WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.475
In 2020, Mojang made an announcement

00:00:02.475 --> 00:00:04.155
that they were going to migrate all

00:00:04.155 --> 00:00:06.357
Mojang/Legacy Java Edition

00:00:06.357 --> 00:00:08.852
Minecraft accounts to Microsoft accounts

00:00:08.852 --> 00:00:10.487
And you had to do it whether

00:00:10.487 --> 00:00:11.397
you liked it or not

00:00:11.482 --> 00:00:12.863
So, what did I do?

00:00:12.863 --> 00:00:15.376
Well, I just didn't

00:00:15.376 --> 00:00:17.931
That's right, for the sake of science

00:00:17.931 --> 00:00:19.962
I intentionally didn't migrate

00:00:19.962 --> 00:00:21.339
one of my Mojang accounts

00:00:21.339 --> 00:00:23.209
with the goal to document

00:00:23.209 --> 00:00:25.170
exactly what would happen to that account

00:00:25.170 --> 00:00:27.430
and see if there was any possible way

00:00:27.430 --> 00:00:29.154
I could recover it afterwards

00:00:29.154 --> 00:00:31.838
This video is over 3 years in the making

00:00:31.838 --> 00:00:34.615
and I'm finally ready to share my results

00:00:34.615 --> 00:00:38.615
(Introduction Music)

00:00:38.615 --> 00:00:39.762
You heard that right

00:00:39.762 --> 00:00:41.532
I bought a new Mojang account

00:00:41.532 --> 00:00:43.871
just to sacrifice it to the Microsoft

00:00:43.871 --> 00:00:44.920
overlords

00:00:44.920 --> 00:00:46.611
So, let's set the timeline here

00:00:46.611 --> 00:00:48.607
On September 2014

00:00:48.607 --> 00:00:50.524
when Microsoft bought Mojang

00:00:50.524 --> 00:00:52.964
for $2.5 billion dollars

00:00:52.964 --> 00:00:54.465
For the next six years,

00:00:54.465 --> 00:00:57.288
Microsoft would pretty much mostly

00:00:57.288 --> 00:00:59.752
keep their hands off Java edition

00:00:59.752 --> 00:01:03.484
That was until October 21, 2020

00:01:03.484 --> 00:01:05.344
Just as we thought we were in the clear

00:01:05.344 --> 00:01:06.596
from Microsoft's wrath

00:01:06.596 --> 00:01:08.811
the official announcement was made

00:01:08.811 --> 00:01:10.496
about merging Mojang accounts

00:01:10.496 --> 00:01:12.061
to Microsoft accounts

00:01:12.061 --> 00:01:13.623
Now, after this announcement

00:01:13.623 --> 00:01:15.399
there was a period where users

00:01:15.399 --> 00:01:16.821
were still able to create

00:01:16.821 --> 00:01:18.327
new Mojang accounts

00:01:18.327 --> 00:01:19.832
So, three days later

00:01:19.832 --> 00:01:21.788
That's exactly what I did

00:01:21.788 --> 00:01:23.182
And with this email

00:01:23.182 --> 00:01:24.570
of my receipts sent to me

00:01:24.570 --> 00:01:26.727
on October 24th, 2020

00:01:26.727 --> 00:01:29.511
my experiment officially began

00:01:29.511 --> 00:01:30.830
For the first few months

00:01:30.830 --> 00:01:32.450
really nothing happened at all

00:01:32.450 --> 00:01:33.852
I occasionally logged in

00:01:33.852 --> 00:01:35.859
and played Minecraft normally

00:01:35.859 --> 00:01:36.933
with my Mojang account

00:01:36.933 --> 00:01:38.760
But when December, 2020

00:01:38.760 --> 00:01:39.461
rolled around

00:01:39.461 --> 00:01:41.760
all new Minecraft account purchases

00:01:41.760 --> 00:01:44.060
started to be Microsoft accounts

00:01:44.060 --> 00:01:46.156
That's when I knew that they were serious

00:01:46.156 --> 00:01:48.460
about this whole Microsoft account thing

00:01:48.460 --> 00:01:50.071
But existing Mojang accounts

00:01:50.071 --> 00:01:52.546
were not able to migrate yet

00:01:52.546 --> 00:01:53.423
From the start,

00:01:53.423 --> 00:01:55.379
Mojang said that Microsoft account

00:01:55.379 --> 00:01:56.647
migration would begin in

00:01:56.647 --> 00:01:58.109
early 2021

00:01:58.109 --> 00:02:00.491
But March 31st, 2021

00:02:00.491 --> 00:02:02.142
came and went

00:02:02.142 --> 00:02:04.001
and still no migration

00:02:04.001 --> 00:02:06.051
3 months later in early June,

00:02:06.051 --> 00:02:08.980
still players were not able to migrate

00:02:08.980 --> 00:02:10.027
I thought for a bit

00:02:10.027 --> 00:02:11.295
that I was in the clear

00:02:11.295 --> 00:02:13.049
As I had quite the hesitation

00:02:13.049 --> 00:02:14.615
to migrating my Mojang accounts

00:02:14.615 --> 00:02:15.586
to Microsoft

00:02:15.586 --> 00:02:16.928
They're a big company that

00:02:16.928 --> 00:02:18.388
collects a lot of user data

00:02:18.388 --> 00:02:19.703
and had a terms of service

00:02:19.703 --> 00:02:21.026
that was vastly different

00:02:21.026 --> 00:02:22.579
from the Minecraft EULA

00:02:22.579 --> 00:02:23.719
Essentially meaning,

00:02:23.719 --> 00:02:25.261
we had to agree to both

00:02:25.261 --> 00:02:26.796
I felt like this was kind of

00:02:26.796 --> 00:02:28.324
a sneaky move on their part

00:02:28.324 --> 00:02:30.066
to gain more legal control

00:02:30.066 --> 00:02:31.188
over Minecraft accounts

00:02:31.188 --> 00:02:32.515
without having to announce

00:02:32.515 --> 00:02:33.791
a huge change

00:02:33.791 --> 00:02:35.543
to the Minecraft EULA

00:02:35.543 --> 00:02:36.736
And not surprisingly,

00:02:36.736 --> 00:02:39.125
people didn't take much notice to this

00:02:39.125 --> 00:02:40.615
But as June progressed,

00:02:40.615 --> 00:02:42.512
Migration was finally opened

00:02:42.512 --> 00:02:43.793
to select accounts

00:02:43.793 --> 00:02:45.697
and would slowly keep expanding

00:02:45.697 --> 00:02:47.454
to others over the next few months

00:02:47.454 --> 00:02:50.148
Until, eventually, all Mojang accounts

00:02:50.148 --> 00:02:51.483
were available to migrate

00:02:51.483 --> 00:02:52.743
Many months later,

00:02:52.743 --> 00:02:54.541
on February 18th, 2022

00:02:54.541 --> 00:02:56.753
I received my first actual email

00:02:56.753 --> 00:02:58.805
from Mojang about account migration

00:02:58.805 --> 00:03:01.054
They said, starting on March 10

00:03:01.054 --> 00:03:02.974
users would no longer be able

00:03:02.974 --> 00:03:03.984
to log into Minecraft

00:03:03.984 --> 00:03:05.234
with their Mojang accounts

00:03:05.234 --> 00:03:07.642
but that day came and went

00:03:07.642 --> 00:03:08.817
And because I was using

00:03:08.817 --> 00:03:10.186
the old Minecraft launcher

00:03:10.186 --> 00:03:11.710
that didn't have auto-updating

00:03:11.710 --> 00:03:13.191
or have insane amounts of

00:03:13.191 --> 00:03:14.788
bloats or eye candy

00:03:14.788 --> 00:03:16.374
I was still able to log in

00:03:16.374 --> 00:03:17.599
with my Mojang accounts

00:03:17.599 --> 00:03:19.696
and play on Minecraft servers

00:03:19.696 --> 00:03:22.423
all the way until August 2022

00:03:22.423 --> 00:03:24.198
when Mojang stopped allowing

00:03:24.198 --> 00:03:25.458
unmigrated accounts

00:03:25.458 --> 00:03:26.569
to authenticate when

00:03:26.569 --> 00:03:28.008
joining Minecraft servers

00:03:28.008 --> 00:03:29.269
This was the turning point

00:03:29.269 --> 00:03:30.895
when I was pretty much forced

00:03:30.895 --> 00:03:32.459
to migrate all of my other

00:03:32.459 --> 00:03:33.692
Minecraft accounts

00:03:33.692 --> 00:03:35.315
except for this one

00:03:35.315 --> 00:03:36.603
So, from here on out

00:03:36.603 --> 00:03:39.030
this account was essentially unusable

00:03:39.030 --> 00:03:40.990
Then starting on September 1st,

00:03:40.990 --> 00:03:42.566
and continuing over the course

00:03:42.566 --> 00:03:43.481
of 8 months

00:03:43.481 --> 00:03:45.891
I got three more reminder emails

00:03:45.891 --> 00:03:47.754
that were identical to the last one

00:03:47.754 --> 00:03:51.012
Then on May 17th, 2023,

00:03:51.012 --> 00:03:52.837
I received another email

00:03:52.837 --> 00:03:55.455
announcing the last day to migrate

00:03:55.455 --> 00:03:58.699
was on September 19, 2023

00:03:58.699 --> 00:04:00.946
That marked the official deadline

00:04:00.946 --> 00:04:02.585
to where I would not be able to

00:04:02.585 --> 00:04:04.986
migrate my accounts after that date

00:04:04.986 --> 00:04:07.539
Just 9 days before the final day

00:04:07.539 --> 00:04:09.922
I got one final email reminder

00:04:09.922 --> 00:04:11.801
saying it was time to migrate

00:04:11.801 --> 00:04:14.025
Nope, not gonna happen

00:04:16.867 --> 00:04:18.343
The day has come

00:04:18.343 --> 00:04:20.640
migrations to Microsoft accounts

00:04:20.640 --> 00:04:22.507
have officially ended

00:04:22.507 --> 00:04:23.806
Except suprisingly,

00:04:23.806 --> 00:04:25.961
Mojang very graciously

00:04:25.961 --> 00:04:27.610
gave us hold outs

00:04:27.610 --> 00:04:29.040
90 extra days

00:04:29.040 --> 00:04:31.473
to give us new copies of Minecraft

00:04:31.473 --> 00:04:33.810
Now, this was a turning point for me