As of April 2021, the server regularly reaches over 150,000 concurrent players, peaking at over 216,000 on April 16. In 2015, it was revealed that the server cost around $100,000 a month to maintain, back when the server had around 16,000 players online. Minigames were originally created for users to play on while waiting for other players, but the minigames themselves gained popularity on their own and became the server's main identity, and efforts from Hypixel were put towards new server content instead of the making of other Minecraft maps and games. The Hypixel server was created to play and further showcase these maps. The two originally created Minecraft adventure maps together and uploaded trailers to their YouTube channel. The Hypixel server was released in beta on April 13, 2013, by Simon Collins-Laflamme, whose username is 'hypixel', and Philippe Touchette who are from Hypixel inc.
