You'll need a Microsoft account to play Minecraft's Java version next year

Title You'll need a Microsoft account to play Minecraft's Java version next year
Author Nick Diamon
Posted in News
When October 22, 2020

Mojang and Microsoft have announced that all versions of Minecraft will require a Microsoft account login by early next year. That will include the popular "Java Edition" preferred by the PC modding community..

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Well, that’s bullshit. But it sounds like maybe they’re doing it automatically? I certainly couldn’t find anything to manually transition. Also apparently I do actually still have my Minecraft login even though I bought the game way back in like alpha or something and have never played it. So that’s good.

You can’t migrate yet. I’d assume the way this will work is that you’ll basically link the old Mojang account to either an existing Microsoft account, or to a new one that you create. So it can’t happen automatically. At a minimum you need to tell which MS account you want to associate with the Mojang account, and have that other account consent to it.

The alternative would be to do what they did with Skype accounts, which just got turned into MS accounts behind the scenes. But that’d mean people who already have e.g. an Xbox and Mojang account couldn’t use this as an opportunity to merge the accounts. It’d also mean they need to deal with username conflicts somehow.

Anyway, good for them, but it’s just surprising it’s taken this long. I work on the security part of identity systems, and it has huge economies of scale. Letting acquired startups continue running their own insecure and mostly unmaintained account systems for any longer than you have to is just crazy.

(It’s the same with Facebook and Oculus. I did grit my teeth a little bit at having to finally create a Facebook account after holding out for 15 years, just to activate the Quest 2. But it’s obviously the right thing to do just on an engineering level, and I don’t understand why it’s taken them six years to do it.)

Your right thing is why I’m never going to own an Oculus, so.

I had a Majong account some time ago. Then one day it stopped working and then I had to go and buy minecraft again, I think it was on a Microsoft site, but I do not remember.

Now do I need to do something again or my account will disappear again?

Mojang accounts were already migrated once 5+ years ago (can’t remember how long exactly) to move away from the old Minecraft beta account management. That didn’t necessitate buying the game again.

Now they are moving the account security into the MS family, will offer 2FA and manage new accounts in one place. It all makes sense and it’s likely to be a less than 5 minutes process.

It’s not like it’s going to keep migrating again and again. I’m sure we’ll manage.

Mine wasn’t migrated. Just one day, it wouldn’t log in. I knew my account name and password. I found no recourse but to buy it again.

The same thing happened to 2 other friends of mine.

It wasn’t automatic. It had to be done manually on the Minecraft.Net site. But it is indeed a bummer if yours fell through the cracks and never got the option.

That said, I think we can expect some professionalism and good emails / videos to guide users through the process in this migration. MS has the know how. Should be painless (famous last words).

My question was, in that this time, I do not have to do anything, right? My account is safe, correct?

You will have to manually migrate when MS sends instructions on how to do so. So you will have to do something.

Well, FUCK YOU MICROSOFT. I bough this game, and nowhere there where a condition to login or I would lose my account. Is not my problem if you guys change systems, I paid for the game, and I want to still use the game, forever. It was not a rent, it was bought.

I know our society are moving to “poor poeple own nothing”, but come on, this is a bit too soon!.

Erm… You already need to use your Minecraft login to play the game. All they are doing is switching the security provider to their own for better account security. It doesn’t change the fact having a valid login is already required. But yeah. Fuck Microsoft, I guess.

Thats okay- what is not okay is to delete the account if you don’ login

How about we wait until they send the instruction emails to see how much time they give you to make the transition? We’ll see then how much outrage is warranted?

Here is the MS layman version of the announcement:

But I have a infinite amount of ourage! I don’t have to save my outrage to a later date
Also you are saying that (or is how I read it) that if the time period to login is lax my outrage is less deserved - but I don’t agree on that

“We have terminated your account because you have not login enough” is not a message I accept - Is not acceptable to me- why I would? they can grandfather old accounts - They are making it my problem and not their problem

– I will check the video later on - can’t just now

Ha! Fair enough. :)