With the recent announcement about changes to the EULA (and in particular, how they will affect multiplayer servers), many questions have arisen. Mojang has looked over numerous discussions by you, the community, and has released a new Q&A announcement, to address some of the most frequently-asked questions to come from the announcement. More many come in the future, but for now, check out these clarifying answers, direct from Mojang!
Quote fromAre any servers exempt to the EULA?
No. It affects all servers and players equally.
Do server hosts have a grace period to implement changes to their servers?
Yes. All servers must comply with the EULA by August 1st, 2014.
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.
How often am I allowed to charge players to access my server?
You can charge players as regularly as you like. You can even charge for timed access if you think it’s the best way to monetise your server.
What counts as a server? Are proxies one big server, or lots of smaller ones?
A server is something a user connects to with their client. The user is on a different server when they leave the one they are connected to and manually join another (in the multiplayer screen). Virtual servers and proxies make no difference here, to the client it’s the same server.
Can I charge access to a specific part of my server, such as a minigame or world?
No, you cannot charge for any part of a server other than the initial access. Once on a server, all players must have the same gameplay privileges. You may make a different server for the user to connect to which features “premium” areas, and charge for access to that server instead, but the benefits cannot carry over to your other servers.
So can I charge for my minigames or mods?
Yes, so long as all players on your server have access to the features.
Can I offer a limited trial period for all users?
Yes. So long as both trial and paying users have access to the same gameplay features during the trial, we’re cool with it.
Can I give paying users priority access to my server?
Yes, but you cannot restrict gameplay elements to specific users.
Does the EULA still apply for access to user-created mods?
Yes. It doesn’t make a difference who made the mods, or how they were implemented onto your server. All mods require Minecraft to run. You are not allowed to charge for Minecraft features which affect gameplay.
What do you mean by “hard currency” compared to “soft currency”?
Hard currency is real money or anything that can be converted into real money, including Bitcoins. Soft currency is available in-game only, and has no real-world value. The restriction in the EULA only apply to hard currency; you may unlock anything with soft currency.
Can I sell “kits” for hard currency if I provide a balanced alternative for non-paying users?
If the “kits” contain gameplay-affecting features they are not allowed. Gameplay balance is not relevant to the EULA. If the items included in the kit are purely cosmetic, you can charge real money/hard currency.
My server features a currency that you can earn through gameplay, but which can also be bought for hard currency. Is that OK?
Soft currencies that are solely earned in-game are fine, but you cannot sell in-game currency for hard currency. Hybrid/dual currency systems are not allowed.
Can I sell boosters, which provide faster gold gain, XP, or other in-game resources for hard currency?
No – boosters, item generators, and all other features that affect gameplay are not allowed.
So how do I make money from cosmetic items?
You can sell cosmetic items for hard currency directly or allow players to fund an “account” specific to your server. It’s up to the host of the server to decide how this works. Remember that capes are the exception to this rule – you are not allowed to give them away or sell them.
Can I sell ranks on my server?
Yes. Ranks are allowed so long as any perks gained are cosmetic. Coloured names, prefixes, special hats etc. are fine.
Can users purchase something that affects the entire server, such as a temporary XP boost?
Yes, but everyone who can access the server must be able to use the feature, regardless of whether they purchased it or not.
Can I award all players with a gameplay feature if I reach a donation goal within a time period?
Yes, so long as all players receive the benefit regardless of who donated then it’s OK.
Can I charge for access to server commands?
Yes, as long as their effects are purely cosmetic. Commands that affect gameplay, such as a command to fly, cannot be sold for hard currency.
If all players get access to a feature such as a plot of land, can I sell access to multiple plots for hard currency?
No – that would be a gameplay affecting change, so it’s not allowed. All player who access your server must have the same gameplay features offered to them. The same rule applies to items, such as potions.
How should servers deal with users who have already spent hard currency on features that affect gameplay?
Users may keep the perks they have paid for, on the condition that the same perks are available to other players on the server (directly, or purchasable using soft currency). It’s up to the server host to decide how to compensate users for previous transactions.
Do you have a question you would like answered about the EULA? Let's discuss it in the comments!
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EXTREMELY FRIENDLY REMINDER OF FRIENDLINESS AND HAPPY-JOY FEELINGS
Please keep all discussion as civil as possible! This is a very hot topic, and we understand that there are very strong feelings about the EULA. That's okay! Open discussion is a GOOD thing! However, please avoid the following:
- Name-calling
- Encouraging (or claiming to engage in) EULA violations
Now on to what I actually quoted you for The post you quoted didn't say you HAD to use the "Pay to Join" route, but it is one of the best options to keep servers online.
I didn't say they were making anyone charge upon entry. They're simply making provisions that allow exploitive server owners to exploit players further thereby failing to address the issue properly. If the problem is people getting ripped off by server owners charging $500 for a diamond sword, how would disallowing that while simultaneously permitting those same server owners the ability to charge $500 to be whitelisted fix anything?
I'm sorry you feel the only people who are "crying" are people making loads of money. I want to make a server, and I wouldn't make a dime. I want to own a server for the thrill of it. I would spend any "income" to upgrade the server to the best of my ability. Not all owners are awful people out to make all the money they can, and it seems kind of stereotypical to say that they are.
I have this same question.
Also, what counts as benefits carrying over between servers exactly?
Even in the case of large servers, it isn't just a case of wealthy server owners "crying about their impending bankruptcies". Large servers cost well over several $1,000s of dollars per month to run. They need a constant flow of money in order to pay developers, youtube partners, map makers, and other staff.
Oh I think most of the people who run servers are great, selfless people. My comments are directed at the elite server ops at places like Hypixel and the such.
I don't know what sort of server you are thinking of, but most 100 slot or less servers don't cost anywhere close to thousands per month. Maybe if they are running it from a nice yacht. In just a few mins spent on Google I've found multiple plans for 80+ users for less than $100 USD per month.
I will give you an advice how to start. Run a small and free server with priority access. If people do not like your server, you won't lose anything for hosting a free one. If people started to show interest by paying to have guaranteed server slots, then gradually increase that slot until you think you hit your server popularity cap. You won't be wasting player slots because you want your server to be as close to full as possible depending on how generous you are to the free players which means you will be paying minimal server costs.
It's harder to ripoff somebody when you are simply offering server access than by luring them through power. Having power means you can assert your dominance to free players while having server access don't have that kind of appeal. You have to charge fair if you want customers to actually like your server enough to pay and play.
Things that only affect how you look. Something like a different colored name, a hat, a pet, or some other sort of vanity item like that. Nothing that affects gameplay at all though, those things can't legally be sold.
Or how about if you're someone like me? I've spent no money on the Shotbow Network, but I'm still a server regular. You seem to have this idea that these huge servers had awful free content, and were only out to rip people off. If that was the case, these servers would not get nearly as much support as they do.
I agree with and have stated myself all but this part:
I agree with you about the Mojang hate bit, but:
I feel like (Note, I'm speaking while having zero experience hosting or running servers) priority access is not going to be enough of an incentive to get people to put money into a server. While it does sound nicer than a subscription fee, the number of "donors" on current servers is not all that high (Just speaking from experience playing on servers).
EDIT: Oh, and I also don't feel like huge server developers, who spent months developing great new content, wanting to have enough money to keep running their server and developing new content are greedy
Most people have been talking about small children when discussing this particular topic. I could see server owners lying outright, saying their server provides several excellent experiences that it actually doesn't, claiming to have lots of players, and just generally lying about how much fun these children would have if they'd only pay some ridiculous server entry fee. We're talking about children who were gullible enough to pay hundreds of dollars for diamonds here. Even something as simple as something along the lines of
"All/only the cool/mature/rich people play here!"
Could persuade the same kind of small child who bought a diamond sword with their parents' money to buy entry to a server with their parents' money. Marketing is quite a versatile and effective force.
Agree? Disagree?
NO, that is worse than P2W.
But then:
Ok, Mojang.
My point since the begining: If your patrons wants to support your server with pure donations, then good for you. If they don't want to, then you have no choice but to scale down the server or shut it down. No one is forcing you to maintain your server size with reduced income.
So what if they don't want to spend money on priority access? Keep your server small then and scale it with your income. I am starting to think there is a requirement on how big your server is. Is there a hidden prize somewhere that awards the biggest server? Tell me about it
Children are more prone to be tempted to buy power than a simple server access. Of course they could always complain about a server ripping them off when they realized it doesn't look what they thought it would be and the server will be in deep trouble to the masses. Children won't call paying $100 for a stack of diamond a ripoff because they don't know what is the real value of diamond on legit servers. Overall, it's harder to ripoff someone with server access over power because the power satisfaction over another player is gone.
Let me make you an example:
Kid: Mom can I play with the colored skin guy?
Mom: No they are inferion
People fought to get over the racists culture and are still about it. The same will go here, it will take some times, it will not be immediate, but good people will fight to make donation for nothing ( for keeping a server you like running ) the "new trend" and annihilate the greedy minecraft culture.
And if you really want to make a living providing elettronic/virtual fun to people, do like notch did ( and many others ), code your own game.
I don't know if you've read many EULAs, but Mojang's is not large by any stretch of the imagination. Go look at Microsoft's general EULA. The damn thing feels longer than Lord of the Rings.
The EULA for Word alone is 21 pages.
I was meaning that they said they weren't going to put up a "huge EULA". I thought that they meant that they weren't going to make an EULA like this, although I guess they could have also meant they weren't going to make a large-sized EULA. They also said this.....
.....which the current EULA seems to go against. That was before the "we reserve the right to change this agreement" line, though.
So you think a server with 100% paywall is much better than a server that accepts free players provided the server is not full? If you get kicked, you simply wait until the server has one less player so that you can join again or, better yet, pay the priority fee to have 100% access to the server anytime. I would prefer this than having p2w players showing off their superiority in the game and some of them have the tendency to abuse their power over free members.