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As I write this, I realize the distinct possiblility that the best thing this blog will accomplish is steal the spot of another one of my blogs in the pop reel. I should read my own title.
When To Give Up by: nolez15
It is no secret that thousands of Minecraft servers inhabit the interweb. Countless server owners vie for a top spot on a server list, or to fill their fifty slot servers. What about those who don't achieve these goals? How do they know when to give up?
Six Signs Your Server Is Failing:
Your Server Doesn't Pay For Itself
Your server should always make more money than it loses
Your Player Count Doesn't Grow
A plateaued or declining player count is never healthy
The Number Of Staff Is Larger Than The Number Of Non-Staff
This is a common mistake amongst new server owners
Plugins Are Often Broken Or Outdated
You should be able to dedicate enough time to your server to stay ontop of maintenance
This Is Your Third Server
Unless your first two, or three, or four, were wildly successful, re-examine your business strategy
You're Running A PVP Server
Don't risk it
Advertising Doesn't Fix Everything
There's nothing that bugs me more than a small server owner sinking hundreds of dollars into an ad campaign that doesn't work. A healthy server is a server that, at the very least, has three times more income than expenses. The golden rule of server advertising is "Don't spend more than ten times the number of players you have online". Meaning, if you have an average of twenty players online, don't rack up more than two hundred dollars per month on server advertising, or your cost to gain new players will likely be higher than the amount of money they make you.
Players Are Everything
Sometimes setting your own vision for the server aside, and listening to what your players want is a course you must take.
Getting input from your server staff and community can prove to be a good use of time. There is no better way to get fresh new ideas, different perpectives, or get everyone involved in the server. You may pay for your server, but that doesn't mean you own it. The community does. The styles and ideas of every player come together to form the community, if you don't listen to your server community and take their ideas into account, your server might as well be doomed.
Not All Servers Make It
It isn't a competition if nobody loses. The unfortunate fact of Minecraft is that servers come, and servers go. Original ideas are hard to come by, and beyond that, executing your vision into the server you dreamed of is a rarity. Hope for the best, plan for the worst, and know when to call it quits. That's the best thing to keep in mind when running a Minecraft server, and I wish all new server owners the best.
Running a Minecraft server isn't for everyone. Server owners constantly have to be updating their servers to new versions, they have to be ontop of trends, and deal with players all day long. It's a constant battle. Sometimes the biggest asset a server owner can have, is knowing when to give up.
When To Give Up by: nolez15
It is no secret that thousands of Minecraft servers inhabit the interweb. Countless server owners vie for a top spot on a server list, or to fill their fifty slot servers. What about those who don't achieve these goals? How do they know when to give up?
Six Signs Your Server Is Failing:
Your Server Doesn't Pay For Itself
Your server should always make more money than it loses
Your Player Count Doesn't Grow
A plateaued or declining player count is never healthy
The Number Of Staff Is Larger Than The Number Of Non-Staff
This is a common mistake amongst new server owners
Plugins Are Often Broken Or Outdated
You should be able to dedicate enough time to your server to stay ontop of maintenance
This Is Your Third Server
Unless your first two, or three, or four, were wildly successful, re-examine your business strategy
You're Running A PVP Server
Don't risk it
Advertising Doesn't Fix Everything
There's nothing that bugs me more than a small server owner sinking hundreds of dollars into an ad campaign that doesn't work. A healthy server is a server that, at the very least, has three times more income than expenses. The golden rule of server advertising is "Don't spend more than ten times the number of players you have online". Meaning, if you have an average of twenty players online, don't rack up more than two hundred dollars per month on server advertising, or your cost to gain new players will likely be higher than the amount of money they make you.
Players Are Everything
Sometimes setting your own vision for the server aside, and listening to what your players want is a course you must take.
Getting input from your server staff and community can prove to be a good use of time. There is no better way to get fresh new ideas, different perpectives, or get everyone involved in the server. You may pay for your server, but that doesn't mean you own it. The community does. The styles and ideas of every player come together to form the community, if you don't listen to your server community and take their ideas into account, your server might as well be doomed.
Not All Servers Make It
It isn't a competition if nobody loses. The unfortunate fact of Minecraft is that servers come, and servers go. Original ideas are hard to come by, and beyond that, executing your vision into the server you dreamed of is a rarity. Hope for the best, plan for the worst, and know when to call it quits. That's the best thing to keep in mind when running a Minecraft server, and I wish all new server owners the best.
Running a Minecraft server isn't for everyone. Server owners constantly have to be updating their servers to new versions, they have to be ontop of trends, and deal with players all day long. It's a constant battle. Sometimes the biggest asset a server owner can have, is knowing when to give up.
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Update #1 : by nolez15 03/14/2014 2:36:14 pmMar 14th, 2014
Bump! :O
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I used to see that a lot. I'm more into classic Tekkit singleplayer, these days. I build yachts there.
I seriously do not enjoy owning servers, I do it because it's easy for me, I know how to do it, and I do well.
If you don't mind being out-of-pocket because you enjoy ownership, that's fine of course, but this is more directed at those trying to be successful/make money who don't understand when to cut their losses.
The goal is not to get rich with a server, but at least not to ruin your own life. So when server costs 50$ a month, why not get 25$ per month from donations or vip accounts?
1: Getting mods KILLS a popular server. I would never do that.
2: Obviously if you have 100 players online, they're making you a hell of a lot more than the server costs to run. I can name fifteen servers off the bat that easily are making over $100,000 per year in net revenue.
My server literally took 2 months of extremely slow growing... until it exploded and many players joined.
Growing a server in two months is a rarity. Getting a larger server going in that amount of time is almost impossible.
Your business should never become "your baby", there will always be a time to call it quits. Most servers fail because they fail to bring in enough cash flow to cover expenses and provide enough profit for the owner(s).
If somebody doesn't know when to give up, they will simply end up sinking mass amounts of cash into the void, with no returns. Many servers simply don't work out, that's the unfortunate fact of the matter.
Probably less than 25% of owners are not in it for the money. Running a server creates fantastic side revenues with minimal work required.