Pay-to-Win Minecraft Servers - The TRUTH.

Minecraft pay to win servers. They are bad right? Well, lets actually investigate that.

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0:00 – Intro
0:53 – What Even Happened?
6:59 – Minecraft Servers & Money
12:24 – Servers Need Money.
15:23 – Ethical Monetisation
21:34 – The “Anti Pay-to-Win” Community
26:56 – Exploitation?
29:12 – How Much Money Does My Minecraft Server Make?
33:06 – Cosmetics?

Music Used:
1. Scott Buckley - Shadows and Dust
4. Lena Raine - Rubedo
5. C418 - Shuniji
6. Scott Buckley - Race the Sun
7. C418 - Flake
8. Scott Buckley - Machina
9. C418 - Living Mice
10. Feels - Patrick Patrikios
11. Resolution - Wayne Jones
12. C418 - Taswell

If there is any content in this video which you own and would like removed, than please contact me and I will be happy to oblige.

#minecraft #minecraftsmp #minecraftserver

[TheMisterEpic]

Make sure to watch the video before leaving a comment, I guarantee it will have information that will at least make you think about the entire scenario.
My Server IP: og-network.net (Bedrock Port: 19132)

[GurkenbauerTim]

So it‘s only fair for us, the community, to *dupe* on your server

[thunderwave]

You either die a hero or live to see yourself become a villain

[Flumpty._.]

You bring up fair points, but be careful from falling down a slippery slope. P2W is best if it’s isolated, or a P2P game mode would be ideal to make a sense of exclusivity.

[The_Horizon]

Hihi, I'm mad at you not because you're making your server "P2W" (more on the quotes later) but because you're making me watch this entire damn half hour long video and write a response on the weekend before a midterm because of all my viewers spamming me this vid lol

MC Servers and money:
- Very valid points. I have been told the revenue of all sorts of server owners but never collected and quantified data. These points are why "Semi-P2W" Exists, which is basically giving perks that benefit/convenience the player but are pretty stupid to claim as a reason for not being on a specific leaderboard position/not winning a battle.
- I think frankly, if a medium-large server can't exist without P2W... then maybe it just... shouldn't exist? This is a very controversial argument to say and I genuinely think its okay for small servers to run Ethical P2W for a period of time to get off the ground, but if a server cannot exist without promoting gambling addictions and unhealthy feedback loops to minors (which your poll shows a majority of your already mature server audience are) then maybe it just shouldn't exist at all... If a server is monetized through cash and has no leaderboard then its PVE, which is so many times better than P2W and i think is acceptable for providing a balance of a server that isn't preying on its player base and is making the owners money.
- I think server owners can make money if they want but it shouldn't be at the expensive of random impressionable kids who don't know what they are getting into. No server owner is putting a sign saying "OUR SERVER IS P2W!" because they know that if their impressionable audience were told so directly, they would avoid it.
- (bit more of a comment) I'm seeing a trend lately on how easy it is to advertise servers. It used to be really hard, but with tiktok/shorts along with the official server list I think we're going to see more fair advertising opportunities for non-p2w servers as we've seen through the trends currently. It is now easier than ever to advertise a server for cheaper than ever.
- I genuinely don't think P2W servers have better gamemodes/stand out more, its actually quite the opposite- nearly all of the interesting servers I can think of are non-p2w or PVE, I think P2W servers blow everything on their advertising budget. Not that they can't have better gamemodes at all, but my theory is that the P2W cycle promotes not standing out to keep as much money as possible and avoid spending as much on taking risks. But you can fight me on this, I'm not as involved in the server community anyways.

Ethical Monetization:
- Yeah I basically agree, a lot of servers without their crate keys aren't so bad When it comes to real, genuine competition in my experience of playing on servers a lot of the times, store items and such can't really carry you to baltop and whatnot
- I updated my community sheet for the first time in 3 years to contain ethical monetization info, but just to define the walls that I have set (and it is the community sheet, if you guys disagree I will change it) there shall be no gambling or repeat heavily advantageous purchases like spawners due to the unhealthy feedback loop they cause (You can buy more and lose a shit ton of money). I know you draw your line at gambling but I draw mine at things like spawners. I talk more about this on the doc with more nuance and details. It also doesn't permit servers with significant resources to take this approach

COMMUNITY:
- You're 100% right about all of this. I used to run a thing called sublegions until I realized that crashing P2W servers didn't really help at all in sending the message but rather gave 12 year olds ethical justification in crashing servers for fun only. Nobody genuinely cared about stopping P2W.
- Change has INDEED come from the antip2w movement. Not from the crashing but because of awareness. I don't think it was a coincidence that Mojang began enforcing their EULA suddenly out of nowhere, and I don't think the dramatic decrease in general P2W is either. I remember in 2017 looking EVERYWHERE for a non-p2w but those were non existent. Now it feels extremely difficult to find a server that is definitively P2W like how we've used to see. And sure we have crate keys and such but its not like those are as bad as they used to be.
- I feel like there is a bit of survivorship bias with this: your server seems to have a more mature audience and advertises over youtube in mature, not too flashy videos. I'm not saying the data isn't valueble but im saying that it isn't representative of the total MC population who bought ranks. Also I feel like the "stealing parents credit card" thing is a bit of a meme/joke, its rather kids manipulating and convincing their parents to purposefully buy the ranks and eventually fall into a gambling addiction thats bad

YOUR SERVER:
- I think that some servers should try a business model of making videos off of their own server, and some non-p2w server owners should explore it. I think it has big potential.
- I think its handled fairly well on your servers webstore

In the end, I think the AntiP2W movement ideally should keep going... Because large P2W servers have the money and resources to blow on moderation and creating anti-crash plugins, and non-p2w servers need more players to thrive, and since antip2w is now so publicized, more players are looking for a non-p2w experience. Weirdos who profit off of desperate kids who want dupes will keep existing but I think its a net positive to have. Overall very well constructed video, I think it presents a decent middle ground for us to aim towards so we can see more unique monetization methods and hopefully see non-p2w be more viable as the future goes on

[hotdoghunter]

are you gonna release a duping video called “DESTROYING my P2W server”

[MetroidChild]

How was P2W _ever_ confused to mean _all_ forms of monetization?
P2W = monetary exchange that gives players an unfair advantage.
Match making based (partially) on equipment solves this aspect.
Gambling is an entirely separate ethical issue from P2W.

[СтасСтафеев]

Never before I've heard TheMisterEpic properly finishing "Thank you so much for watching".

[Fnafan]

“You were the chosen one! You were supposed to destroy the Pay-to-Win servers, not join them!”

[Moshinoki]

Imagine going on a date and having to explain your job is being a mod on a Minecraft server

[bluestorm]

Despite not liking P2w, I can understand where he’s coming from, I agree that ethical monetization is fine, and that it’s really fake sales, gambling, etc that are bad

[goodguyLT]

You lost the reason why most of us hate P2W: we can't compete with people who spend money and it takes away fun

[lightningx]

Just a note, your stats in chapter 5 are misleading. It seems like you deliberately split up the under 18s into 3 different categories just to make it seen like over 18s or "mature" people are the majority. They are in-fact not and I'd argue that those under the age if 18 have less self control and value of money. If we look at it as under 18s vs over, you in-fact have a majority being under 18 and hence (generally) not fully developed in reasoning with money.

Granted not all adults are good with money either, but I dont think you've actually addressed the point correctly.

Let's look at the real stats:
Under 18: 57% (112)
Over 18: 43% (85)

Now you'd need to consider the general age range for users of your server to determine whether minors are disproportionately represented, but my guess would be they are.

[mixel]

i feel like if you add in anything that costs money to get, you should also be able to get it without paying money so it is not super unfair. but most minecraft P2W servers do not do that.

[DerEingerostete]

As a developer myself I can understand the points and while it's still sad to see these changes I think they are far from the worst. I personally just hope that you won't stop with this video and also implement some mechanism into the server to inform people and prevent the creation of extreme whales (like in P2W mobile games). For example you could add information about the fact that it's P2W, why it is and how it's different to bad P2W tactics (maybe a chat message on join or a [P2W] Suffix for the Game Mode). This could inform new players of the differences to Non-P2W-Servers and make them understand what to look out for (especially outside of your server). And on the other hand you could maybe (depending on the Shop API) add a feature that prevents people that often spend "too much" money from buying new stuff for maybe X amount of time. Tbh it's not the best thing to prevent whales but it at least could give them a signal that they maybe should think about how much money they actually spend. Maybe even add a "Money" tracker that shows how much they already spend.
I know that these features may not be the best solutions but feel free to use them or implement own ideas. But please don't stop after one video and tell yourself "I informed them in a video 6 months ago. They should have known better". Transparency is not a one-time-thing but a active process and being transparent is the least you can do and it will maybe help people understand you better

[repostedfurrytiktoks]

So what your saying is that all the videos you have done against P2W servers have just been to advertise your own server and say it is an example of how good a minecraft server without p2w could be? And now you are just going to turn around and do the exact same thing as them? Idc about p2w, but targeting other servers and saying how bad they are because of being p2w and then doing the same thing as them?? I used to love this channel, never thought you could go that low just to try to make money or get more players.

[shaod]

All that I ask is that all the "perks" you sell are available without purchase behind a grind wall

[Deggo]

As long as the P2W features are not malicious (gambling targeted towards kids, etc) like other servers have done I am completely fine with this

[IsKevin]

I use to run a Non pay to win server not long ago. I had a small team and made the server for the hype for owning my first network. We had ranks in where people can purchase their cosmetics and mounts. My devs believed our server was making a ton of money but in reality, I was spending too much money a month to keep the server a float.

I work at a pharmacy at above minimum wage rate and there's no way I can still afford to keep something up for that long.

Our server was averaging 20 to 30 players and high peaks of 50. I could not afford advertising because of how expensive it was. So I resulted in trying to stream my server as much as I can to keep the player base up. In doing so, I felt burnt out and was wasting time and energy. This results into not putting enough time into development of my server. So I took time off streaming to work on the server.

Overtime the player counts dropped, and I made the decision to close down our server. Owning a server isn't easy and you definitely need funding of some kind to keep things alive. To pay developers, plugins and advertising. I speak from experience because everything that MisterEpic is saying is true.

Non Pay to Win servers struggle and to think that some minimum wage job can pay for it is ridiculous.

[river]

My issue mostly comes from how people misunderstand what pay to win actually means. You can have monetization without being pay to win. You can have predatory monetization without being pay to win. Pay to win literally means you pay to have a competitive advantage against another, or to make the game ridiculously easy. The way you explained how the monetization will work on your server sounds like it's not pay to win, but just have some monetization. You can take a look at fortnight, which has very predatory monetization, but isn't pay to win since pretty much all you're paying for are cosmetics, character skins or emotes. You can look at literally any mobile game and see that 95%+ of them are entirely pay to win or have some level of predatory monetization straight out the box.

This was something that I thought you knew, or at least learned along the way of your duping history when it came to crates or the absurd ranks you can buy. But there is a way to do both ethically without being pay to win or crazy levels of gambling. Unfortunately, changing to that will never become the norm since the industry found out they can just print money by doing this. Again, that's why most mobile games are the way they are with most having barely a 2 year lifespan, and most looking and playing the exact same. People keep thinking that fortnight popularized the battle pass system, but that's been a mobile game thing for as long as I can remember, back when I got my first smartphone and started playing mobile games in 2011.

Seeing the title of the video did make me a bit alarmed, but I can see you're on the right path here. You can 100% make a profit or break even with monetization without being a scumbag or pay to win. Those saying that you shouldn't make money running a popular server have no idea what they're talking about. And you don't seem like the type of guy to run predatory monetization just because you need to make money. There's a fine line, and from where I'm sitting, you're nowhere near it.

Good luck running the server. I would play on it, but public servers was never my thing. And hopefully your partner can get that job he's gunning for.