PSA: If you still have a Mojang account for Minecraft: Java Edition, you have less than a week left to migrate to a Microsoft account to avoid profile deletion
PSA: If you still have a Mojang account for Minecraft: Java Edition, you have less than a week left to migrate to a Microsoft account to avoid profile deletion
Thought I'd share this in case there are people who are unaware or have been pending off the migration process.
Starting September 19, 2023, at 11:00 am EST/17:00 pm CEST, unmigrated Mojang accounts will not be able to sign in to Minecraft.net or the Minecraft Launcher to migrate. We’re doing this to ensure that everyone is playing using accounts with improved security and player safety.
Source: Minecraft.net article
What will happen to unmigrated accounts?
Once the deadline for migration is reached, players will no longer be able to access unmigrated accounts. All unmigrated accounts will be deleted at a future date.
Source: help.minecraft.net
What if you don't have access to the email address associated with your Mojang account, or have any other queries?
The details are unclear. The Minecraft help center link says "Minecraft player support will no longer be able to help with migration-related issues after September 5, 2023." whereas the minecraft.net article states "[...] starting September 19, 2023, Minecraft Support will no longer be able to assist in any MSA migration-related tickets."
What do you get for migrating to a Microsoft account?
Microsoft claims improved account security, and 2FA. You will get a Migrator cape and access to Minecraft for Windows (Bedrock Edition) on the Microsoft account chosen at the time of migration.
I tried to recover my Mojang account and migrate it three times. Each attempt gets a stock response asking for certain info (receipt, email, username). When I provide this, I get a response from a different support user asking for the same thing I just provided. After three to five back and forths (with the same questions and the same answers) I get busy, frustrated, and leave it for a few weeks.
Once I have time, I start over and the exact same thing repeats again.
I wrote it off as a loss last year with an asterisk of "another reason to fucking hate Microsoft"
Yeah, I bought it during beta testing and my account was attached to an old email. Gave up trying to migrate years ago. I'm actually surprised they still haven't deleted it already.
Class action time?
This is bullshit. What could it possibly matter to them, other than to force people onto their miserable platform. Bastards.
Authentication servers do not run themselves, they need babysitting and patching and upgrading because this is users' passwords and secrets. Microsoft obviously does not want to keep managing this old login system because it's miserable unrewarding janitorial work for a sysadmin or a developer.
The fun part is most of the people bitching have no clue how to do any of this. Probably the same people who bitch about new games not supporting Windows 7.
Oh gosh, they bought a computer game company and they don't want to pay to support existing customers? They don't want to maintain accounts that represent HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of hours of creativity, a long-time faithful user fanbase, because they now feel it's miserable unrewarding janitorial work?
It's MINECRAFT! Do you even know what people do on Minecraft? It's not saving progress we're talking about here. It's destroying an ARCHIVE. It's a life some kid has lived in there.
You make it sound like it's perfectly reasonable to ditch this community because it's an expense and an inconvenience. Get lost with your Microsoft defense. They don't need you. They don't give a shit.
You're welcome to take on the rewrite of our
auth-servicetoo, since it seems so trivial in your world. Always fun to drag legacy services around for those 12 really loud and angry users.They don’t want to hire people to build and maintain a secure login platform when their parent company already has one. This is way more work and liability than most people realize.
Well, they can force a lot of people who never saw the notification to have to buy the game again if they want to keep playing.
For anyone left behind, Minetest is a community-developed alternative.
It's more of a game engine/launcher + highly moddable, so the base game is rather minimalistic, but you can simply install more extensive games. For example, for a very Minecraft-like experience, MineClone2 is your best bet.
This is pretty incredible, thanks.
So when do I get my refund?
Never. Microsoft says fuck you.
I will say it sounds like a lovely lawsuit waiting to happen though, especially in countries with good consumer protections. I wonder how Canadian law would feel about this? 🤔
Microsoft is a trillion dollar company. Unfortunately I doubt any country is going to meaningfully harm them over accounts like this. (I am one of the people that cant migrate because the email I had associated with it is gone and the game was gifted to me so long ago that I wouldn't be able to easily prove it was mine)
I mean, I paid like 8 bucks for the game (or however much it was in the indev version) but it's still shitty and arbitrary.
Does this mean we'll need to pay for the game again if we don't do it in time?
That does appear to be the case at this moment.
Sidenote, I have a feeling that's straight up illegal under contract law. IANAL though.
Edit: Just so ppl have something specific: you bought access to the service. It's probably gonna be limited in the User Agreement as "if this service has to be shut down, you agree to lose your access and you don't sue to get your money back". But this is a backend migration and I'm fairly sure this is not something they had in their original contracts. That's why sniff a broken contract and when they don't refund your money, I sniff broken laws.
☠️🏴
I hate that Minecraft is one of the two things I even need a Microsoft Account for.
And when you DO migrate it to a Microsoft account, and DON'T want them to have your phone number, they'll fake "There's been suspicious activity on your account, we HAVE to have your phone number now!" until you give it up.
Can confirm, I found creating a new Microsoft account and doing literally nothing with it for around half an hour is suspicious enough to lock the account and require a phone number.
Look at all the chuds defending Microsoft.
It's pathetic.
Can't migrate. Will not accept ULA. I now have to rely on pirated version for a game I paid twice. This does not make sense.
They're gonna delete my game without giving me a refund? Fuck them.
I know this comes across as one of those classic phishing emails that claim to require your immediate attention or else your account will be deleted, but unfortunately in this case it's legitimate.
I’ve tried to migrate my account several times in the past. It never works for some reason. Also, I can never seem to untangle the web of deceit known as Microsoft/xbox/Minecraft profiles and family/group settings. About once a year I spend a couple hours trying to sort it out and then give up because it never works. Google can be awful sometimes but at least they figured out “sign in with Google”
I did it last week and always got an error trying to create a new microsoft account during the migration process, even in different browsers and after disabling adblockers. Then I just manually created a microsoft account on the microsoft website and in the minecraft migration process chose to use an existing account instead of creating one. That worked for some reason.
Yeah, no. Microsoft can get bent at 43.625° angle.
In this case I'd get around to it too. I went through it a few months ago and it was not easy. They put a fucking idiotic time limit of 15 minutes on the email, which invariably arrived much later than that. I sat spamming the "send email" button out of frustration.
Morons. It's email.
Eventually one happened to actually arrive in time, but I'd leave some spare time to retry if you care at all.
They probably want it to fail so that they have fewer users on their servers that already paid. I'm sure their attitude is "pay us again if you want to keep playing".
I thought they'd done this already. They've been pestering for a while right?
I keep getting those emails even though I've migrated my account and can play Java Minecraft through the Microsoft launcher.
Leads me to think my account isn't migrated but I guess I'll know for sure in a week or so.
If you are currently able to login and play, then you should be good. I believe they blocked Mojang and Legacy accounts from logging into the launcher a while back.
Doesn't hurt to check though. Make sure that the upper left corner of the launcher shows your Xbox Gamertag (may be different from your Java Edition username) and says "Microsoft account".
Thanks for reminding me. I've just migrated.
Not sure when the next time will be that I can play Minecraft, but I guess it's nice that I can when I want to at any point into the future.
Thanks for the FYI, haven't played in years but got it merged to my Xbox account with no issues.
RIP all my accounts..
So you're saying there's still time, cool I'll get around to that Later. ..
Does Lemmy.world have a remind me bot?? 😂
If I had used Windows 10 edition at any point, would I have already migrated? I haven't played Minecraft in ages, but I certainly don't want to lose access to it.
Edit: Wtf... I get an "Access forbidden" error just going to minecraft.net/login
If you purchased or redeemed a code for Minecraft for Windows 10 Edition in the past, your Microsoft account is eligible to get Minecraft: Java Edition for free. If you log into the Minecraft Launcher with your Microsoft, it should prompt you to set up a Java Edition username (separate from your Xbox Gamertag).
More information can be found on their help page here.
Other way around, actually. I bought Minecraft way before Microsoft owned Mojang, but at some point they gave access to the Windows 10 edition for owners of the Java edition. I've installed that before, around that time, and I'm just wondering if that was enough to have migrated my account. It's worrying tho that I tried to login in at minecraft.net and got a access error trying to reach the login page.
17:00 pm? So, 5:00 the next day?
You have an entire lifetime to drop that shit and play Minetest instead but i wouldn't wait too much
Man, I’d prefer to have this account on my Xbox account but it won’t let me migrate since I have a different Minecraft account there already. Wish it would just let me throw that one away and link this one in.
You will have to request Minecraft Support to delete that existing Java Edition profile from your Microsoft account. Once they do so, you can migrate your Java Edition profile to it. I'm assuming their support's pretty hammered right now, so I'm not sure if they will get back to you in time.
The easiest thing to do would be to choose a different Microsoft account to complete the migration, despite the inconvenience it might cause later on.
Migrate it to your child's/spouse's Microsoft account if you have one. If you're feeling extremely generous, migrate to a friend's Microsoft account. You can then swap usernames between the accounts at a later date.
redacted
It's been ten years. This is not at all unreasonable.
Permanently Deleted
Of course it is. I bought a product I can no longer use without signing away privacy after the fact. Not that I've played Minecraft in the last 10 years but still.
It's a shame Minecraft got bought and put on the windows store and mobile. For a while there kids actually learned what java was and had to move files around to install mods and skins. Now they're all computer illiterate again.