Gamers’ Guide: Navigating the Advantages and Limitations of VPN Use in Competitive Play

Key Takeaways

• VPNs provide security by encrypting your connection and preventing tracking.
• They also allow you to access servers worldwide, making it easier to play with friends.
• However, VPNs will affect connection speed and ping, meaning gameplay quality can suffer.

Using a VPN while gaming comes with plenty of benefits, especially because it makes your session more secure. It also gives you more freedom when it comes to server choice. However, the drawbacks, if they apply to you, can be serious enough that you may want to skip using any gaming VPN altogether.

The Pros of Using a VPN While Gaming

First, let’s go over why using a VPN is a good idea for you when gaming.

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Security

First and foremost is security. The way VPNs work is that they reroute your connection through an offsite server and then encrypt the connection through a so-called VPN tunnel . This limits tracking by any site or service you’re connected to, increasing your privacy.

Rerouting also adds a layer of security. For example, if you fall victim to a DDoS attack , your VPN provider will handle it—you won’t need to worry about it.

Server Location

Even if you’re not worried about security while gaming online, VPNs offer another advantage to you—namely the ability to make it appear like you’re anywhere your service of choice has VPN servers . With a click of a button, you can make it appear like you’re in another part of the world.

This means you can find servers in other parts of the globe that have more or fewer players as you desire. It also makes it easier to play with faraway friends. A VPN can make the game a lot more fun this way.

Reduced Ads

As an added bonus, many VPN services (read our Proton VPN review and ExpressVPN review for two good examples) have built-in ad blockers. If you use your browser or mobile device to game, this means that you will see fewer ads, without the gaming service blocking you from playing.

The Cons of Using a VPN While Gaming

As good as these advantages are, they do come with some issues that may be game-breaking.

Performance and Speed

The biggest issue with using a VPN is that it will hurt your performance by lowering your speed and raising your latency (or ping). This is the delay between you clicking your mouse or pressing a controller button and the action occurring on screen.

While there are cases where a VPN will improve your ping , these are rare and really shouldn’t be counted on. This means that even if you find a great server on the other side of the world, your performance may be so bad you end up fragged every few seconds anyway.

The news isn’t all bad, though, as the best VPNs will be able to mitigate the damage by using good VPN protocols and using state-of-the-art servers. However, expect some issues from time to time, as no VPN will negate slowdown entirely.

Provider Issues

A second issue is that any service you game with may have restrictions on VPN use in place. Generally, these kinds of bans are rare and only apply to very specific cases. Steam, for example, states in its subscriber agreement that you’re not allowed to use a VPN to get cheaper prices, but won’t mind if you have it running while gaming.

The best advice we can give in this case is that you look through the terms of service of whichever platform you’re gaming with before using your VPN, to make sure you’re not breaking any rules.

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Should You Use a VPN While Gaming?

Using a VPN is a good idea if you have the money to pay for a good VPN that can minimize performance issues, assuming the game you’re playing doesn’t have a VPN ban in place.

However, if all you can afford is a free VPN and their many issues (such as reduced speeds and the risk of data gathering), then you may want to consider not bothering. After all, not having a VPN won’t prevent you from playing, which is what it’s all about.