How is this server legal?

From what I think and my opinion.

Private servers are definitely "not legal" especially when the game uses a "Games as an always Online Service" model and does not welcome community servers or custom servers. Doesn't matter what game be it MapleStory, World of Warcraft, Fortnite, Overwatch, etc. Any private server is "not legal" and is usually infringing the developer's copyright laws.

Though, mostly this is sort of developer dependent too - some may choose to do crackdowns on private servers and some feel it's not worth the trouble/effort to sue, do a cease and desist or attempt a lawsuit against the private server host especially if it's not going to improve the current player base or even potentially stir up anger in the community as a whole (which can also potentially cause them to lose players).

In the case of MapleLegends, (If a Staff member can explain it better than me, please do - this is again, just my opinion) you can say it's "not legal", but don't forget that even during MapleStory's glory old days, there were also quite a lot of (high rate) private servers being hosted too and Neckson hasn't really done much of a crackdown on them (from my experience) because that was only a very small % of their overall player base flocking to these servers. Another thing to note, since MapleLegends goes on a Non Profit donation model, unlike Neckson's Pay 2 Win Model, it's not going to be a big deal especially it's not worth the effort to sue the MapleLegends Administration from 3 locations around the world (Kimmy, Navi and Phnx). Even if they do, I believe that the process of hiring lawyers, flying them/transporting them from/to 3 countries or to one courtroom is going to cost them more than the benefits of shutting down MapleLegends. Usually when a company sues, they also want money/compensation for the damages to pay for the cost and u know... Earn from it. MapleLegends will virtually have nothing to offer, unless Neckson wants to be... yea, but again this definitely won't go un-noticed and this can potentially cause overall community backlash, considering MapleLegends is only hosting a very small fraction of players as compared to GMS or even Reboot.

An example of a large private server shutdown I can give is Blizzard shutting down a Vanilla World of Warcraft (WoW) Classic Private Server named Nostalrius on 10th April 2016 (the server was open for about 1 year and 2 months), though partly because Nostalrius had 800,000 accounts registered in that short period of time - that's something or a number that any developer will DEFINITELY take notice, but it's also largely because Blizzard couldn't accept the fact many WoW players didn't like the newer WoW and have done virtually nothing good for them to continue to play. The shutdown caused major backlash and even a 280,000 signature petition for a classic WoW server from Blizzard.

If Neckson decides to crackdown on Private Servers, to me they are just making themselves look selfish and bad (even though yes, they have every right to do so), but they also have to accept the fact that MapleStory is already a pretty old game; naturally many people move on from old games and their player base is barely comparable to other newer online games like Valorant or Fortnite. Whether they make a new game or not is up to them, but they can't force people to go to their new official servers; just like how people will still play Counter Strike Classic (which can be cracked and has private servers) and not Counter Strike Global Offensive.

I also believed this was also discussed in MapleRoyals once, but if Neckson really wanted to crackdown, it's usually the most played/most popular servers that they will go after first. However, MapleLegends is 6 years old now and I don't see Neckson preparing for a massive crackdown and again, I don't think it's worth their time and effort.

TL, DR, a Private Server isn't legal. But at the same time, it's most likely not worth Neckson's effort to crackdown on them as it will cost time, money and the benefits are extremely lackluster.

 

Just because they use donations to generate revenue doesn't make them non-profit. As a business, you have to look at your user base and figure out the best way to monetize. In MapleLegend's case if they tried to implement a model similar to Neckson where people had to pay for NX cash it would probably hurt rather than help monetization.

You see this a lot with tech companies where the primary objective is usually to build up user base and then figure out how to monetize. Without the structural foundation of a strong, loyal user base you can't really monetize especially on a game like Maple where community is a huge aspect and reason to continue playing the game.

 

I'm not an expert on this but I think a big part of it is that the real life identities of maple legends administration is unknown. Not knowing who to send a cease and desist letter to probably helps out a lot.

neckson is definitely interested in taking down private servers, considering they have done so with many in the past.

 

Well, in ML's case the administrations can't exactly do that because ML isn't a business. The revenue is more to upkeep and pay for the maintenance of the server and services since it costs the Administration to maintain it. Also, Neckson (likewise for any game company) will not be happy if you're using their content to fill your pocket with money instead of them, that easily can cause a double down on their efforts to stop your server or service - sort of like making a Pay 2 Win Minecraft private server in which you can pay real money for diamonds (that's not allowed as stated by Mojang I believe).

Yes, you're also pretty correct because unless they literally send out spies or want to go all out tracking you, an email of cease and desist isn't probably gonna be enough to convince an admin like Kimmy to shutdown ML because of that.

EDIT: Fixed some spelling errors.

 

I'm curious why you think the administration can't monetize it; they already have. Donations are money. Obviously can't say this with 100% confidence but if you look at the player count of ML and compare to other similar private servers there's pretty high confidence that donations generated is significantly greater than costs associated with maintaining the server, especially so because it is common knowledge that everyone on staff makes $0, meaning there is a very high likelihood that there are significant profits being generated.

 

I actually have my doubts when it comes to this. If I remember correctly, Kim has mentioned on multiple occasions that a huge chunk of the money goes to server maintenance in the dense of DDoS protection etc.

 

I myself am very unfamiliar with what costs are in the private server realm. I definitely don't doubt what you're saying and I'm sure a significant portion of the proceeds do go to DDoS protection, but that doesn't mean there isn't room for sizable profit. Anyways this thread definitely peaked my interest and I decided to do some research into what revenue and expenses looked like for private servers (it was a bit hard and there isn't that much public data available so take these numbers with a grain of salt).

Average Revenue per Month (donations) - $12,000 (this is extrapolated assuming 1500 online player base for 8/12 months, 2000 online during events and events last for 4/12 months, and non P2W server)

Average Expenses per Month - $4,000

• Advertising Expense - $500
• Server Cost - $500
• DDoS Protection - $3,000 (not sure if this number is accurate; I'm not really familiar with types of DDoS protection and this is not my realm of expertise so could definitely be way off here).

Profit per month - ~$8,000 which nets out to about $100K per year.

I want to reiterate the fact that these are very rudimentary numbers and there are a lot of assumptions so these numbers could be very wrong and you should take this analysis with a grain of salt. If I had to give a 95% confidence range for what I think the yearly profit is for ML is based on the research I've done this morning on other private server revenue streams I would probably say it would fall within the range of $4K - $20K per month.

This also doesn't take into account the fact that there is where ML is at now. It obviously has taken years in the making to get ML to this point of profitability so obviously you have to look at the whole journey. When you first start out, there is obviously no guarantee you will generate money and you have to stick it out which Kimmy has definitely been able to and getting a server from 0 to 1500 active users is no small accomplishment.

 

Wow that's a ton more than I thought they make in donations