I am looking into starting my own fivem server however, I was just reading through the TOS and I noticed that donations to give in-game stuff is against the TOS as shown here.
No financial profit shall be derived by the Users from any derivative of, or third-party service,
User Generated Content, or Game Server for FiveM, the Game Services, or other entities
stated in these Terms, except as expressly permitted by CitizenFX.
This is kinda annoying as donations may be essential to keep a server running, however with that said I fully agree that in-game perks (that gives you any sort of advantage) should strictly not be allowed through donations. However I would still suggest that, why not allow donations to receive in-game cosmetics only (So no perks, only stuff like vehicle skins, players skins, etc) as this would not give any kind of advantage to any player and it would only be a small thing to say thank you to the player, nothing else.
If you are scared this may be abused, then why not make an application process and an official list of servers that are allowed to sell in-game cosmetics (like Arma 3 does). Without said permission, they would go directly against the TOS
Sidenote: This is also allowed by many other games such as Minecraft and Arma 2,3.
TLDR: Allow donations to receive in-game cosmetics (Skins) with no perks.
Please give me your thoughts on this in a reply to this thread.
Yes, as he stated… You can offer in-game perks, for example, I offer add-on vehicles with a permission system for my community, other stuff would be fine. The only thing you need to keep note off; do NOT make a profit, a way of doing this is either disabling donations after the goal has reacher, or just simply removing the link. Hope this clears your final questions up.
It needs to be immediate server costs (for that month/billing cycle). You also shouldn’t be paying for developers, as that is against the TOS, because they are doing work for a profit.