Around a month ago, Mojang revealed that they had plans to start changing what is acceptable to be monetized in a Minecraft server. A few days ago, they finally revealed details on their official Minecraft blog. The main takeaway from their statement is that they are trying to avoid making a server pay-to-win. This means that they are ensuring that all players on a server, no matter how much they pay, are having the same game experience.
In more detail, there are a few key points that Mojang made in their release. One of these is that no non-cosmetic in game items can be sold for real money. If you wish to sell items on your Minecraft server (for real money) they must be purely cosmetic. Capes are a special exception to this. Mojang wishes to keep capes exclusive, and as a result they will not be allowed to be sold at all. In addition, in game economy money cannot be purchased with real money.
However, this doesn’t mean that Mojang wants all server hosts to be broke. “We want to give hosts 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.” In this vein, they are still allowing a number of monetization avenues for servers. Minecraft servers are still allowed to charge players to play on their server, under the proviso that all players are charged the same amount. In addition, in-game advertisement is still allowed. Players can also donate to their servers, as long as there is no preferential treatment for donating.
In my opinion, these are all reasonable ways to preserve Minecraft player’s experience while still allowing servers to make money. Owen from Mojang, who posted the announcement, is preparing to do a follow up post to answer player’s questions. If you have any questions, you can send him a tweet.
