Can I charge for access to my server?
Yes. How players join a server is up to you. Single entrance fees or subscriptions are both allowed.
THIS new commercial use document DIRECTLY links to the Q&A, but has these lines:
Therefore, if you comply with and follow the Brand and Asset Usage Guidelines and Naming Guidelines above YOU MAY:
charge for access to your server, including a server which hosts your Mods, BUT only if:
you make a single charge per person that is the same for everyone;
So, basically one document says that I can charge monthly, another says that I cannot.
Can somebody explain me where the truth is, please?
And the resulting question:
Сan I then give priority access to the server to people who paid the fee and "kick" people out of it (in subtle ways) who did not pay? Or can I put the people who did not pay "in line" to play the game and allow people who pay get on the subserver faster?
It states in the new one, they if you make a single charge per person you must charge everyone else also. Thus, you are allowed to make subscriptions. But, you must charge everyone at the same price.
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Swatcommader6, Thank you for your answer. Nevertheless, I am still uncertain about this phrase with "single charge"... It basically imlpies that I can't make subscriptions, which contradicts their Q&A as I said.
If Anybody else has their thoughts about this "single charge" thing, you're welcome to write here!
Swatcommader6, Thank you for your answer. Nevertheless, I am still uncertain about this phrase with "single charge"... It basically imlpies that I can't make subscriptions, which contradicts their Q&A as I said.
If Anybody else has their thoughts about this "single charge" thing, you're welcome to write here!
By single charge the EULA means that everyone must pay the same amount, so you can't have one person paying $1/month and another paying $2/month. Both must pay the same price. So to clarify you can charge for the initial entry with no payments after for access, or you can have a subscription.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, this is my interpretation of the EULA, it may be incorrect.
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Please don't PM me asking for help, I will just redirect you to the appropriate forum, where there are others who are far more skilled than me.
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Leviathan143, I am grateful to your answer, I finally start to realize what they meant by the word "single" in this context with your help.
The thread is still open for your impulsive and bright minds, guys!
If/when everything works out, you're invited to my server project as a premium user. You will definitely notice it if you're keeping pace with server tops.
Сan I then give priority access to the server to people who paid the fee and "kick" people out of it (in subtle ways) who did not pay? Or can I put the people who did not pay "in line" to play the game and allow people who pay get on the subserver faster?
If you have a subscrition fee than certainly you would only let people play if they have payed their subcripion.
Making the payment volentary and treating people differently (giving faster service) depending on if they have paid wouldn't be allowed.
Either a compulsory fee to play, volontary donations that provide no benefit to the donor or volontary fees for purely cosmetic items like titles or pets (that can't be used in combat or anything) or hats.
I think that is the confusion is that line. By single does it mean you can only have a single charge, but can charge it multiple times. Or you can only charge a person a single time. I'm sliding towards the former just so Mojang don't be contradicting themselves.
I took some time to understand what Mojang mean't about single charge.
What I thought at the end:
subscription = single charge + single charge + single charge
Yeah, OP. you can charge people to join your server, but then let me ask you this. Why would anyone want to? What makes YOUR server somehow worth paying for, compared to the thousands of other minecraft servers out there? Why do you feel your server is worth charging people for? Do you have absolutely amazing, game-altering, groundbreaking plugins that people will throw cash at just to play? If you can't answer these questions, or the answer to the last question is no, then I would suggest rethinking your plan. You might save yourself a lot of time (and possibly money(
Yeah, OP. you can charge people to join your server, but then let me ask you this. Why would anyone want to? What makes YOUR server somehow worth paying for, compared to the thousands of other minecraft servers out there? Why do you feel your server is worth charging people for? Do you have absolutely amazing, game-altering, groundbreaking plugins that people will throw cash at just to play? If you can't answer these questions, or the answer to the last question is no, then I would suggest rethinking your plan. You might save yourself a lot of time (and possibly money(
I agree completely with this.
In all the time I've played Minecraft I have never heard of a paid server until now. I was done paying after I bought the game, and personally would not consider paying any money at all just to play on a server because there are very good free ones if I want to play on them.
Some servers go halfway and give donation status or whatever, so you can pay and get some bonuses. But I don't think many servers flatly charge money for just being able to play on them.
Yeah, OP. you can charge people to join your server, but then let me ask you this. Why would anyone want to? What makes YOUR server somehow worth paying for, compared to the thousands of other minecraft servers out there? Why do you feel your server is worth charging people for? Do you have absolutely amazing, game-altering, groundbreaking plugins that people will throw cash at just to play? If you can't answer these questions, or the answer to the last question is no, then I would suggest rethinking your plan. You might save yourself a lot of time (and possibly money(
I will say I do agree with you there as I host my own server(s) from my house and they are free to play, however there are some people who cannot for whatever reason be it bad internet or no commercial use (meaning any game whatsoever) by there internet provider or even rental restrictions cannot host a server from there household and thus must use a hosting service. the only thing I can say right now is we don't know how much he is going/thinking of charging for access, for all we know it could be $1 a month, who knows. but I will say this, at least he's asking about the EULA rules before charging so he knows what he's allowed to do and not to do.
back on topic,[@mcter] I think (at least with your last statement on the main post) what you might have to do is the people who currently play for free would need to be warned prior to the pay-to-play plan coming in (at least as a courtesy) then I think what you'd need to do is setup some sort of whitelist that auto recognizes when someone has paid to then allow them to access the server because in the EULA Q&A I remember seeing that priority access (meaning pay get's first logins) is not allowed because that's classed as Pay-To-Win at that point. it's like giving someone completely unbreakable armors and tools for paying to login when the free players have to scavenge around for there items. hopefully that all makes sense.
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Thank you guys again for your responses.
Some answers for your implied questions:
Do I have the completely unique concept?
- Yes I do. You've never seen anything like this ever in this game for sure.
Will people like it?
-They already do on testing and everybody's eager to pay for it. (by which I was firstly shocked btw :D)
How much am I planning to charge?
- Around 7.99$ per month. Might reconsider.
Will this server surpass mineplex or any other huge network?
- No, but it will get close (since it's not free and all people who do not want to pay will stay on other networks).
[But] There are 10s of thousands of servers, do you know that?
- Yes, and all of them are bad. Even hypixel has the concepts and organization like it is somewhere still in 2011.
Priority access does not give the gameplay advantage in my case btw.
If I was unsure in my intentions, I would never have written to this forum at all.
I understand why everybody is unsure in this idea, I can't tell you the concept until I make proper copyrighting for it and make it done (server will open in January by my estimates).
7.99 "boundary" is not a huge amount of money and such charge is a perfect filter and perfect revenue generator, since I will know for sure that people will be willing to pay more cause they have money to pay in most of the cases.
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P. S.
Anticipating your future concerns:
If everything goes really bad, I will remove the charge, that's it. It will not be a catastrophe or something, I will have a lot of cosmetics to buy anyway.
But I am still really firm in intentions to charge people these 8$ per month.
Btw, I also need to know if I can do discounts if a person pays per year or per 6 months.
Any thoughts on that? EULA says: "same for everyone".
Does it mean that I cannot make any "more time - less money" discounts?
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webrosc, that's the whole point, I better have people that can pay me and generate revenue then I have huge amounts of people who just consume by machines' resources.
Btw, I will provide the 1-3 day trial period with some functions disabled (not gameplay affecting ones), or I was also thinking about the endless trial with most of the features unavailable on the server that's separated from the main one.
And by "that monthly cost" did you mean that it is too high? Or did you mean that you think that nobody will pay monthly at all?
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SamMan56, EULA states that all that I do in Minecraft belongs to Mojang, but I my server is way more vast than only the "stuff" in Minecraft, so I will be able to copyright anything outside the game itself.
And yeah, direct plagiarism is punishable for certain.
+ My server is devised in the way that as if you want to plagiarize it it will take months to do it, and then you will get sued anyway)).
Btw, we will have the open Beta and everybody's invited to it. I will buy some insignificant advertising for it just to get some reaction.
webrosc, that's the whole point, I better have people that can pay me and generate revenue then I have huge amounts of people who just consume by machines' resources.
I hope that works out for you the way you think it will.
(Sincerely meant. I'm somewhat sceptical, but I don't know much about business and nothing about your server or players )
Btw, I will provide the 1-3 day trial period with some functions disabled (not gameplay affecting ones), or I was also thinking about the endless trial with most of the features unavailable on the server that's separated from the main one.
I'm curious about what non gameplay affecting functions would be worth disabling?
Specially without changing the experience so that trial players no longer see what's special about your server that makes it worth paying for.
(Can you give us some idea about what is special about it? (Without giving away your whole concept, of course.))
Not an Eula issue but you might be better off, advertisingwise to give them the full experience bur make it hard for someone to cheat the system and keep coming back for repeted trials.
Note that Mojang requires the servers to have different web adresses/IP numbers in order to count them as separate servers.
I'm reading the "single charge" as stressing that everybody has to be treated the same, they definately say that you can charge a onetime fee, a subscription or charge per hour of play but I can't tell if they allow for options?
You could charge $7.98 a month OR $25 for three months, but I have no idea if you could have both options, that might be something you should email Mojang and ask?
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webrosc, by "direct plagiarism" I meant exactly passing our own things like anybody else's. There is a lot of people, like temporarily hired developers, who can just steal out the code and other "assets".
"I'm curious about what non-gameplay affecting functions would be worth disabling?"
There are things without which there's no direct stimulus to play on my server cause it's highly competitive.
"Can you give us some idea about what is special about it?"
Can say that some parts of it can be observed right now in some weird and raw forms on some servers and these "parts" are really popular.
But all other information that I can provide is that that you've never even seen the approach that my server has for even starting the "game" itself to begin with.
"Note that Mojang requires the servers to have different web addresses/IP numbers in order to count them as separate servers."
Yeah, I read about that, thanks anyway.
"You could charge $7.98 a month OR $25 for three months, but I have no idea if you could have both options, that might be something you should email Mojang and ask?"
I definitely will ask Mojang.
Anyway, we will have the free beta, I invite you guys there to help me clean and polish the stuff out, if you want.
Hello guys!
I am planning to open my server.
I thought about charging people monthly for playing on it (subscription).
I read the commercial use EULA and I am confused:
THIS Q&A has these lines:
Can I charge for access to my server?
Yes. How players join a server is up to you. Single entrance fees or subscriptions are both allowed.
THIS new commercial use document DIRECTLY links to the Q&A, but has these lines:
Therefore, if you comply with and follow the Brand and Asset Usage Guidelines and Naming Guidelines above YOU MAY:
So, basically one document says that I can charge monthly, another says that I cannot.
Can somebody explain me where the truth is, please?
And the resulting question:
Сan I then give priority access to the server to people who paid the fee and "kick" people out of it (in subtle ways) who did not pay? Or can I put the people who did not pay "in line" to play the game and allow people who pay get on the subserver faster?
Thank you for your answers.
Both say they allow subscriptions on servers.
It states in the new one, they if you make a single charge per person you must charge everyone else also. Thus, you are allowed to make subscriptions. But, you must charge everyone at the same price.
(I think)
Swatcommader6, Thank you for your answer. Nevertheless, I am still uncertain about this phrase with "single charge"... It basically imlpies that I can't make subscriptions, which contradicts their Q&A as I said.
If Anybody else has their thoughts about this "single charge" thing, you're welcome to write here!
By single charge the EULA means that everyone must pay the same amount, so you can't have one person paying $1/month and another paying $2/month. Both must pay the same price. So to clarify you can charge for the initial entry with no payments after for access, or you can have a subscription.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, this is my interpretation of the EULA, it may be incorrect.
Please don't PM me asking for help, I will just redirect you to the appropriate forum, where there are others who are far more skilled than me.
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Banners and such things
Leviathan143, I am grateful to your answer, I finally start to realize what they meant by the word "single" in this context with your help.
The thread is still open for your impulsive and bright minds, guys!
If/when everything works out, you're invited to my server project as a premium user. You will definitely notice it if you're keeping pace with server tops.
<3
If you have a subscrition fee than certainly you would only let people play if they have payed their subcripion.
Making the payment volentary and treating people differently (giving faster service) depending on if they have paid wouldn't be allowed.
Either a compulsory fee to play, volontary donations that provide no benefit to the donor or volontary fees for purely cosmetic items like titles or pets (that can't be used in combat or anything) or hats.
Just testing.
SamMan56, thank you, you made it even more clear to me!
Quote from SamMan56 >>
I took some time to understand what Mojang mean't about single charge.
What I thought at the end:
Hexalobular, thank you, and you made me think about another confusion:
Can I do both monthly charge and cosmetic items?
-------------------------------------------
In EULA they say that I can:
- charge for access to your server
- ask for donations (as opposed to direct charges)
- sell cosmetic items, except for "Capes"
etc.etc.etc.
So, does it mean that I can both charge and sell?
I will be glad to hear anybody's considerations on this also!
If the item your are selling creates a major advantage to other players, it is not allowed.
Tnx guys, you all provided some great help to me <3
Yeah, OP. you can charge people to join your server, but then let me ask you this. Why would anyone want to? What makes YOUR server somehow worth paying for, compared to the thousands of other minecraft servers out there? Why do you feel your server is worth charging people for? Do you have absolutely amazing, game-altering, groundbreaking plugins that people will throw cash at just to play? If you can't answer these questions, or the answer to the last question is no, then I would suggest rethinking your plan. You might save yourself a lot of time (and possibly money(
I agree completely with this.
In all the time I've played Minecraft I have never heard of a paid server until now. I was done paying after I bought the game, and personally would not consider paying any money at all just to play on a server because there are very good free ones if I want to play on them.
Some servers go halfway and give donation status or whatever, so you can pay and get some bonuses. But I don't think many servers flatly charge money for just being able to play on them.
I will say I do agree with you there as I host my own server(s) from my house and they are free to play, however there are some people who cannot for whatever reason be it bad internet or no commercial use (meaning any game whatsoever) by there internet provider or even rental restrictions cannot host a server from there household and thus must use a hosting service. the only thing I can say right now is we don't know how much he is going/thinking of charging for access, for all we know it could be $1 a month, who knows. but I will say this, at least he's asking about the EULA rules before charging so he knows what he's allowed to do and not to do.
back on topic,[@mcter] I think (at least with your last statement on the main post) what you might have to do is the people who currently play for free would need to be warned prior to the pay-to-play plan coming in (at least as a courtesy) then I think what you'd need to do is setup some sort of whitelist that auto recognizes when someone has paid to then allow them to access the server because in the EULA Q&A I remember seeing that priority access (meaning pay get's first logins) is not allowed because that's classed as Pay-To-Win at that point. it's like giving someone completely unbreakable armors and tools for paying to login when the free players have to scavenge around for there items. hopefully that all makes sense.
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Thank you guys again for your responses.
Some answers for your implied questions:
Do I have the completely unique concept?
- Yes I do. You've never seen anything like this ever in this game for sure.
Will people like it?
-They already do on testing and everybody's eager to pay for it. (by which I was firstly shocked btw :D)
How much am I planning to charge?
- Around 7.99$ per month. Might reconsider.
Will this server surpass mineplex or any other huge network?
- No, but it will get close (since it's not free and all people who do not want to pay will stay on other networks).
[But] There are 10s of thousands of servers, do you know that?
- Yes, and all of them are bad. Even hypixel has the concepts and organization like it is somewhere still in 2011.
Priority access does not give the gameplay advantage in my case btw.
If I was unsure in my intentions, I would never have written to this forum at all.
I understand why everybody is unsure in this idea, I can't tell you the concept until I make proper copyrighting for it and make it done (server will open in January by my estimates).
7.99 "boundary" is not a huge amount of money and such charge is a perfect filter and perfect revenue generator, since I will know for sure that people will be willing to pay more cause they have money to pay in most of the cases.
P. S.
Anticipating your future concerns:
If everything goes really bad, I will remove the charge, that's it. It will not be a catastrophe or something, I will have a lot of cosmetics to buy anyway.
But I am still really firm in intentions to charge people these 8$ per month.
Btw, I also need to know if I can do discounts if a person pays per year or per 6 months.
Any thoughts on that? EULA says: "same for everyone".
Does it mean that I cannot make any "more time - less money" discounts?
webrosc, that's the whole point, I better have people that can pay me and generate revenue then I have huge amounts of people who just consume by machines' resources.
Btw, I will provide the 1-3 day trial period with some functions disabled (not gameplay affecting ones), or I was also thinking about the endless trial with most of the features unavailable on the server that's separated from the main one.
And by "that monthly cost" did you mean that it is too high? Or did you mean that you think that nobody will pay monthly at all?
SamMan56, EULA states that all that I do in Minecraft belongs to Mojang, but I my server is way more vast than only the "stuff" in Minecraft, so I will be able to copyright anything outside the game itself.
And yeah, direct plagiarism is punishable for certain.
+ My server is devised in the way that as if you want to plagiarize it it will take months to do it, and then you will get sued anyway)).
Btw, we will have the open Beta and everybody's invited to it. I will buy some insignificant advertising for it just to get some reaction.
I hope that works out for you the way you think it will.
(Sincerely meant. I'm somewhat sceptical, but I don't know much about business and nothing about your server or players )
I'm curious about what non gameplay affecting functions would be worth disabling?
Specially without changing the experience so that trial players no longer see what's special about your server that makes it worth paying for.
(Can you give us some idea about what is special about it? (Without giving away your whole concept, of course.))
Not an Eula issue but you might be better off, advertisingwise to give them the full experience bur make it hard for someone to cheat the system and keep coming back for repeted trials.
Note that Mojang requires the servers to have different web adresses/IP numbers in order to count them as separate servers.
I'm reading the "single charge" as stressing that everybody has to be treated the same, they definately say that you can charge a onetime fee, a subscription or charge per hour of play but I can't tell if they allow for options?
You could charge $7.98 a month OR $25 for three months, but I have no idea if you could have both options, that might be something you should email Mojang and ask?
Just testing.
webrosc, by "direct plagiarism" I meant exactly passing our own things like anybody else's. There is a lot of people, like temporarily hired developers, who can just steal out the code and other "assets".
Hexalobular,
"I'm curious about what non-gameplay affecting functions would be worth disabling?"
There are things without which there's no direct stimulus to play on my server cause it's highly competitive.
"Can you give us some idea about what is special about it?"
Can say that some parts of it can be observed right now in some weird and raw forms on some servers and these "parts" are really popular.
But all other information that I can provide is that that you've never even seen the approach that my server has for even starting the "game" itself to begin with.
"Note that Mojang requires the servers to have different web addresses/IP numbers in order to count them as separate servers."
Yeah, I read about that, thanks anyway.
"You could charge $7.98 a month OR $25 for three months, but I have no idea if you could have both options, that might be something you should email Mojang and ask?"
I definitely will ask Mojang.
Anyway, we will have the free beta, I invite you guys there to help me clean and polish the stuff out, if you want.