Multiplayer Server Paradigm

[soniCron]

How does the whole multiplayer server thing work? Are there servers available for running custom code? I'm interested in both real-time and turn-based paradigms. I figure turn-based games can be played from a retrofitted webserver, but I'd hate to write complex code in PHP...

What do you guys do?

[Pyabo]

You'd need a dedicated server. With a dedicated server, you are more or less leasing a box at an ISP. You do whatever you want with it, install and run anything you care to. The downside is that (unless you pay more for extra service) managing the server is also your responsibility.

There are plenty of shared hosts that support ASP.NET... so you could run all the custom code you wanted, theoretically. But... this of course includes all the down sides of shared hosting.

You could certainly "retrofit" some existing web software for a turn-based game... but if I was going to go that route, I'd use some more robust technology, like Web Services (a la XBox Live).