Quote from Owen »
Hello!
Let’s get one thing clear: we love it when Minecrafters host servers. Tiny or massive, running vanilla Minecraft or a heavily modded version, we think they’re all great. Playing with friends in persistent worlds is awesome. Everyone knows that.
Over the past week there’s been lots of discussion about Minecraft servers and your right to monetise them. Legally, you are not allowed to make money from our products. There has been one exception to this rule so far – Minecraft videos. We’re about to make a second exception – Minecraft servers.
Hosting servers can be expensive. We want to give community members a way to cover their costs. That said, we don’t want our players to be exploited, or to have a frustrating time unless they pay. The following rules, which may be tweaked at a later date, have been created with those points in mind.
You are allowed to charge players to access your server
So long as the fee is the same for all players, you are allowed to charge for access to your server. You are not allowed to split your playerbase into paying, and non-paying users, nor can you restrict gameplay elements to different tiers of player.
Basically, if you’re charging for access to your server, you are selling a “ticket” and there can only be one type of ticket, no matter how much people are willing to spend.
You are allowed to accept donations
You are allowed to accept donation from your players. You can thank them publicly, or in-game, but can’t give them preferential treatment for donating. You are not allowed to restrict gameplay features in an attempt to make money.
You are allowed to provide in-game advertising or sponsorship opportunities
Running servers can be expensive, with that in mind, you are allowed to put adverts in your Minecraft worlds to help with costs. Used within reason, adverts and sponsorship can be good ways to fund a server.
You are allowed to sell in-game items so long as they don’t affect gameplay
We don’t mind you selling items in game, but they must be purely cosmetic. Pets, hats, and particle effects are OK, but swords, invincibility potions, and man-eating pigs are not. We want all players to be presented with the same gameplay features, whether they decide to pay or not.
There is one exception to this rule – capes! We have a lot of fun making cool capes for extra-special members of our community and Minecon attendees. We’d like to keep them as exclusive as possible. So, yeah, no capes please, for free or otherwise.
You cannot charge real-world cash for in-game currency
We don’t mind you making up currencies which players earn through playing but you are not allowed to sell it for real-world cash. Remember – if the stuff you sell affects gameplay, we’re not cool with it.
Don’t pretend to be us, and provide your customers with loads of info!
If you do decide to monetise your server, you must clearly state that the purchase is not associated with Mojang, declare who the money is going to, and provide a purchase history and contact details. You should also check up on the legality of selling digital items in your specific region.
Thanks for reading!
As I hope you’ve noticed, these rules are making attempts to prevent Minecraft servers becoming “pay-to-win.” We hate the idea of server hosts restricting Minecraft’s features to players who have already bought our game! It seems really mean.
We’re hoping that these rules will give hosts opportunity to continue creating awesome Minecraft worlds, and for our players to enjoy them without worrying about cash.
Have a good day!
Normal server:
Server that does not abuse players with thousands of dollars of purchases...
Unfair is not a synonym for evil.
No, it does not. I thought they where talking ALL servers.
I'm not sure where the line is drawn here. Is it still ok to use capes mods or not?
The EULA is affecting those servers that aren't abusing the players.
Explain to me how Mojang would all of a sudden "shut down" a server that I am hosting on my computer or that a hosting service is hosting for me.
"Mojang doesn't have to sue the servers, they just have to threaten the companies that are hosting those servers with legal action unless those companies terminate the hosting. If those 300 servers are spread across the half-dozen largest hosts, that'd be easy pickings."
"Wouldn't it be "simple" for Mojang to disallow login authentication for servers it identifies as non-compliant?"
"Yes, but nothing stops mojang from stopping giving them service: player autentification, providing updates, etc..."
Since unfair is not a synonym for evil... How it is evil that Mojang is exercising a legal right that people have already binded to when purchasing Minecraft? (EULA)
I will put it into simple terms....
Player wants to log on to your server, so it sends a packet to Mojang's login servers
Mojang's login server checks to see if your computer is blocked
if it is blocked, it will refuse to allow the player to log on to your server
I hadn't considered that just yet. Yeah, they could easily wreck havoc on parties that (Mojang feels) aren't playing nice.
There are so many workarounds to this it's not even funny. Even if they "block the authentication" (seems legit) couldn't you just make your server offline mode? Also, what you guys are saying is all hypothetical, I highly doubt they will implement it.
Restricting gameplay features to non-donors means to me essentially giving only donors the opportunity to have a good and full experience on the server when compared to the other people who don't donate. I agree with Mojang on this part.
"Enhancing" gameplay to donors means to me giving donators some extra fun features that can be useful, but doesn't at all give them a huge advantage to others in the game overall.
But you can't give special treatment so it's all illegal.
The explanation here is so vague and I'm confused; are they completely serious about what the text says? I haven't seen any officials say here you can "violate" the text within reason.
Then what are you arguing?
Then what's the point of discussing all of this? It must be April Fools then. Don't pay attention to this article, since it can't be enforced at all....
They could remove offline mode, and make it so if the game is modified at all it will fail.
Though I do agree, I doubt they would do it.
That Mojang would lose money/destroy the community, and it's a bad decision, at least that's what I'm arguing. Not exactly sure what he is arguing.
If they remove offline mode, couldn't you just stick to a previous version?
No, not unless you were actually offline and connecting to a LAN server. You still have to log in to mojangs authentication servers. I guess you could trick the launcher into thinking you are offline... but it could check to see if it is recieving any information from outside the LAN.
I think he was arguing the morality of it all...
Honestly... Time will tell whether Mojang's choice pays off or not.
Wow, true. Didn't think of that.