Pay to win, dupers and EarthMC

Maybe you've played earthmc for years. Maybe you came here for the first time — perhaps angry at the server but amused by the content, after watching dupers dupe for the greater good.

In case you haven't seen the video, feel free to check it out here. It has high production value, the content is enjoyable and it's exciting watching them manage to dupe gold. I've subscribed and wish them the best of luck in their already well-established Youtube careers.

I've been running this server for over eight years and one of the most difficult things to get right is monetization. I think it's important to be up front on this topic. EarthMC is a server I deeply care about. It is also a small for-profit business. With that in mind I want a strike a balance between generating enough revenue to make a profit and cover salaries, hosting, and fees, while at the same time make the server fair and enjoyable for the vast majority who would rather not spend money.

Crates were a particular point of debate in the video above. For context, they provide a random cosmetic reward in the form of a player head with a custom skin. Players can also craft cosmetic chat badges using these heads. While the heads offer no gameplay advantage, they may still hold value for collectors. Gold, the server's currency, cannot be purchased directly, but crates can be traded with other players for gold.

The fact that this is possible is raised as an issue. I view it differently. Being able to buy crates for gold allows all players to access them, regardless of whether they spend money or not. The price in gold is fully dictated by the free market and how much players value the cosmetic rewards. It's rare in free-to-play games to be able to acquire premium items with soft currency.

I think the above is better than limiting cosmetic items only to players who spend money. If you're already part of the EarthMC community I would love to hear what you think. I appreciate constructive feedback and value hearing from those who disagree with my decisions. I'm far from perfect, and I've made countless decisions that in hindsight weren't ideal for the server. Feel free to reach out on Discord, my username is FixTheAdmin.

I am, however, not interested in giving in to demands or threats from players who are not part of the server. Deliberately harming the server to force policy changes is not a productive approach. While they claim to dupe items for a good cause, it comes across as a convenient excuse to justify a behavior that serves their own interests — creating entertaining content and getting views. When the same YouTuber did a similar dupe video on EarthMC six years ago, there was no talk of monetization concerns or fairness, because that was never really the point.