Can you make a profit without breaking the EULA?
I've sometimes questioned myself - can you actually make a profit of a Minecraft server without breaking the EULA?
Most people probably remember the famous date September 2011, also known as the date the Minecraft EULA was added by Mojang to prevent server owners from selling items that gives players advantages over others by spending real money.
The Minecraft EULA simply explained
The Minecraft End User License Agreement is a contract between server owners and Mojang. It explains what you can and cannot do with your Minecraft server.
You can charge players to access your server and sell cosmetic items that don't affect gameplay, like custom skins or decorative effects.
You cannot sell items that give players advantages in the game, like better weapons or faster mining. You also can't sell in-game currency or items that Mojang already sells.
This agreement keeps gameplay fair while still letting server owners make money. Breaking these rules could get your server blocked.
Profiting from servers can be extremely hard with the demanding hardware requirements needed for larger networks, and the costs that comes from development and marketing. The easiest way of making money is obviously by selling items and offering advantages that for example let's you progress faster in the game than without paying. But is it really necessary?
From a player-perspective, I don't like when servers lets players buy unfair advantages. It's unethical and shows signs of greediness since most most owners put the money into their own wallets rather than spending it back on the server.
But, I totally see why they do it. Owning a Minecraft server, especially larger ones gets very expensive quickly when you start adding hardware, development and management costs.
Offering advantages that can be purchased through a store can be a no-brainer for server owners since most players would rather spend a few bucks on the store and jump straight into the action than starting fresh and having to progress slowly. But just because we've seen (and still see) servers offering these types of advantages, does it have to mean we have to follow and do the same?
My answer is simply no, it's possible to only offer cosmetics. I would personally rather spend money on cosmetics because I like the server I'm playing on, rather than feeling like I'm being obligated to buy something.
I'm definitely not the right person to answer the question, but will always recommend server owners to follow the EULA,
If you're interested in learning more about the topic I talked about in this post, I'd recommend checking out TheMisterEpic on YouTube.