New Pay-to-Win Minecraft Servers – Is This Good or Bad?

About 2 weeks ago now an official Minecraft server list was released almost immediately there was drama as not only did this list contain a variety of pay to win servers but also many servers containing dangerous gambling mechanics why would an official Microsoft endorsed server list clearly designed to be family and kid-friendly

Promote such servers who is and isn’t going to be allowed on the server list and will servers be forced to enable chat reporting well we ended end up having a lengthy 2hour conversation with some of the website creators and learned quite a lot of what goes on behind the

Scenes but first let me give you a rundown on what exactly the server list is and how it works for over a decade now one of the main ways Minecraft servers advertise themselves and players find Minecraft servers to join is through online server lists there exist dozens of these server list today and

Now it seems Microsoft has Enlisted the help of a company called gamer safer to create an official Microsoft endorsed server list on the official server list you can find a variety of servers for bedrock and Java but look a little closer and you’ll start to see why there

Was some drama we’ll use manac Cube as an example here one of the more popular servers on the list getting a few 100 players daily if we go to their server store you’ll see they’ve got some pretty pricey ranks which offer a load of perks many giving paying players an advantage

And being considered pay to win these servers shouldn’t be allowed as they are against Minecraft’s commercial usage guidelines right well that’s where you are wrong as we’ve discussed in the past in the guidelines here it says that you are allowed to sell entitlements and affect gameplay provided they do not

Offer a competitive advantage and the reason these servers are allowed to continue selling entitlements that effect gameplay is because they aren’t considered competitive these guidelines are quite vague so rather than work forwards using them as a guide for what is and isn’t allowed we have to work

Backwards and look at why servers have been blocked by merging enforcement in the past and as far as I am aware the only reasons most servers have been blocked in the past relating to this guideline is if they sell unbans or if they have real money payouts so if we go

Off that we can assume that Mojang enforcement only considers a server competitive when they feature those two elements now the other issue is gambling right here in the guidelines it states that all servers entitlements and advertising have to be suitable for audiences of all ages with gambling explicitly mentioned as unsafe and

Mature content well checking back in on manac Cube store and would you look at that they have a healthy selection of crates and crate Keys otherwise known as loot boxes which have been demonstrated to have significant correlations with problem gambling especially amongst underage individuals who generally have

A higher degree of impulsivity as well now obviously I don’t need to elaborate on why gambling on a Minecraft sery is bad but if gambling is explicitly outlawed by the usage guidelines then why are so many servers allowed to have it and furthermore why are they allowed

To be featured on the official Minecraft server list the vague nature of the guidelines is especially noticeable here as once again I had to work backwards to figure out what Microsoft really means when they say gambling isn’t allowed when Microsoft mentions that gambling is prohibited they strictly refer to

Recreations of real life gambling mechanisms for example a roulette table that you would see in a casino in game they only consider game elements gambling if they emulate real life gambling there’s no No Loot boxes or crates in a casino it’s not real life gambling and thus is allowed the only

Reason we know this by the way is because a server called origin Realms was actually blocked and forced to remove their casino games like arcade last year I also confirmed it in the Discord call we had with some of gamer safer staff so when the guidelines mention gambling is prohibited they

Strictly refer to systems of gambling that are present in real life not loot boxes or crates which once again I would like to remind you all still do have clear link links towards problem gambling all right so now that we’ve cleared up why these servers are allowed

To be featured on the official server list let’s talk about why the server list might actually be a good thing for many reasons you may not expect as I mentioned earlier voting websites have existed for a long time and guess what they are all utterly terrible besides

Having horror guis and a terrible server filter and tag system they don’t actually do their intended job well at all voting websites are supposed to allow allow you to view a variety of servers big and small for a variety of game modes but if you go to one of these

Sites almost all the servers on the first page are huge servers which don’t even have half of the game modes they claim to have furthermore most of the top servers are only there because they paid exuberant amounts of money this voting website is not too bad though in

Fact I’ve heard that the Minecraft server and YouTuber involved here are ones you should definitely join And subscribe to no pressure of course anyways this is the big problem with voting websites today because they are all designed so poorly with most servers not even featuring the game modes they

Claim to have very few people actually browse them as intended most people just Google Minecraft Sky Block server or Minecraft lifestyle server and click the first link that shows up and then join one of the first servers featured right at the top of the voting website they

Clicked on this means that the only servers which ever see any benefit from these voting websites are the ones listed at the very top immediately visible this also means means that no smaller server ever really has the chance to get their server out there as

The top slots on these sites can cost as much as $2,000 per month that’s right per month and who are the only servers that can afford that well obviously it’s the larger pay to win ones with unethical monetization like gambling that gets hundreds if not thousands of daily

Players it’s a situation where the rich get richer it’s so difficult for any small or growing server to compete and promote themselves because they just don’t have the raw money required to put their name out there and if you thought that at least the non-paying top slots

Would be fair guess again because for years now a variety of services have existed where you can pay for botted or fake votes putting you ahead of other servers who literally don’t get enough players each month to even get those votes legitimately it’s costly as well

So guess who’s the only ones that can afford it once again these voting websites are terrible and have been for years so seeing an official Minecraft server list where not only are there zero paid slots but where the default server sorting system is entirely randomized is really amazing in

Discussion with gamer safer they also informed us that they are prepared to deal with botted votes as well and have a special system where the votes are separated into two categories verified and unverified votes the only way to get verified votes is to sign in with your Microsoft account any unusual behavior

In unverified votes will be investigated meaning it will be significantly hard to successfully bot your server’s votes to the top the reason the official Minecraft server list is such a good voting website is because it actually makes the playing field even again and allows smaller servers with more ethical

Monetization the chance to promote themselves without being devoured by the bigger ones smaller servers that don’t have gambling or maybe even are not paid to win which don’t have the additional funds these large servers do now finally have a chance to compete this can only

Be a really good thing guys and you know another reason why the official server list is better than these other terrible voting sites well it’s because they actually have a proper application and verification process you can’t just lie about your server spoof or fake the Play

Account or claim it has game modes it doesn’t because in order to even get on the list you have to fill out a 15-minute application where employees of gamer safer will actually join your server to verify that you aren’t lying and that the server complies with the guidelines this means that people will

Actually have a reason to browse this site because it’s not designed by greedy idiots with a user interface straight out of 2005 and actually functions as intended now obviously there are some concerns which we did discuss with some of the gamer safer team the first of which is related to whether or not

Anybody will actually use the website at all as I mentioned earlier very few people actually browse current voting websites most just click the first link on Google and join the first servers that show up from what I’ve been told by individuals in this business Google SEO is extremely important for these voting

Websites and if the official one doesn’t end up ranking highly on Google search a lot less people are probably going to use it or even discover its existence from our discussion with gamer safer it does seem like the team is well aware of this though and as plans in the future

To ensure that their website is well known and easily accessible or discoverable from Google the site has only just released remember so they need time to build it up the second issue is related to the badges currently there are four badges your server can earn the first badge is called the Builder

Benchmark badge it’s basically just displaying you are compliant with Minecraft’s usage guidelines which virtually all servers on the list have then there’s the community Basics badge another badge which basically all servers have next is where we get to the badges which I thought may be problematic first of all the beacons of

Safety badge a badge which you can only get if chat reporting is enabled amongst some other moderation requirements and then finally there’s the gamer safer badge a badge you can only get if you have gamer safer special monthly paid plugin a plugin which adds a variety of server moderation features which people

Might consider overreaching what I was initially worried about was that the server list would prioritize servers which have the final two badges over other servers as we’ve all seen how Mojang is extensively trying to be more and more familyfriendly these days however after our discussion I’m confident in saying that these badges

Just provide additional options for players looking for specific servers that may be more child friendly and they won’t impact other servers on the list most servers don’t even have the last two badges I mentioned and I personally think that as long as such servers aren’t given increased priority it’s

Perfectly fine the third and final issue I have is more so an issue with Mojang’s guidelines themselves as we’ve talked about earlier Mojang has a zero tolerance policy for gambling but certain mechanics which don’t look like gambling seem to be allowed when my server was being reviewed to go on the

Official server list one of the things which was brought up was a player made dispenser Diamond Casino which was in their Marketplace store this was mentioned as something Mojang or Microsoft might not like or will be concerned about even though it’s entirely player running created

Involving no real money at all now as of making this video my service application is still in progress so we don’t know if we have been accepted or not yet but if my server gets declined for this whereas servers with actual harmful gambling are allowed on the official server list gotf

Free that’s going to raise some serious red flags for me we will see I guess but Microsoft’s vague and seemingly lacks approach to the gambling that runs rampant in the game’s biggest servers is an Ever growing concern for me during our discussion with gam of safer that is

Something I did bring up and they did mention they are actively aware of it and in discussion with certain individuals about it so things may improve down the line and related to this another issue my server had when being reviewed was this players map art in their Market store apparently this

Might cause some concern for younger players and we may have to look over this to see if it’s allowed if my server is somehow forced to remove simple things like inoffensive swearing and language on map Parts which are artistic and Creative Expressions that offend and hurt nobody that’s also going to be a

Big red flag for me now we do need to keep in mind that the individuals reviewing servers who work for gamer safer aren’t the ones employing these rules they are merely trying to ensure that our server is considered compliant by Mojang and they trying to help ensure

We don’t have issues so it’s not their fault at all but at the end of the day this is a server list made in partnership with Mojang and Microsoft and as such Mojang and Microsoft often need to be criticized for their shortcomings as well so what’s in the

Future for the official server list well we don’t know for sure but one thing was clear from our discussion and that’s the fact that it’s still very early days and they have a lot planned one thing I brought up was if there was potential plans to integrate or embed the server

List into Minecraft itself or maybe the Minecraft launcher similar to fortnite and here was their response are there any sort of plans in the in the far future at least to somehow embed or connect the voting website within of the Minecraft client or maybe the launcher itself we cannot disclose this cannot

Disclose it okay fair enough I can say that our partnership with Moen is doing very nicely take that as you will of course personally like I mentioned I think that overall the official server list is a good thing that will only benefit the Minecraft multiplayer landscape hoping smaller servers one pay

To win servers and more ethically monetized servers to finally compete with the larger established ones overall we need to give it some time to come to an appropriate conclusion but I am optimistic I hope you enjoyed this video be sure to subscribe thank you all so much for Watching