Freelancer update is now underway!

Greetings! We are excited to give a progress update on everything that’s been happening with GameServersHub over the past few months. As many of you know GSH has a marketplace system where plugin developers can list free or paid resources on the marketplace to grow their brands and to build a following of their audience. This system for years has been designed exclusively for C++ ark plugins our freelancer update changes this entirely. Instead of the marketplace being exclusive to only C++ plugins it now supports just about anything and everything related to the gaming industry. 

Do you code discord bots and want to sell discord bots? Do you understand syntax better than most and want to do plugin configurations for others? Are you a modder who wants to freelance and commission mods for server communities? Are you a web developer who wants to build websites for gaming communities? What about a graphics artist who wants to design artwork for gaming servers? 

All of these options and choices are now gonna be open and available on the marketplace, What this essentially will do is create hundreds if not thousands of new job opportunities for the community. This will also dramatically benefit server admins/owners who want more unique content for their gaming communities.

What are the benefits of the freelancer update?

• Unlimited Job Opportunities: Marketplace will now create hundreds if not thousands of new job opportunities for yourself and community members. This dramatically broadens the scope of everything and it directly benefits both the freelancers using the marketplace and also the server admins/owners who want more unique content.
• Everyone can now sell: Sellers no longer require a website role to sell on the marketplace. Freelancer update now opens up the selling side to everyone. This means the only thing you need to start selling is a website account which is free and accessible for everyone.
• More Freedom: Less restrictions and more freedom, As a resource developer or a freelancer the worst thing you can hear is being heavily restricted on what you can and can’t do as a resource developer or freelancer. This update makes the marketplace less restrictive meaning it’s not gonna be just C++ content anymore it’s now open to the world just about any ideas you have that are gaming-related and would benefit the gaming communities you can now achieve that and do that with the freelancer update.
• Chargeback Protection: All resources by default will come with built-in chargeback protection. You no longer have to fear about being scammed or losing your income generated. Thanks to the Tebex partnership tebex is giving chargeback protection to every single seller on the marketplace.
• 163-180% Increased Payment Providers: The freelancer update brings a Tebex payment provider option to the marketplace. The old marketplace had five payment options and the Tebex update will bring 50-100 new payment options for customers to choose when buying resources on the marketplace this is over a 163-180%+ increase in the ability to generate income on the marketplace. This means sellers who take advantage of the Tebex options will undoubtedly generate more income as customers have several new payment options to select from which will greatly benefit both the customers and sellers.
• Generate More Sales: You might hear the word “fees” thrown around and be scared away and you’d probably assume that you would do less in sales due to fees. That would be the case if the fees were high but thankfully with GSH, the fees will remain low. You will undoubtedly have an increase in sales using Tebex because Tebex provides a 163-180% increase in payment providers that’s a new 50-100 payment providers that customers can choose from which means you can now accept more payments and because you can accept more payments you will naturally have organic payment growth resulting in more sells which in the long-run will become more profitable. The ones who use and take advantage of this feature will not regret it in the slightest I can assure you. We created a spreadsheet at the bottom of this page that will help you better price your resources so you can generate a maximum return on investment.
• Advertising Growth: The biggest challenge as a server owner is getting and retaining the server population, Because of the freelancer update you now have more choices and options to make your community more unique which in return helps your general population growth. Since the marketplace will no longer be restricted to C++ ark plugins this means an entire new market/audience will be using the website and because of that, you as a server owner can take advantage of the traffic growth for your communities. The more views the website gets is more views you can redirect to your communities and that is a great thing.

Transparency on our end is important!

• GSH has always tried to be as open and transparent as possible when having discussions and topics of any potential changes that may take place. There have been rumors floating around that the Tebex fees will be 20%+ and above, Rest assured we have no intention of doing that for the freelancer update. We also want to make it clear that the fee that GSH will collect on the marketplace is simply to cover basic website operational costs such as “Domain Renewal, Cloudflare, S3 Storage, CPanel License, Dedicated Machine, Accounting/Taxes, WHMCS License and etc” the fee is designed not to hinder freelancers but to give GSH a leg to stand on with monthly operational costs we’ve gracefully paid out of pocket each month to cover these costs and we understand this is not a reliable and sustainable method to keep the website or the community alive and thriving, It’s an unrealistic standard to expect a website such as ours to survive strictly on out of pocket expenses. We fully understand that not every single freelancer or developer will support Tebex due to the fees associated with it but we are making every effort on our end to keep the fees as low as possible. Sellers who have used GSH marketplace since 2018 have generated tens of thousands in sales and have made very good profits so it’s not an unreasonable request to ask for a minimal fee so the website can survive.

A special thank you to the development team!

• Volunteers “Lethal, Wooly, Pelayori” have stepped down recently. GameServersHub wants to give them thank you for the hard work and dedication they have invested over the past few years into improving the ServerAPI framework. All three of them have been on the development team and have volunteered their time/effort/energy into supporting ServerAPI and because of that, we are extremely grateful and blessed to have had the chance to work alongside them over the years. We have nothing but great things to say about each of them.
• Woolypenguin has been a great personal close friend of MrOwlSky over the years and they have both shared private moments together and have related and bonded on several topics over the years. MrOwlSky in the early years helped woolypenguin with setting up his discord and provided many plugin concept ideas over the years to him. A friendship was formed and hundreds of hours of private text messages and conversations took place between both. Woolypenguin is a father and a wonderful family man to his family, He is well-loved by his wife and daughter and has been by his daughter’s side through her cancer diagnosis. We have nothing but love and gratitude towards him and his family. We are saddened to see Wooly step down but fully respect his wishes. Woolypenguin has been great to GSH over the years and we wish him nothing but success.
• Lethal is also a family man himself and puts his family first which is a very honorable and respectful thing to do as a father. Lethal has worked alongside GSH over the past couple of years to help bring ASA ServerAPI to life and because of that GSH owes Lethal gratitude and respect. Lethal is also a businessman and sells his own Ark plugins which have been profitable for him over the years, He’s a very talented developer and has gotten much love from the community over the years which is well deserved. We are saddened to see Lethal step down as a staff member but we fully respect his wishes and ask that you show him love for the time he’s done with GSH.
• Pelayori has been a new and upcoming developer over the past couple of years and has made astounding steps in his learning phases as a developer. He worked alongside other developers who have mentored him over the years and has built many networks and established connections over the years. Pelayori is young and is pursuing a life in college/university right now and has made great progress over the years in his studies. Pelayori joined the development team to help contribute towards the ServerAPI project and became a good friend of GSH. Pelayori has some of his own ideas/visions on things he wants to bring to life which GSH absolutely respects and understands his choice to step down. We wish him great success and he will forever have a place in our hearts.

All three of the Volunteers who have stepped down have done amazing work and great friendships were built over the years, GSH has no bad blood or ill feelings whatsoever with any of them. We ask that our community shows them the respect and honor that they are owed for their services and sacrifices they put in. May they all be blessed and may their journeys be good.

Frequently Asked Questions (F.A.Q):

Why all of a sudden is the marketplace taking a fee?

• Great question, When the marketplace was founded back in 2018 the founder and creator of ServerAPI Michidu took an 8-10% fee to cover basic website operational costs. When GSH was founded we initially removed that fee as we chose to cover the website’s operational cost from out of pocket. We did this honorably and gracefully for many years however since GSH was founded the website has grown quite dramatically and inflation rates have gone up all around the world. It has become clear that funding the website out of pocket simply isn’t a feasible option anymore.
• Rest assured we have no intentions of making this update a financial burden on resource sellers, The fees in our personal subjective opinions will be very reasonable and fair to cover basic website operational costs.

Why did GSH choose Tebex and not individual payment processing?

This choice was made for several reasons, The marketplace is built on Xenforo 2 software which allows you to code and add your own payment processing via PHP add-on modules. However, in its current state, it’s not possible to take a fee from payment processing on the marketplace when using the default Xenforo 2 system. The Tebex addon module allows Tebex to act as the middleman when handling which payment processing methods are available. This makes it much easier for GSH to collect the fee associated with website operational costs. GSH also has worked with Tebex since early 2018 when we created the Tebex ASE plugin which has benefited Tebex of millions of web traffic and hundreds of thousands of new web customers. Our outstanding relationship and long-term partnership with Tebex means we have close connections with Tebex that allow GSH to have unique things created to benefit the marketplace and the people who use the marketplace.

• REST API: This is very important to GSH because REST API allows freelancers and fellow developers to integrate the website features directly into their own software and system. Using Tebex gives us more ground to expand the REST API which greatly benefits the developers and freelancers who use it.
• Chargeback Protection: Who doesn’t love chargeback protection? The ability to sell resources on the marketplace without having to worry about an angry customer trying to scam you out of your money and locking up your PayPal accounts? There are many reports including myself where PayPal accounts have been frozen or locked completely due to a false chargeback, You no longer have to worry or fear you might lose access to your money due to some rouge scammer. It was a no-brainer to include chargeback protection for sellers on the marketplace as it greatly benefits sellers and will generate sellers more income in the long run.

How exactly will the Tebex fee be handled?

• This is also a very important question, We’ve created a spreadsheet which you can view by going https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Vtc9T2-MYTHG4SKTzRaK9GSlXNCXT7gr9eNacTOM3XM/edit?usp=sharing you can also view the Tebex fees directly on their own website located at Tebex Fees https://creator.tebex.io/payment-methods it’s very important to understand the actual Tebex fee itself is pennies to the dollar at the time of writing this article the highest Tebex fee is “$0.60” which is pennies to the dollar. You might hear rumors that Tebex and GSH will be taking 20%+ in fees this is misinformation and the freelancer update will not take large fees at all quite the opposite the website fees will be very reasonable.
• There are three important fees to understand, “Tebex Fee, Currency Fee, GSH Fee” This might sound like a lot but it’s not, The Tebex fees are very low and are pennies to the dollar, and GSH fees will range anywhere from 1-7.5% min/max and the currency fees are normal fees that any payment provider would take regardless of Tebex or Freelancer update.

Are the rumors of 20%+ true?

• You might have seen or heard some discord announcements about GSH taking a 20% cut from all marketplace transaction sales. This rumor is false and is misinformation. However, there is some truth behind it, The old Tebex addon the marketplace had since 2019 used to take 20% that addon broke when Overwolf accuried Tebex and changed the way their API worked. The freelancer update has repaired that addon and removed the 20% so while yes the old system used to take that the new system under no circumstances will take 20%. As discussed above the fees taken will be very reasonable and low they will not be overly the top and will not be a burden or hindrance to freelancers.

What if I don’t like Tebex and don’t want to use Tebex?

• We understand that not every single developer or freelancer will support or like Tebex. However, the vast majority statically speaking support Tebex nearly all server admins/owners use Tebex, and major sites like BuiltByBit(McMarket) have used Tebex Checkout with tremendous success. We also understand for the website to survive long-term and grow outside of just Ark we need to make this change. You might say well I don’t like Tebex because of the fees Tebex does but if you look at the Tebex fees they are pennies to the dollar they are very low. The benefits compared to the risk of Tebex are quite dramatic we understand some developers will leave and go sell on their own websites/webstores but we also understand the vast majority of consumers use Tebex with no issues and the sellers/freelancers who do use Tebex will greatly benefit from doing so. All we ask is to be open-minded and give it a chance before you shoot it down.
• jraServerAPI, LustWare, Tobeey1993, Default01, and Wetbatman are just a few to name as examples who are using Tebex Checkout with success! Now more than ever is the time to join the marketplace and start selling!
  

How exactly do I start using the Tebex payment processing?

• It’s simple! You just head over to https://wallet.tebex.io/withdraw and click on “Your Details” and “Copy” the “Wallet Reference” Then you head over to https://gameservershub.com/forums/resources/market-place-dashboard/payment-data and past your “Wallet Reference” inside the input field. Check the checkbox and you’re all done!

If you have any questions please join our discord and ask them in the “Tebex-Talk” channel we’ve created. We are excited to move forward with this update and we can promise you it will greatly benefit everyone.