So you might get the impression that when a popular YouTube personality does a Minecraft video on one of the big money-making servers, they do it because that server is awesome and it’s so fun to play there. That’s the impression you’d get from the videos themselves, anyway.
Sorry, but no. Ain’t no Santa Claus either. Sorry again.
What often happens is that these YouTubers are paid by the servers to make a video of them playing on the servers. It’s a good deal for the YouTubers because they get money, and it’s a good deal for the servers because it gets them attention and may get more people into the servers to make more donations and buy more stuff.
But I’m not sure it’s a good deal for the people watching, because you’re often watching a paid ad without being told.
A list on spigotmc.org, a forum for server owners, purports to name prices for making videos on servers, with some YouTubers charging thousands of bucks. One YouTuber allegedly charges $7,500 a video. There’s no way of really knowing if the list is accurate, but one YouTuber, TerasHD, took to Reddit to talk about the practice.
“2500 dollars for an antvenom video? When he averages on 40k views. Total rip-off!! Sure, he has 2 million subscribers, but that doesn’t matter when it comes to how many people the advertisement you paid for will reach! I set my price to match my average views (15k-20k) so basically, you would be paying around 8 dollars for every thousand people who watched the video. If ant would do the same with his 40k average, a video should only cost 320 dollars! NOT 2500!!! Ant is just one example of the many people on that list who overcharge for their server advertisements.
I’d like to point out that these server advertisements should be mutual beneficial deals, where both parties are happy with the outcome of the deal. The YouTuber gets paid for his time and effort, and the server owner grows his player base that is worth the money he paid,” TerasHD posted.
The takeaway? Always remember that when something is as popular as Minecraft, there’s lots and lots of money to be made. And the more money there is to be made, the more people are likely to do shady things. Maybe Mojang’s upcoming crackdown on pay-to-play servers will fix it, maybe not, but in the meantime keep a healthy skepticism, a tight grip on your wallet, and be careful out there.
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