Minecraft server

A Minecraft server is a player-owned or business-owned multiplayer game server for the 2011 Mojang Studios video game Minecraft. In this context, the term "server" often colloquially refers to a network of connected servers, rather than a single machine. Players can start their own server either by setting one up on a computer using software provided by Mojang, or by using a hosting provider so they can have their server run on dedicated machines with guaranteed uptime. The largest server is widely accepted to be the minigame server Hypixel.

Minecraft multiplayer servers are controlled by server operators, who have access to server commands such as setting the time of day, teleporting players and setting the world spawn. The server owner (or users that have access to the live server files) can also set up and install plugins to change the mechanics of the server, add commands among other features, and can also set up restrictions concerning which usernames or IP addresses are allowed or disallowed to enter the game server.

Multiplayer servers have a wide range of activities, with some servers having unique premises, rules, and customs. Player versus player (PvP) combat can be enabled to allow fighting between players. Custom plugins and mods can be used in servers to allow actions that are not normally possible in the vanilla form of the game. There are also several modifications of the server software that can allow crossplay between the Java and Bedrock editions of the game.

History
Multiplayer was first added to Minecraft on May 31, 2009, during the Classic phase of the game. The oldest server map is called "Freedonia", in the Minecraft server MinecraftOnline. The server and map were created on August 4, 2010, within the first hour of Minecraft multiplayer being released.

In 2013, Mojang announced Minecraft Realms, a server hosting service intended to enable players to run server multiplayer games easily and safely without having to set up their own. Unlike a standard server, only invited players can join Realms servers, and these servers do not use IP addresses. At Electronic Entertainment Expo 2016, it was announced that Realms would enable Minecraft to support cross-platform play between Windows 10, iOS, and Android platforms starting in June 2016, with other platforms releasing over the next two years.

In June 2014, Mojang began enforcing the EULA of Minecraft: Java Edition to prevent servers from selling microtransactions, which many players thought unfairly affected gameplay, such as pay-to-win items. only allowing servers to sell cosmetic items. Many servers had to close due to this change since they could no longer cover the costs of their game servers because they stopped receiving money from player's pay-to-win purchases.

On September 20, 2017, the Better Together Update was released for Bedrock codebase-derived editions of the game, which added multiplayer servers, along with six official featured servers: Mineplex, Lifeboat, CubeCraft, Mineville City, Pixel Paradise, and The Hive.

On July 27, 2022, player chat reporting was added as a part of "The Wild Update", 1.19.1. This allowed players to report abusive chat messages sent by other players directly to Mojang, and players could be banned from playing on multiplayer servers as a whole for violating Microsoft's community standards.

On November 7, 2023, Mojang Studios, in collaboration with GamerSafer, opened the official server list of Minecraft.

Management
Managing a Minecraft server can be a full-time job for many server owners. Several large servers employ a staff of developers, managers, and artists. As of 2014, the Shotbow server employed three full-time and five part-time employees. According to Matt Sundberg, the server's owner, "large server networks are incredibly expensive to run and are very time consuming [sic]." According to Chad Dunbar, the founder of MCGamer, "it really costs to run networks above 1000 concurrent players." This includes salaries, hardware, bandwidth, and DDoS protection, and so monthly expenses can cost thousands of dollars. Dunbar stated that MCGamer, which has had over 50,000 daily players, has expenses that can be "well into the five-figure marks" per month. As of 2015, expenses of Hypixel, the largest server, are nearly $100,000 per month. Many servers sell in-game ranks, cosmetics and passes to certain minigames or gamemodes to pay for its expenses.

Technical aspects
For the Java edition, Mojang release an official jar to server operators to run their servers. Third party server jars also exist; typically utilizing resources more efficiently than the official server software. However, Minecraft servers have been restricted to running on a single core, making them inefficient for large player counts.

Notable servers
The most popular Java Edition server is Hypixel, which, released in April 2013, has had over 20 million unique players. In 2021, CubeCraft Games, released in December 2012 on Java Edition and in 2018 on Bedrock Edition, had over 30 million unique server connections, and a peak player count of more than 57,000 concurrent players. Other popular servers include MCGamer, released in April 2012, which has over 3.5 million unique players; Wynncraft, released in April 2013, which has over 1 million unique players; and Emenbee, released in 2011, which also has over 1 million unique players. As of 2014, servers such as Mineplex, Hypixel, Shotbow and The Hive receive "well over a million unique users every month", according to Polygon.