Minecraft has easily gone down in history as one of the most influential games of all time, notably for it's ability of ANYONE to immediately start up a multiplayer server, invite others, and begin a crazy adventure playing a wide creation of gameplay they imagined. The incredible sandbox, server-based, multiplayer title is one among many inspiring stories, spawning the likes of "Mineplex","Hypixel", "Wynncraft", and many more iconic servers that players have become extremely accustomed to over the decade since the game's release in 2011.
Minecraft isn't alone in this community-centric organization, as CSGO, Rust, and Ark all follow this extremely similar guideline. This multiplayer infrastructure puts the power not only in the hands of the server host, but entirely in the hands of the players, allowing for unrivaled entrepreneurial opportunities across these gaming titles. Create somewhere unique for players and they will flock together, allowing for a wide variety of monetization options; great for both reinvestment into community expansion and financial success!
Who Can Become a Gaming Entrepreneur?
There's something that young adults and many gamers seriously misunderstand about both entrepreneurship and the gaming industry. The world is your oyster. Every moment that gamers see a TikTok online, or a popular gaming clip on Twitch, or Youtube, that could be YOU! Becoming a content creator, owning a community, creating an online server-hosting space to gather players is something achievable for EVERY gamer in the modern age and with near-infinite monetization options the world has to offer, you can make a full living too.
The only thing required of a gaming entrepreneur is to understand what is truly fun to their audience and for many gamers, that vision isn't difficult at all. A gaming entrepreneur's most important considerations is to be producing high-quality, consistent content, especially on their community servers where players will be regularly interacting and looking to spend their leisure time. Reliable servers with 100% uptime, DDOS protection, and a positive community can quickly draw an audience from anywhere on the internet! Be the gamer in you!
How to Grow Your Gaming Server
Similar to content creation and SEO, the key to community growth is providing the highest quality experience possible. The first and most obvious rule is to choose a reliable server hosting provider with the widest variety of gaming options available so the community can shift to whichever game they are currently craving as preferences change. Reliable server hosting is also important because content creation requires consistency for returning players to exist, and in this case, that means a fun server with 100% uptime so that anyone can PLAY at any time. This will be the backbone of your success as a server host for gamers.
From here it becomes an independent struggle to meet the demand of gamers, both by providing fun and interesting game modes within your game server, but also enticing content in the form of marketing to draw in that audience. There are an absolute boatload of resources online for gaming entrepreneurs to spread the message of their growing empire online, whether that be a "Minecraft Server List", Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, or even TikTok. Including gameplay clips of unique game modes or classic gameplay focused around your community's favorite title is sure to draw veterans of the same game.
How to Monetize Your Gaming Server
Community growth is absolutely great and can be extremely mentally rewarding seeing your empire unfold before you as players flock to something YOU created. While this is true however, this continued growth requires continued upscaling of server demands, meaning more RAM, more costs, and more moderation. In order to stay afloat you'll not only want to get paid for your time invested, but you'll need assistance from the community to keep the server running. This can be in the form of community donations on popular sites such as Ko-fi, Patreon, Tebex, or others.
Another way to fund both server costs and make an investment in the future of your digital entrepreneurship is by adding in a server-based store using integrations such as Tebex or Fungies. These server-integrated stores allow players to purchase items with real-world currency in order to obtain in-game items, roles, permissions, and many other luxuries that they alone get to enjoy alongside other buyers. Many of Riot Games' primary titles are completely free and funded entirely by the sale of these "opt-in" cosmetic items with a single Valorant skin making $20 million dollars in sales.
How to make your Gaming Server Fun
As explained a multitude before, one of the biggest (and most important) areas to stress in Entrepreneurship within gaming as well as being a gaming server host is creating the best gaming experience for everyone involved. While it expectedly should be easy as long as you having a gaming-filled background, it can be "much easier said than done"! Hosting a server that includes 'minigames' favorite among the title's community is a surefire way to draw attention, with Minecraft's Skyblock and Gmod's TTT being obvious examples.
Game server hosts can further separate themselves from one another by making their servers run on a unique ruleset or map that players are eager to return to, exclusive to the server as a whole. (Sometimes consistency is something setting entire servers apart, as a reliable server known for a SINGLE map/game mode can make it infamous for exactly that). Fulfilling a niche is the best way to draw more players to your server and retain your current players. Having that unique angle will make other servers want to emulate your style, but none will ever do it quite the same!
Teaming up with Content Creators
As many would expect, one of the best ways to draw a community online is using content creators! Content creators have many adoring fans who wish nothing more than to play games alongside them and that perfectly aligns with your game server hosting ideals! Partnering up with a content creator to provide them with something unique on the server for content creation would draw many players to your hub, with the potential of keeping many of them even as the creator eventually moves on! Shockbyte has teamed up with a massive variety of partners to assist their communities in creating online gaming hubs for them to gather!
This idea extends heavily towards the modding community as well, although for a much different reason than Youtube or Twitch streamers. Players who often enjoy extensively modded servers or ones with a multitude of plugins (or both potentially), reaching out to modders on sites such as Nexusmods, Modrinth, Mod.io, and many more can lead to fruitful relationships for your game server hosting venture. Modders may simply need dedicated game servers for testing their newest mod builds; You may be able to help their community!
Making your Mark
If it was abundantly clear: there's a lot to consider in both being a gaming entrepreneur as well as game server hosting in order to optimize your growth and your expansion. Whether you plan on hosting for simply a handful of friends, family, or your close community, you'll want to prioritize your server uptime and your server's RAM to allow for the correct players, mods, and plugins. It's a large independent commitment, but choosing a strong server host provider such as Shockbyte and OVHcloud can give you peace of mind when you need it most.
About Shockbyte
Shockbyte is a game server host for Minecraft, ARK, Rust and more.
Do you want to start your own Minecraft server? Click here to view our Minecraft server hosting plans.
