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
im neutral i pay for a dedicated for friends/family to play, but just pointing out that just about every major MMO does this. there is just a balance between rewarding people who have time to play and casual players who cant play 8 hours a day. getting a /kit that gives you iron gear is equivelant to mining for specific time but its not as OP as having a /kit that gives you an enchanted god set. P2W is not something you can just cover with a blanket statement.
there are players with all the time in the world that just plop around all day, dont contribute to anything except cry and complain... that definately do not deserve all-and-equal. Those of us who play on big servers all know who they are, and they usually outnumber the amount of arrogant people that buy top tier ranks.
I mean that as going on a server that has some items as donator perks, complaining, leaving then going on the internet to complain.
yeah i know there are tons of games exactly like this. and Mojang clearly doesn't want minecraft becoming one. and neither do i and a large percentage of the community. Also, the MMOs that have micro-transactions are typically FTP with the games that rely on these transactions. and finally when you pay for things in these MMOs its going to the company that made the game, not some server owner.
yeah of course, but i do believe it was mojang who decided that the EULA needed to be changed on there own. Sure they where spammed a bunch, but mojang said that it was becoming something they never wanted it to be.
I really hate mojang doing this because of the bad apples. there is a difference between paying 10 dollars for full protection 30 armor and a sharpness 50 sword on a pvp server versus paying 5 dollars for /thor, minor/limited w/e (limited to you cant like crash the server) /fly , /tp , /gamemode 1, a very limited /give and /disguise on a survival serveer with specific rules on how to use them and plugins to stop abuse such as rule for /give: if oyu are caught /give'ing yourself stuff to then sell to server shop, you will be banned. And for /fly they have a plugin so you cant fly in combat. rule for /tp were no tp killing or be banned. They also had a really good report system for this and moderators were active. This was a good server and it wasnt OP in terms of what donating gave you. And of course they had the CreativeControl plugin as well. /give was limited in the sense that you could only spawn in basic things (e.g. wood or stone tools, redstone stuff etc. Spawning in diamonds was disabled and spawning tools/armor in stacks was also disabled.
the gameplay itself was quite balanced even if the donors have those commands. It was one of those small server types with a average of 25 users and noone ever abused their powers.
Yes, but you cannot restrict gameplay elements to specific users.
So this FAQ answer seems pretty ambiguous to me, does it mean that I can sell perks, so long as those same perks are avaliable to players in game?
So an example, say I want to sell /fly, however you can also get /fly in game if you achieve a certain rank. Does that make it okay because /fly is not restricted to donors (when I say donors I realize it isn't a donation, its just the common term), and everyone can get /fly at some point?
Please quote any comments, thanks!
Priority access would be the middle ground between free and pay to play server. The server is normally free but you can access the server anytime even if the server is full as a paying player. They can either kick a random free user to make room for the paying player or simply have reserve slots that only fills when a paying players joins a full server. I think this will be the most effective way to make money w/o paying power since server owners are encouraged to limit server slots hence reducing server expenses and encourages players to pay when the server is starting to fill up often and the result is the server owner have the money to add more server slot to accommodate the growing player number. I have seen this kind of access on platforms I used to play in such as Garena.
The EULA states that what ever the donor receives for donating, the free users must also have access to it so giving /fly to that donor would also mean giving /fly to everyone on the server regardless if they donated or not. Donate to skip grinding is also not allowed.
That's where skill and luck comes in. You don't need p2w to have different stuff or have fun..... infact p2w can detract from the "fun"
Well the reality of the EULA is going to smack their faces. (assuming the EULA succeeds)
In a perfect world, there would be no need to have a job.
Okay, I think we just fundamentally disagree on the definition of "pay-to-win." Pay-to-win in my mind means you literally cannot win without paying. Literally, if you want to win, you have to pay. Pay, in order to win. A good example of this was Wizards 101, where you had to pay real-world money to access any of the non-low-level areas of the game at all.
The servers I've mentioned don't fit my definition of pay-to-win, since you can win without paying.
Read this: An Open Letter to Notch
if you haven't.
Within, the Managing Director of the Mineplex network discusses lots of the topics being discussed in this thread, including the payment options Notch and Mojang described. It should only take a couple minutes to read, and it covers my thoughts on most of these topics pretty well.
Thanks for the clarification on this- I can be pretty bad with legal stuff.
Maybe we should just push the licence idea thing. I think it could solve things pretty nicely.
You bring up a really good point about who can access a server and when. I doubt the Minecraft staff will take kindly to a model where, if the server is full, (or the resources are being strained) a paid user can kick off an unpaid user (randomly or otherwise). Your idea about having reserved slots is good, but unfortunately, I don't see anything like that in both the current EULA or the proposed changes to it.
My example: minigame servers
My argument:
The reason it's not very comparable to selling mods or DLC is the fact that most of the content on many of these servers has been available at no cost whatsoever. You could log onto one of these servers and play any of the minigames offered without having to "buy" the minigames themselves.
With kits in mind, you could say it's comparable to selling DLC packs for DLC packs that you got for free. You might more accurately compare it to selling DLC packs for free games third party developers made on a game engine, to support development for said free games.
Now, with Mojang's "paid entry" "solution" sure, you could maybe say that is like selling DLC packs for a game you didn't make, since you won't get any of the content if you don't pay. What an odd solution that is.
I like to think about pay-to-win exactly like you do. I also think that there's a pay-for-fun (PFF lol) or pay for a different experience model. It's the impression I got after reading that great letter. It actually convinced me that the license would be changed to incorporate that model. However, if you read the chat that Erik was apart of (it's on pastebin somewhere) there's no doubt that the EULA will not be changed in any way, shape, or form.
Everyone's bad with legal stuff (that's why we hire lawyers right? :). Minecraft's EULA is one of the few that I've read (skimmed that make it easy to understand, as well as make it pretty arbitrary. I like to think that their lawyers are going crazy because that can't directly outline what you can and cannot do with the software, like other companies do.
Yeah this does suck. :x
Time will tell, right? How many people will be able to shout "I TOLD YOU SO!" to the other side? :S
Ah, you're right. I meant there won't be any changes to the proposed change.
But I don't see how the enforcement is a problem at all.
First you get a letter saying, "You are in direct violation of Minecraft's end user license agreement. Do something about it so that you adhere to the agreement".
Then, you get a letter from Minecraft's lawyers threatening a civil lawsuit based upon violating the license agreement you agreed to, prior to buying, downloading, and playing their game.
I get the impression that many people think that they can, "fly under the radar." Unless you work the backend or you studied how the client, a server, and the authentication mechanisms all work together, you don't really know for certain that you can get away with it.
What do you think?
-Hypixel
The difference now is that Mojang and the Minecraft staff can say, those actions abide by those outlined by the EULA. Morally, it's wrong, but that's not how their agreement works.
They aren't breaking the proposed changes to the EULA (they still run the risk of getting sued, I believe, as they're still breaking the current EULA). I'm guessing that they may have talked to a lawyer about this, which is why they released that statement.
We will have to ask to be sure but I think this is fine because kicking the player is similar to denying the player access to pay to play server and mojang is fine with that model. Free players still have access to everything as much as paying players do provided the server is not full. Think of priority access as a pay to play server but free players are allowed to play as long as paying players are not playing. It is up to the server owner how generous he is to the free players by adjusting the free player slots.