You “may have noticed” that a lot of people, especially server owners who are worried about paying for their hosting costs, are upset about Mojang enforcing their EULA. Rather than get bogged down in “should they or shouldn’t they” arguments, I thought it might be more useful to brainstorm options for making money without violating the EULA.

This is just brainstorming, and I don’t promise that any of this will work, but maybe it’ll be useful.

First, get loyalty. Be prepared to lose money meanwhile.

Any form of business education at all will tell you that the vast majority of businesses lose money for a period of time after they begin. Be ready to self-fund your server for a long time while you do the most important thing that you can do, which is build customer loyalty.

Customer loyalty is everything. If you can’t get it, you’ll go out of business with or without the EULA. There are several ways you can build that; here are a couple of ideas.

• The most obvious way is to make sure that your server is either doing something really fun and completely unique, or at least doing what you do better than anyone else. All the major successful businesses got successful by either doing something new first, or by outdoing the people who had already been working in that business. Easier said than done, but somebody’s gotta be the first or the best. Every popular game mode in Minecraft was done by only one server for at least a little while, and every game mode has one or two servers who do it better than anyone else. It could be you.

• Building team spirit is a good way to make people care about your server. Help them feel that they belong to something big. Try reaching out to other server owners and organizing competitions – a UHC or a build contest. It’ll promote both servers at the same time, just like doing a collab on YouTube. Hype the competition with pre-game events on your server — think Minecraft pep rallies. This helps the people who aren’t actually competing feel like they are participating. Organize YouTubers and streamers to cover the events, even if they’re not actually competing. Make a huge deal out of it, and people will be proud to call themselves members of your community.

• BE PROFESSIONAL. If you’re on this subreddit and haven’t seen people complaining about server owners and staff playing favorites, abusing their powers, and otherwise being unprofessional, you must not be paying attention. 🙂 You can’t leave your customers feeling like you’re a jerk, because they won’t support you.

Same old same old

Everyone says the same two things about making money on servers: “ask for donations” and “sell cosmetic items.” Everyone else comes right back and says “no one donates” and “cosmetic items don’t sell well enough.” I’m going to spend a little time picking these ideas apart.

Ask for donations

So first of all, it costs you nothing, or almost nothing, to ask for donations. It’s true that most people will just laugh at you. There are a few things you can do to improve your success rate, though.

Customer loyalty matters. People who feel that they won’t have as much fun on some other server are more likely to donate to yours. I’ve already talked about this above.

Set funding goals. If you’re just looking to break even, rather than actually make a profit, people will appreciate transparency. Part of that means setting funding goals. On your website (you have one, right?) and in the in-game lobby, put some indicator of how close you are to meeting your monthly fees. Update it as often as you can — let people see that their donations count and are going toward a good cause (giving them a place to play). Promise (and deliver!) server-wide upgrades if certain goals are reached.

That brings me to the next point, server-wide unlockable rewards. Mojang says a donation isn’t a donation if you get something back for it, but a donator can pay money to unlock a server-wide feature as long as everyone, even the cheapskates, get to enjoy it equally. Mojang doesn’t have a problem with that. Say “if we reach $10 today, I’ll open up that really fun minigame everyone’s been talking about,” or whatever, and let everyone reap the benefits.

Do shoutouts for people who have donated. If it doesn’t impact gameplay, it’s legit. This could be a cheap way for YouTubers and streamers to promote their channels to your customer base. When Etho was starting his channel, he got a lot of donations that people made in exchange for shoutouts on his videos. He eventually quit doing that, but if it worked for him, why can’t it work for you? (It’s worth pointing out that if they hadn’t liked his content, they wouldn’t have donated. The same goes for your server.)

Sell cosmetic upgrades

These can be technically challenging and hard to sell, so I’ll keep this brief, but if you have a good modder on board, give it a shot. My advice is to look for what sells in the real world and sell it in Minecraft. Whatever the latest craze is — like emoji-themed merchandise, for example — you could probably turn it into some cash flow for your server.

Less common ideas

I don’t see these suggested a lot, so here goes.

• Physical merchandise is legit!

  Mojang’s EULA basically says that if you use their IP (Intellectual Property), you can do very limited runs of 20 units per design. Add your server logo to your designs and sell them through your website or other e-commerce site.

Even better, leave out the Mojang IP altogether and just sell things themed for your server. Use your own self-copyrighted logo and artwork, and you can avoid production limits — sell as much as you like!

• Pay-to-access server

You can charge for access to your server as long as everyone pays the same amount. If you have existing customers who really really like your server, you might be able to pull this off. On the other hand, you might run a free server and a separate “elite” server that charges a fee. This is hard to do — each option here has serious drawbacks — but give it some thought.

Don’t take it personally if things don’t go well.

People who quit too easily never succeed. On the other hand, people who continually throw money into doomed ventures never succeed, either, so be realistic about when to throw in the towel.

Success (the legal, EULA-abiding way) is possible. It’s not easy, but you’re not entitled to it, either. Mojang isn’t obligated to make it easy (or even possible!) but they have allowed a number of ways for you to turn your server into a money-making venture. Just remember that every minute spent complaining about difficulties is another minute you’re not working toward success. 😛 No one blames you for taking a moment to feel sorry for yourself — we all do it more frequently than we admit — but don’t let it hold you back.

Feedback and more brainstorming is welcome!

I don’t pretend to be an expert, but I’ve been around the block a bit and I’ve known some successful entrepreneurs in my day. If you have constructive feedback, criticism, or ideas of your own, I’d love to see them. Let’s help the community leave their anger behind and start moving toward getting their servers funded and accepted.

I go into a few of these ideas in more detail in a video on my channel. If you’re interested in hearing more (or just listening to my sultry voice, lulz) you could click on over: https://youtu.be/RWkhqYx9Qj4