Minecraft, still popular?

So, Minecraft was released in 2009 and now it's 2014, one of the most well known and popular Indie games on the internet.

I want to setup a server, the server will cost £15 a month ($25 for you Americanos, if my math is correct that is)
I also want to make a bit of money out of this server, which means I'll need a good strong helpful community.

I'm considering the factors that could affect my success and I've come up with popularity and demand.

Is Minecraft still popular and played often by many people?

And is the demand for servers in Minecraft high or low?

Please give me fact and not opinion, I'm researching whether or not it'd be worth my time and money and it doesn't help if I have people who know as much as I do about Minecraft servers replying to this question

Guest

Minecraft is still very popular, and the popularity is only going up. There are already thousands of servers, but people sometimes get bored of Hypixel, The Shotbow Network, Mineplex, etc. If you come up with a server of their size or larger, then you should be good. The things you want to look out for in a server are:
A really good anti-hack system
Unique and addicting games
Easy navigation
A friendly and responsible staff
Connection reliability and error prevention
And lots of advertising. Try to present your server to YouTube stars and have them make videos of playing on it. That will definitely help.

Typical exclusive memberships can be very high in big servers. (60 US Dollars for Mineplex's Ultra and $80 for Hero.) Try to keep the prices low but not too low so you can pay for operation costs, build a back-up emergency stash, can pay employees, have room for sales, keep some money for yourself, etc. Though it depends if your doing it for a living or doing it as a side thing.

Now I can't get too deep into this, b/c the Minecraft server I own is private (so it's very small) and I just got it running last night.

scott

Your about 5 years too late, no one will be interested in a server run by someone who knows nothing about the game.

Martin