, Call of Duty hit shelves and was a massive success. Although expect game hosting to be around for another fourteen years. The case with all early gaming servers, there was no bias. There has always been the argument that Windows game servers are easier to administrate, which makes them more friendly to manage. Now, shooting someone in a different part of the world, or even more amazing, someone in another country was an amazing buzz. And this was Much to the upset Linux experts, and linux game server companies, such as INX clan servers. or TF2 servers. Thousands of gamers across the world would pit their wits against each other.Valve on the other hand have always provided Linux and Windows support for their gameservers.So where now for the future of gaming server hosting? Speculation says clanserver will be obselete, as they are in two years. Here, started a trend -There was no linux support.