Why You Should Always Use a VPN When Online Gaming

April 21, 2023 By Nancy William No Comments 4 minutes

If you were to ask most serious online gamers if they use a VPN, the answer would likely be ‘yes’. A Virtual Private Network provides several benefits to those who play games regularly online. If you play games online often, you may decide to use a VPN when considering the benefits highlighted below.

Why Use a VPN for Online Gaming

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4 Main Reasons to Use a VPN for Online Gaming

As mentioned, gaming online is fun and thrilling, especially when it’s done in real-time with many players across the globe. However, there are some issues that come with playing games online, which is something the best VPN can fix. With that said, here are 4 reasons why you need a VPN for online gaming:

1. Security

Regardless of whether you are playing an online video game, such as Counter-Striker: Global Offensive, or a live casino game, you must take steps to ensure your personal information is not at risk. You will be surprised by the amount of personal information that can be retrieved by hackers from your gaming accounts.

Your name, home address, email address, telephone number, and even bank details can be stolen if someone hacks into your online gaming account. If you consider all the information you entered to create your gaming account, this is what could be stolen should your account be hacked. Using a VPN when gaming online will stop hackers from accessing your personal information. Plus, it prevents DDoS attacks, which are very common while gaming online.

2. Gaming Speeds

It is true that using a VPN can slightly slow down the online gaming experience as the layer of encryption means your internet speeds will be slower. In addition, if you are using a server located on the other side of the world, there may be an additional lag time when playing online games.

However, if you are playing games online regularly, your internet provider will notice high activity from your IP address and if it happens often, they may choose to deliberately slow down your internet connection.

If you are noticing changing bandwidth when playing online games, it could be a result of bandwidth throttling by your internet provider. Using a VPN makes your internet activity anonymous and means your internet provider will not know when you are playing games online. This will stop them from slowing down your connection when playing online games, preventing ISP throttling.

3. Access Games

Due to geographical restrictions, some online games may not be available in your region. It is not a case of the game being banned, it is just not available to play because it has not been released for that region or there are no servers in your country.

Not every online game is going to be officially available in every country and there may be a game you would really like to play that is blocked. Using a VPN means you can connect to a server in the country where the game is available and start playing.

4. Avoid Confrontation

When playing online games competitively, you will be playing against other people from around the world. Most people take defeat graciously and will congratulate the winner but there have been cases where players have gone into a rage and stalked opposing players by using their IP address and finding out where they live.

It is worth noting, this kind of behavior is extremely rare, but you can ensure it never happens by using a VPN when playing online games. You will not worry about any insults or threats that come your way online when using a VPN because the abuser will never know where you are located.

To Conclude

A Virtual Private Network is the best option for online gaming. In a nutshell, it prevents ISP throttling, which allows you to keep speeds stable and use unlimited bandwidth. This helps prevent any buffering or lagging issues while gaming online in real time. Additionally, a gaming VPN allows you to reduce high ping or latency issues, and protect your gaming devices to the max.