You may be wondering if you should use a VPN for gaming. There are definitely advantages and disadvantages to using a VPN while gaming.
Before we get into using a VPN with gaming, let’s look at what a VPN is and does. VPN stands for virtual private network. A VPN allows you to set up a private and encrypted network connection. A VPN will also hide your IP address and location. This all means that your ISP and other 3rd parties will have a lot more trouble tracking your activity online. It will also help protect you from nefarious parties looking to hack or steal your data. In general VPNs are a great tool to use, especially on a public network.
Reasons to Use a VPN for Gaming
Prevent DDOS attacks
I know it may seem far-fetched, but DDOS or distributed denial of service attacks are becoming more and more common. In general, these attacks are carried out against bigger websites or businesses. DDOS attacks are meant to overload servers and either crash them or cause them to run very slowly. However, these are starting to become more common in gaming too. If you happen to be playing a competitive game, it is always possible that a tech savvy individual could start a DDOS attack to ruin your gaming experience. A VPN can protect you from such an attack since the attacker won’t be able to see or find your real IP due to the protection that the VPN creates. This is even more important for a streamer or pro player due to the increased exposure.
Accessing Geo-blocked Games or Services
Some games will lock you into a certain region’s servers based on your location. For example, if you live in the US, you may not be able to play on EU servers. Overall, this is a great thing as it gives you the best ping to the servers. However, there may be a point in time that you want to play on the server in a different region. For example, you may travel to other countries often or you may have gaming buddies in a different part of the world that you want to play with. In these situations, a VPN can help everyone to get into the same servers. If your friends want to join the US servers, they could simply connect to the VPN using a server in the US. The game will then allow them to join a US based server.
Protect Your Physical Location While Gaming
There have been a few situations in the news recently where a person’s IP address was used to help locate the physical address of that person. I won’t go into all the details, but once someone has your address, there are a number of things they could do to harm you or your property. In general, these cases are very rare. It is even more rare that someone would do something illegal to harm you simply over a game. However, it has happened and a VPN can protect you from this due to the fact that your actual IP address is hidden.
Disadvantages of a VPN While Gaming
The biggest disadvantage of using a VPN while gaming is that it essentially puts a middleman between you and the game server. This will raise your ping and connection speed to the server. Many of the top VPNs on the market today are so good that you are unlikely to notice much of a difference. However, that is why it is important to pick a high-end VPN.
In general, you won’t want to use a free VPN at all, but definitely not when gaming. A study a few years back found that over a third of free VPNs contained some type of malware. Due to this, we can’t recommend using a free VPN at all. Even if you are pretty sure you have found a free VPN that is malware free, it is unlikely going to give you the same speeds of a paid VPN. Companies that charge for their VPN have the capital to invest in fast, reliable servers in many locations around the globe.
Another possible disadvantage is that some games (or websites) will block VPN users. This isn’t super common among games to block VPN users. In these cases, you will just have to play with the VPN off unfortunately.
Do Pro Gamers or Streamers Use a VPN?
The last thing we wanted to look at is whether the pros (and streamers) used a VPN while gaming. First all, most major eSports events use VPNs to protect their events and tournaments. They generally do this to protect against the DDOS attacks mentioned above. Many of these events have large prize pools and generally cost a lot of money to run, so it makes sense that organizers would protect their investment with a VPN. Also, since all players are using the same VPN, there really isn’t any reason not to use it.
It has also been more and more common for streamers to be using a VPN. Being able to keep their stream up and stable is their livelihood. Some streamers have a ton of exposure and are definitely at risk due to this. For many streamers, it is worth a slightly higher ping to mitigate this risk.
Our Recommendation
So, overall, we would recommend at least trying out a VPN for yourself to see how it works. Most VPNs come with a free trial. The biggest thing to keep an eye on is ping. If you try it out and are not noticing any big upticks in ping, it is definitely worth keeping for the protection and benefits it provides.
Last, but not least, you may be wondering which specific VPNs to try for gaming. At this point in time, we have tested a few. We left any poor performing ones off the list below. Currently, we would recommend:
- Nord VPN – Click here for more info.
This one is a top VPN all around and one of the most popular VPNs on the market. It performed well in our tests.
- IPVanish – Click here for more info.
This VPN stood out due to its speed. We barely noticed a ping drop with this one.
- ExpressVPN – We haven’t had the chance to finish our test with this one yet, but the initial results are looking pretty good.
Have you tried a VPN with gaming? Let us know which VPN you used what you think about the experience in the comments!