Question for server owners

[Satima]

What did you do to make your server thrive?

 

[Ren]

Unique gameplay and make sure you have a shit load of a budget which would then equal to a good payout in the end. It takes time to regain the amount you've spent, but it's a good investment.

 

[Polarbears]

Have the money, and be unique.

 

[MasterPig_]

Have a lot to put into it if need be and a unique gaming experience that makes people want to come back.

 

[myokan]

Lots of money. Lots of effort.

Seriously though, you need to make sure your server gameplay is balanced. You have to be careful with what updates you push out to make sure it doesn't offset the balance too much. You need to reward players for playing AND spending money. If you only reward players for playing, your server will flop financially. If you only reward players for spending money, your server will be boring, so you'll lose a lot of players which will hurt new player joins/retention.

It all sounds simple, but it's hard to get right. Most server owners don't take this advice seriously, so they keep releasing broken servers and selling them months later for pennies while making 1/10th of what their server could if it was managed properly.

 

[Nybon]

Tons of money is not always necessary. If you play your cards right, you can make a nice server for under $10.

 

[Rahul.]

Agreed with Nybon. You honestly don't need a large budget for starting a server (unless you want to compete against other large servers). I started a server and spent only ~$40 and made more than x15 profit. If you've never ran a server, start small, there is no point going big and it failing since you've never had the experience.

EDIT: Also make sure to listen to the community and don't make it p2w