Minecraft EULA enforcement outrages community, or rather lack there-of

Minecraft has several thousand servers online at any given time, and earlier Notch expressed his feelings towards the primary way those servers stay alive - donations. He said on his Twitter, "Servers selling ("rewards for donations" is selling) items are turning the game into a F2P game. I absolutely HATE F2P, with a passion. Well, I guess hate is a bit of a strong word. I dislike it about as much as I dislike popcorn stuck between teeth." When asked how servers were supposed to make money otherwise, he responded "That's like asking how drug dealers are supposed to feed their family if you outlaw selling drugs."

Free to Play is a fairly new game model in the video game industry, popularized by games like Team Fortress 2. Free to Play means that while the base game is free, many features (sometimes ones needed to beat/finish the game) cost additional money. These are especially popular on smartphones.

This statement, coupled with Mojang game developer Erik Broes saying in a private leaked Skype chat "We'll ask nicely and then send really mean lawyers :)" has outraged the Minecraft community. It's highly unlikely Mojang will take serious action against server owners for asking for donations, but as usual the Minecraft community loves to blow things out proportion.

But why is asking for donations an issue? Minecraft's EULA (the thing that you agree to when you buy Minecraft) states that you cannot "try to make money from anything we‘ve made." While Mojang could in fact demand that servers stop asking for donations on a legal basis, it would be incredibly difficult to enforce due to the huge amount of servers. In the words of Captain Barbosa, "the code is more what you'd call "guidelines" than actual rules."

Erik especially is being attacked, while stating repeatedly that his statement is his own opinion and not Mojang's as a whole. Mojang has yet to release an official statement/opinion about the EULA concerning server donations, this is simply two developers at Mojang stating their own opinions. Nothing has changed, at least for now.

Comments

  1. I don't really know exactly how to take this, whether I should shout for joy, or cry in a corner, or what?

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  2. as long as no profit is made there is no problem .

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  3. Really, it's not mojang's problem. That legal statement has been there, well, forever. Anyway, it really sucks to be on a server that makes you pay to even just build. I'm sure that a donation and giving credit will still be allowed, and lots of people do this already. It was becoming a problem. Servers were more like Big businesses, scamming people into paying to keep their house.

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  4. i will NOT pay for servers its dumb

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  5. Reminds me of Candy Crush Saga... Except more like "Pay to play"

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  6. I had a modded server a while ago! While it was free to join and play as much as you want, I still had the option to donate (without getting any bonuses ingame) and people actually did so to help me keep the server online!

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  7. Honestly, donation servers are the bane of my existence. I absolutely hate all servers that if you way 20+ bucks, you have HUGE advantage over other players *cough* faction servers *cough*. Honestly, I've stopped playing big multiplayer servers for this very reason. I sure hope Mojang could stop this!

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  8. I know right? I especially get super annoyed by the servers with "ranks." The insane prices and the huge (and very unfair) advantage you can get by buying them make me feel like the owners are just greedy. It just makes it unfair for everyone-if every player was equal, then everyone one can have fun; too much advantages makes it boring, and op kits make it not fun cuz it's not fair and too hard. :(

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  9. I feel like what Notch is talking about is making the people who "donate" extremely powerful within the server. This can ruin the experience for those who don't want to pay more after already paying the $27 just to get the game.

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  10. I hate donating as well. I have the means to buy some donations, but $200 donations are ridiculous. They just make people overpowered, and for the people who cant afford the donation perks they feel left out. Personally if Notch wants to snuff it out I can't object he has the right to. For those who say he has no right you are wrong because if it wasn't for him we would have no minecraft. I personally think If you have to pay to be good you are a lousy minecraft player.

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  11. I think donations without perks, besides maybe color names should be allowed. To keep servers running. But buying perks is lame.

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