Minecraft and Mojang have recently found themselves under fire from fans over the last week. The outrage started when the company wanted to enforce their existing EULA, which prohibits people from capitalizing or profiting on their game.
The situation stemmed from those who host private Minecraft servers, and charged access to them. Some hosts were changing the game in significant ways, profiting on the backs of Mojang. Notch went as far as to say that some of these servers were effectively turning Minecraft into a free to play game.
“A lot of people got the impression that we’re changing the EULA somehow to only now disallow these things, but they were never allowed. A lot of people voiced their concerns. A few people got nasty. Someone said we’re literally worse than EA.”
It looks like going forward, Mojang is going to continue to allow those who host Minecraft servers the ability to charge for server access, accept donations, allow advertisements, or even sell items that don’t impact the gameplay.
“We want all players to be presented with the same gameplay features, whether they decide to pay or not… These are the exceptions to the EULA for Minecraft,” said Mojang. Players should probably understand, they are in a better legal position than they were before. Unfortunately, the game changing stuff will still get hosts in hot water.
Published: Jun 16, 2014 10:00 am