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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!
It's sad that they feel the need to block comments on it. Just shows you how wrong they are in doing this.
Would maybe even disable mods all together and have donations for each one once one of the donations hits the unlock mark can add it to the server this way people get to donate for the mods they want on a server it could work like that to.
Ether way I just don't like the EULA changes at all anyway.
They did state that we can have trials anyone up for 3065 day trials then you have to pay hehe no one would end up needing to donate though to join.
You might want to learn something yourself. Bukkit is not owned by Mojang. Many of the core staff members were hired by Mojang, but Bukkit itself was not part of that deal. However, the point is moot in that Bukkit is still subject to the EULA as I already said (making this part of your post kind of pointless).
So, because you either don't have money or don't want to spend money for extras, they are evil? If you don't like the experience a server offers, don't play on said server. Many servers that offer paid perks have communities that fully support it. You're telling me that those communities are wrong to enjoy a server with thousands of people despite having to pay for some perks? I'm sorry, but no.
People, servers aren't the problem. Parents letting their children purchase things that are overpriced is the problem. Its a parental issue, end of story. However, Mojang is in their right to control their own game and we're in our right to find other platforms for our content (which is exactly what I personally am doing).
I will be moving any new features I design for modding content to some other platform (currently looking at http://minetest.net) instead. This is disappointing to me as I enjoyed designing Ender Storage, the crafting grid for Translocators and other mod concepts that I gave to the community. However, hopefully the new community I work with will enjoy my content as much as this one has...and noone but me will control that content.
Seriously? That's your answer. You think because your President raised the minimum wage that McDonald's is hiring?
Yes, you can do that according to the new EULA. The external merchandise as long as it doesn't infringe on any of Mojangs intellectual properties, patents or trademarks is extremely acceptable. Especially since it doesn't affect game play within the server.
http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/2748251-eula-revisited-an-updated-qa-from-mojang/
Updated info from Mojang, and a new place to respond.
My post was obviously a joke. Well, obviously to anyone but you. McDonalds is hiring in Texas btw.
Ozi
Just because it's your money doesn't you can do whatever you want with it with no limits or repercussions whatsoever.
No, knowing someones address is not invasion of privacy.
Any website, forum or any other online Admin can easily see your computer's IP, though some forums only show enough of the number so it can be cross checked. This is how they are capable of doing things like banning any user on a specific computer, rather then just a user account. They ban the computer's IP address.
Anyway I guess it doesn't matter, now that the new eula answered more questions.
Equal gameplay to all... Does this mean "equal gameplay to all whom are online"?
My scenario is as follows... I admin on a 100% vanilla server. The server knows when there is a new donation. It states that there is a new donation by person via a tellraw and say command in command blocks. Hypothetically, would it be legal for, when a new donation occurs, everyone [online] gets 1 diamond?
I don't intend to do that, but it contains the idea / principle that I'm curious about. Does that fall into the category of "fair gameplay"?
Please anyone whom has this all figured out, give me some feedback.
Let me clear some things up for some people without being Bias.
Basically Mojang (as claimed by Notch) receives to many emails from parents wanting there money back from a server they donated to. Yes I perfectly agree that this can be annoying but please know this is lawfully breaking the EULA (End users License Agreement). I do feel that Mojang should crack down on this case. As my OPINION (Bias incoming) I do feel they shouldn't go this far with server crackdown donating. I do believe servers should state (where players donate) that donations are not associated with Mojang and that the server should be sued or accused for hard-earned money problems. However (more bias incoming) I do feel players should be able to donate for items still and such; It will be that communities problem not mojangs. Mojang has let this slip and they know about it and didn't really care. (Back to facts) Now you still can donate to servers; But it has to be for Cosmetic items or just out of the pure of your heart. You can still donate for things that will not effect direct gameplay. Like cats or animals or a cool hat or a rank (Yes ranks are allowed; But that rank may only come with purely Cosmetic things and prefixes/suffixes if you want; It just can't effect gameplay). This means no Armor, Swords, Golden apples, blocks etc.. Now they do mention in the Q&A Follow up they posted on Monday (6/16/14) That players can still donate for Non-Cosmetic things; However if a player donates for these Non Cosmetic things (Armor/Swords/XP Orbs) it must be given out to ALL the players that join and on server. Like if a player donates for XP for 15 minutes; Every player must get this XP (Whether they joined before or during the 15 minutes). (Bias Opinion incoming): Now I do feel that cutting servers off like this could possibly crash Minecraft MultiPlayer mode. If Mojang did this at an earlier state in Minecraft it wouldn't matter so much since there weren't servers like Hypixel or Sky's or MinePlex didn't exist but in the late process of things it does matter, This is just my opinion on what could happen. Everyone (As Mojang stated in there Monitisation posts) has until August 1st 2014 to agree to these new EULA (End Users License agreement). Hope this cleared some things up!
Thanks!
Added: Also, not ALL servers cheat you for money. MOJANG, if you're annoyed with this, then just GET RID OF THE SERVERS THAT DO IT (well, if you can)! Thanks!