Cosmic PvP is one of the most successful Minecraft servers of all time. Owned by famous YouTubers Preston Plays and Mr. Wolfles. It reportedly made a total of $25 million in revenue during its decade of operation. We've talked about the server's history and potentially illegal gambling monetization schemes in the past. But what we haven't spoken about is the fact that the server reopened a few months ago and is now breaking Minecraft uler and usage guidelines in multiple ways, enabling underage gambling that miners regularly engage with, featuring a huge black market where items are sold for real money and making players spend up to $200 just to have the chance of buying a new rank. All the while, the server's owners pretend like nothing harmful is going on whatsoever. Preston Plays Minecraft server Cosmic Sky has gotten so much worse. And at this point, I'd argue it's the most harmful Minecraft server that has ever existed. But hold on, the server shut down, right? Well, sort of. About 2 years ago, after declining significantly in popularity, all of Cosmic PvP's game modes, including factions, Prison, and Sky Block, would shut down, where in late 2023, the entire network shut down for good. However, last year in July, Cosmic Sky, the server's custom sky block mode, would relaunch to much success, and with promotion from Preston and Mr. Wles, the server was consistently seeing over 1,000 players online daily, and to this day still sees player counts in the high hundreds. However, alongside the server's return also meant the return of many of the servers harmful monetization mechanics and culture, some of which even break the Minecraft uler. This is the server's online store, and as you can see, unlike most server stores, the only thing you can purchase is the server's premium currency known as Cosmic Coins. To buy the server's ranks, loot boxes, and other goods, as we'll get into, you have to join the server and type/store in game. The other thing you'll notice is that the IP they tell you to use is cosmics sky.net. Why not cosmic sky.com? Well, that's because that IP was actually blocked by Mojang back in January 2021. Back then, Cosmic Sky was seeing upwards of 4,000 players online during peaks and continued to remain accessible due to the server's third-party Minecraft client known as Cosmic Client, which bypassed the blacklist. Basically, rather than comply with Mojang enforcement like every other server in the game does, Cosmic Sky decided to remain non-compliant and instead got players to use their third-party cosmic client to bypass the server's blacklist. Something which ultimately contributed to the initial decline of the server, of which even Rob, otherwise known as Mr. Waffles, one of the servers owners, admits. And why did they initially get blacklisted by Mojang enforcement? Well, they never came out and said why. And when asked directly by a small YouTuber Parallax, who managed to ask Rob some questions, Rob even refused to acknowledge the fact that they were blacklisted in the first place. But it should become clearer as we get further into the video. Let's now talk about the servers ULA violations and harmful monetization. While the Minecraft usage guidelines, which detail what you can and can't do with servers, are publicly available, some of the rules they enforce on servers, are not. One such rule is about selling unbanned. In the past, many servers, including Cosmic, would allow players who were banned from the server for cheating, for example, to spend money, often anywhere from $ 20 to $50 to buy an unban. This is something enforcement does not allow and has asked servers such as Viper MC to remove in the past. This is one of the speculated reasons as to why Cosmic Sky was blacklisted years ago. While in the past the server utilized their custom client to bypass their blacklist, this time around the client is no longer in development. And as such, knowing they can't sell unbanned and ignore the guidelines, Cosmic Sky decided to implement a rather creative workaround. When you get banned on the server, you now get sent to a special prison world with just an iron pickaxe. You cannot go anywhere else. To escape this prison and return to the normal server, you either have to wait out of the duration of your unban or you have to mine 10 million coal. This area is small and there aren't even 10 million blocks here, let alone coal. Not to mention mining 10 million coal would take forever. This is effectively an impossible task to achieve. So why would they assign such an impossible task to banned players? You may be asking. Well, that's because if you type /store, you'll notice that you can actually purchase 1 million coal for the price of 10,000 cosmic coins, which will cost you about $10. And in this conveniently set up store, you can, of course, buy cosmic coins in a bundle of 100,000 for $50. That means if you buy 100,000 cosmic coins for $50, you can buy 1 million coal 10 times for a total of 10 million coal, thus allowing you to free yourself from this prison and be unbanned from the server. You are effectively buying an unban with real money. What Cosmic has done here is to sew unbans through disguised gameplay. Something which I independently verified with Mojang Enforcement as being against the Minecraft guidelines. Very, very sneaky. Mojang Enforcement and most players would never even know that the server still sells unbanned unless they actually play and get banned themselves. But you know what? Selling unbanned all against Minecraft's usage guidelines isn't even that bad. Personally, I think it should be allowed, but Cosmic Sky next violation is significantly more serious and harmful. This is the Cosmo slot bot. Cosmic Sky Minecraft version of a slot machine. Now, this slot bot has been in Cosmix game modes for years. Most of the servers in-game economy centers around the slot bot tickets. And we even talked about how in the past, one of its mechanics, the slotbot flash sales, were broken to mislead players and make as much money as possible. More on that in this video here, though. To use the slotbot, you have to buy a Cosmo slotbot ticket from the in-game store with cosmic coins or buy them from other players who are selling them in game. These slotbot tickets cost 3,200 cosmic coins for one. Bundles of them are cheaper, but using the standard store price, they cost the equivalent of about two real life dollars. Once you buy them, you can load up to five at a time in the Cosmo slot machine and spin or roll it like so to get a selection of random rewards of which are listed here. There's been multiple ULA violations already. Have you spotted them? No. Let me show you. First of all, the use of gambling terminology. While gambling is technically allowed on servers through crates, the use of gambling terminology and mechanics are not. So, while a crate or loot box is fine since it doesn't use any realworld gambling terminology or mechanics, something like a Minecraft roulette table isn't, as a roulette table is a form of real world gambling, and servers that have added real world gambling mechanics in the past, such as Origin Realms, were forced to remove them. As such, the terminology used in the slotbots commands/slotbot/slotbots and slots are non-compliant. The use of the word slot here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here is non-compliant. The use of other gambling terminology like roll and spin can also potentially be considered non-compliant. And the way the actual GUI functions, where it rolls like an actual slot, is also not compliant. Furthermore, while crates and similar RNG based systems are allowed, Mojang has certain rules around them that server owners with non-compliant crates have received before. Notably, all the potential rewards you can win from a crate or RNG mechanic must be listed as well as the odds of winning them. Seems that Cosmic must have forgotten that second part since all the potential rewards in the slot bot while listed do not have their odds displayed. A guidelines violation, that could mean that this mystery pet box could have a 95% chance of rolling. Whereas this much more valuable random mythic gem could have extremely low odds. This is just an example, but it's almost a guarantee based on the server's decision not to list public odds that anything good from the slot bot likely has exceptionally low odds. Now, what's even more hilarious about the slotbot is that there's actually another layer of guidelines violations embedded into it. You see, not only are the potential rewards you can win from the slot bot non-compliant, as the odds of winning them are not listed, but the actual rewards themselves have an additional randomized item pool layer stacked on top of them that's non-compliant. Take this reward here for example, called the random randomization scroll. Once you happen to win it, you have to open it again to have the chance of winning one of the six listed scrolls here. All of which do not have the odds of winning them listed. And hilariously, most of the rewards from the slot bot are items with their own randomized item pools, each with no odds listed, making them all non-compliant two times over. Two of the rewards you can win are literally loot boxes after all. Which, speaking of, loot boxes are, yes, a cornerstone gambling feature of every Minecraft server. Yet, Cosmic Sky has once again outdone every other in making them as scummy and non-compliant as possible. Loot boxes can be purchased for $24,000 cosmic coins each, about $15. The way they work is when opened, you get four of these items from this loot pool here and then potentially some jackpot items. So, for example, I could buy one of these loot boxes and win these four things. Once again, like the slot bot, these loot boxes are non-compliant since the odds of winning items from this loot pool are not listed, meaning the rarer and more desirable items could have obscenely low drop rates. Additionally, if you are even luckier, you could hit the jackpot when opening this loot box and receive all these additional items here. However, hitting the jackpot is not a guarantee. And once again, the odds of hitting it are not listed, meaning it could also be obscenely low. Oh, and the cherry on top is the fact that just like the slot bot, majority of the rewards you can win from loot boxes are once again items with randomized item pools of their own, all of which do not have odds listed whatsoever. It's gambling and RNG double layered on top of one another in a double yuler violation whammy. Let's also not forget these loot box bundles you can buy for 64,000 cosmic coins about $30 to $40 US that not only give you three of a loot box and some other items, but also come with one bonus item from this loot pool of six items. All of which have no odds listed with some of the rewards once again being items with their own independent uliating randomized item pools. When the loot box bundles are released for a brief period of time, some of the items in the random item loophole can also not be obtained any other way in game, making them extremely alluring. And also, I'm not going to go into detail on this, but if you open a loot box, you get a special slot bot meta spin, which is the same as a regular slotbot spin, but with better rewards. All of which are non-compliant with no listed odds, as well as once again, for the like fourth time now in this video, contains rewards with their own independent randomized non-compliant item pools. Okay, I think you get the point now, though. The server has a lot of non-compliant straightup gambling mechanics with hidden odds likely manipulated heavily in the server's favor, of which many of the rewards also have an additional level of non-compliance since they also contain their own randomized loot pools. Let's now move on to a recent event that happened on the server, which while maybe not a ULA violation, demonstrates the server's greedy and moneyhungry behavior. But before that, if you are enjoying this video and want to see more similar, be sure to subscribe. We are extremely close to 800k subs now. No pressure. Anyways, the server has four ranks you can get that give you various advantageous and pay to- win perks. The first three ranks can be bought in game for cosmic coins. But there is a fourth rank, the best and most expensive on the server named the celestial rank that for some reason is not listed on the store here at all. So, how do you buy it? Well, you see, about a month ago when the celestial rank first released, the only way to obtain it was through something called a flash sale. Effectively, this rank would only be available to purchase in limited quantity at a specific time. The first flash sale only had 25 ranks allowed to be purchased before the rank would become unavailable for who knows how long again, and it was first come, first serve. Artificial scarcity. Now, that's scummy enough on its own, but here's the other thing. In order to buy the rank, you had to buy it through the storage UI in game with cosmic coins. That meant that prior to the flash sale happening, to have a chance of buying the rank, you first had to purchase cosmic coins, 400,000 cosmic coins to be more specific. Effectively, prior to the flash sale, players had to purchase $200 worth of cosmic coins to have them ready to go to buy the rank in game when the flash sale began. And guess what? The server has had a total of only two flash sales since the celestial rank released. The first limited to only 25 ranks and the second to only 50. with both. Upon the flash sale beginning, all the ranks sold instantly. Here's a screenshot I have of the second flash sale. While it's slightly cut off, you can see it says 50 players purchased 50 items in 1 second. That's right. Both times the flash sale happened, all of the ranks, which cost $200 each sold out in a single second. Both of these flash sales combined netted the server $15,000 USD in a mere 2 seconds. With such insane demand for the rank, a lot of people missed out. You see, to actually buy the rank, you first had to click it in the GUI, which opened another confirmed GUI. And because they sold out so quickly, players with higher ping, who had spent $200 in advance loading up on cosmic coins, literally could not buy the rank, as their ping prevented the GUI from opening up fast enough. This led to some players buying $200 worth of cosmic coins, which they cannot refund and not getting the rank, of which many complained about in the server's Discord. Can you imagine having to spend $200 just to have the chance to buy a Minecraft rank, only for you to be unable to do so due to unavoidable factors like where you live? That's not even considering the fact that both of these flash sales happened at times where certain time zones simply would not be awake to participate. This is just such unbelievably scummy behavior. Having a flash sale with artificially limited ranks is one thing, but forcing people to spend $200 in advance without a guarantee they will even be fast enough in the sale is on a whole different level. When asked by Parallax about why the rank was released in a limited flash sale, Rob mentioned that a short run premium rank creates excitement, keeps the rank special, drives player engagement, and reduces our total sales. A trade-off we accept because it puts players experience first. Yeah, I'm sure the players love having to spend $200 just to have the chance to buy a rank. What a great player experience. Yeah, they they went quick. I I didn't want to take the risk, so I I'm honestly going to buy it later down the road myself, but I'm not really interested in getting it when it's that quick and people really want it. Uh I can agree. People were complaining about spending money and they couldn't redeem it. Yeah, it's it's crazy how much people spend on here. It's quite interesting. I'll give it that. I've saved the best, or rather I should say potentially most harmful for last. One thing that's always been unique to a few of the more competitive Minecraft servers, but cosmic PvP in particular, is the server's huge IRL trading culture. IRL trading is the act of one player selling something in game, for example, in-game money, tools, or weapons for real money to another player. This is a bit of a gray area as while having in-game or virtual currencies is allowed, them having real world value or being able to be cashed out and converted to real world currency is guidelines violating. But if the players are doing it peer-to-peer without the server's input, the server can't really do anything about it. Regardless, virtually all servers have strict rules against IRL trading and do not allow to take place in their servers game chat or Discord. Although they only have so much control as mentioned. Now, IRL trading is really interesting because it allows players who are active on the server to actually make real money from their efforts. And to be clear, some people are making really good money on Cosmic. We are talking thousands of dollars per map. I think it honestly would be perfectly fine if it weren't for the fact that Cosmic Sky has a myriad of gambling mechanics on their server now effectively making it so people that I trade are proxy gambling real money. Let me give you a super straightforward example. Players regularly buy and sell in-game money for real money. You see this happen in the game's chat all the time. That in-game money that can be bought and sold for real money can also be coin flipped in game. A gambling miniame where players wager a certain amount of money against each other with 50% odds of winning the entire wagered amount, either doubling their bet or losing it all. Because this in-game money has real world value, players are therefore effectively wagering real money in game now with a slightly better odds than a roulette table. Someone could spend 10 real dollars on $10 million in game and then instantly go coin flip it in the hopes they double it. It's real money gambling. And this is the gigantic problem with having such a large IRL trading marketing culture when your server also happens to have a huge gambling scene. If you log onto Cosmic Sky and read the chat for even only a minute, you will see people regularly say that they are selling in-game items or money for PP, which means PayPal or crypto. There even exists a few third-party Discord servers where IRL trading takes place on mass. You can scroll through these channels and see thousands of messages from people selling or buying in-game items and money with real money. Players also regularly buy and sell slotbot tickets for real money, too, mind you. Meaning they once again are directly spending money on gambling. Now, you might be thinking, Mr. Epic, it's not like the server can control this, right? It's all taking place on third party Discords or through player-to-player transactions. and you would be right, but the server does allow players to advertise IRL trades in game behavior which would be punishable on most other servers and in third-party IRL trading discords. Some of the servers higher up staff and admins are even present and writing server guides. Clearly, they are aware of it and allow it to happen to some degree. That being said, it's a complex issue. As Rob mentions, they don't support IRL trading, but made it public to prevent scammers and bad actors. Effectively, they somewhat allow it to happen to prevent people from being scammed and to make it safer. It's sort of a situation where a country, for example, allows people to legally buy marijuana as that prevents people from resorting to dodgy methods of buying them that could result in them being harmed or scammed. It's a complex issue, but regardless, the underlying problem remains, and that's the fact that having so many goods purchasable and sellable for real world money only makes the server's many gambling mechanics significantly more harmful and dangerous. When asked about the server's many gambling mechanics that are non-uler compliant and do not have odds listed, Rob went on to say that they give clear common sense rarity bans that match their in-game experience and have never purposely misled players. You know what else is clear common sense and doesn't mislead players? Complying with Mojang's guidelines and clearly listing the odds of all randomized item rewards. If you cared so much about the players in-game experience and didn't want to mislead them, it shouldn't be such an issue to have the odds listed as every other server does. Furthermore, despite the slot bots literally being a Minecraft rendition of a slot machine, not only in name, but in visual function, Rob does not consider these slot bots to be a form of gambling as every ticket gives the player an in-game item and there is no cash out option. Rob is relying on the legal gray area crates, loot boxes, and other forms of video game gambling monetization fall into where they are not legally considered gambling as the player always gets something no matter what and the items cannot be cashed out for real money. A gray area, which mind you a handful of countries have or are considering making illegal. However, despite the legal gray area, to be considered gambling by pure definition, all that needs to be present is the act of betting or wagering money, which in this case is the cosmic coins used to buy loot boxes and slot bot tickets. Nobody would argue that Counter-Strike crates aren't gambling after all, and players always win something from those two. Furthermore, despite the argument that players can't cash out, not being valid either, as players are still wagering money for something of value regardless, the server's IRL trading culture does actually allow cashing out to occur through third-party IRL trading discords. This is exactly the same as how third-p party Counter-Strike skin sites allow you to cash out skins you open from crates for real money, something which once again, nobody would argue isn't gambling. Let's make it clear. Cosmic Sky enables underageed, unregulated, and non-ULE compliant gambling with deliberately hidden odds. Additionally, allowing players to advertise their gambling winnings or in-game currencies in game, allowing them to cash them out for real money. The server has been blacklisted by Mojang, not once, but twice, and has only ever tried to bypass their blacklist, never showing the intent to comply. The server's owners refused to even acknowledge why the server was blacklisted and why they continue to choose not to comply. And because the server cares so much about the player experience, they create systems of artificial scarcity such as the celestial rank flash sales, forcing players to spend unrefundable money just to have the chance of buying certain goods in game. In my opinion, Cosmic Sky has by far the most harmful server monetization in Minecraft history. Maybe only best by the server's other game modes, which no longer exist. I hope you all enjoyed the video. Be sure to subscribe. Thank you all so much for watching.