WEBVTT

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In 2020, Mojang made an announcement

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that they were going to migrate all

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Mojang/Legacy Java Edition

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Minecraft accounts to Microsoft accounts

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And you had to do it whether

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you liked it or not

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So, what did I do?

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Well, I just didn't

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That's right, for the sake of science

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I intentionally didn't migrate

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one of my Mojang accounts

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with the goal to document

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exactly what would happen to that account

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and see if there was any possible way

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I could recover it afterwards

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This video is over 3 years in the making

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and I'm finally ready to share my results

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(Introduction Music)

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You heard that right

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I bought a new Mojang account

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just to sacrifice it to the Microsoft

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overlords

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So, let's set the timeline here

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On September 2014

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when Microsoft bought Mojang

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for $2.5 billion dollars

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For the next six years,

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Microsoft would pretty much mostly

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keep their hands off Java edition

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That was until October 21, 2020

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Just as we thought we were in the clear

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from Microsoft's wrath

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the official announcement was made

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about merging Mojang accounts

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to Microsoft accounts

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Now, after this announcement

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there was a period where users

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were still able to create

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new Mojang accounts

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So, three days later

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That's exactly what I did

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And with this email

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of my receipts sent to me

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on October 24th, 2020

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my experiment officially began

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For the first few months

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really nothing happened at all

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I occasionally logged in

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and played Minecraft normally

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with my Mojang account

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But when December, 2020

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rolled around

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all new Minecraft account purchases

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started to be Microsoft accounts

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That's when I knew that they were serious

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about this whole Microsoft account thing

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But existing Mojang accounts

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were not able to migrate yet

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From the start,

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Mojang said that Microsoft account

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migration would begin in

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early 2021

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But March 31st, 2021

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came and went

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and still no migration

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3 months later in early June,

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still players were not able to migrate

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I thought for a bit

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that I was in the clear

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As I had quite the hesitation

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to migrating my Mojang accounts

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to Microsoft

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They're a big company that

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collects a lot of user data

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and had a terms of service

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that was vastly different

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from the Minecraft EULA

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Essentially meaning,

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we had to agree to both

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I felt like this was kind of

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a sneaky move on their part

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to gain more legal control

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over Minecraft accounts

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without having to announce

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a huge change

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to the Minecraft EULA

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And not surprisingly,

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people didn't take much notice to this

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But as June progressed,

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Migration was finally opened

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to select accounts

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and would slowly keep expanding

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to others over the next few months

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Until, eventually, all Mojang accounts

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were available to migrate

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Many months later,

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on February 18th, 2022

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I received my first actual email

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from Mojang about account migration

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They said, starting on March 10

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users would no longer be able

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to log into Minecraft

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with their Mojang accounts

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but that day came and went

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And because I was using

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the old Minecraft launcher

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that didn't have auto-updating

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or have insane amounts of

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bloats or eye candy

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I was still able to log in

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with my Mojang accounts

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and play on Minecraft servers

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all the way until August 2022

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when Mojang stopped allowing

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unmigrated accounts

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to authenticate when

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joining Minecraft servers

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This was the turning point

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when I was pretty much forced

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to migrate all of my other

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Minecraft accounts

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except for this one

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So, from here on out

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this account was essentially unusable

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Then starting on September 1st,

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and continuing over the course

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of 8 months

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I got three more reminder emails

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that were identical to the last one

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Then on May 17th, 2023,

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I received another email

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announcing the last day to migrate

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was on September 19, 2023

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That marked the official deadline

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to where I would not be able to

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migrate my accounts after that date

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Just 9 days before the final day

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I got one final email reminder

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saying it was time to migrate

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Nope, not gonna happen

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The day has come

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migrations to Microsoft accounts

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have officially ended

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Except suprisingly,

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Mojang very graciously

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gave us hold outs

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90 extra days

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to give us new copies of Minecraft

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Now, this was a turning point for me

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Do I take the offer?

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or be a complete idiot and keep

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the experiment going

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What do you think I chose?

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Not only did I completely ignore

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migrating my account

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but I also missed the time period

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to claim a new Minecraft account

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but I'm not going to end this experiment

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so soon

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I wanted to see if it was

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still possible after all of this

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to somehow get my account back

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or at least get a new copy of the game

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So I decided to contact Minecraft support

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making sure to include my order

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and transaction ID

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to see if they'd be able to restore my

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account at this point

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And, of course,

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I instantly received an automated response

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saying that any support tickets

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after September 19, 2023

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regarding migration

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would go ignored

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Crap

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Now this has to be the end, right?

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Not so fast

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You see, in the Minecraft EULA

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is a section covering

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binding arbitration

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Which only shows up

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in the Nintendo Switch URL

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for some reason

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Basically, it's something

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that lots of big companies

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in the U.S. put in

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their End Users Contracts

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that forces users to

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settle disputes out of court

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with their arbitrators

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instead of you suing them

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But unfortunately, arbitration

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usually costs money

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Way more than the $26.95

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I paid for this Minecraft account

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So, that's where this paragraph

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comes into play

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I have the option to mail

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a Notice of Dispute

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to Microsoft

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All I have to do

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is tell them what the problem is

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and what I want

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Sounds simple enough

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So I wrote a brief message

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and gave them three options

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Let me migrate my account,

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give me a new Minecraft account

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free of charge,

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or refund my $26.95

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I originally paid for it

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I also included a copy

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of my original receipt

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for good measure

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Now, it was off to the post office

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I got an email response

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from Microsoft

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Did I do it?

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Did I find the secret way

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to get my account back?

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Of course not

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Just another cookie cutter

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cooperate response

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telling me that the migration period

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had ended

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and just to put the cherry on top,

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they said, we invite you

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to acquire Minecraft

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through a Microsoft account

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to continue enjoying the game

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Acquire Minecraft

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you say

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Why don't you just say,

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"Sorry, dummy

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you have to buy the game again"

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Even though I already completely

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paid for this game

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just over three years ago

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I guess the term, "Buy",

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literally doesn't mean anything

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anymore if companies

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can just get away with

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taking your purchased items away

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simply because of inactivity

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I was obviously not happy

00:07:13.559 --> 00:07:14.710
with this response

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So, as a last ditch effort

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I sent a Better Business Bureau

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complaint

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Which Microsoft also responded to

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even referring to the notice

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of dispute I sent earlier

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and just copied and pasted

00:07:27.540 --> 00:07:28.684
the original response

00:07:28.684 --> 00:07:29.384
in this letter

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So, I ended up writing

00:07:30.942 --> 00:07:32.048
this response to that

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You can pause if you want

00:07:33.348 --> 00:07:34.469
to read my whole rant

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But unfortunately,

00:07:35.386 --> 00:07:36.883
after I sent that,

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I never got any response back

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from Microsoft

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So what did I learn

00:07:41.117 --> 00:07:43.070
from intentionally not migrating

00:07:43.070 --> 00:07:43.870
my account?

00:07:43.870 --> 00:07:44.933
Well, we now know

00:07:44.933 --> 00:07:46.867
that Microsoft was pretty serious

00:07:46.867 --> 00:07:48.272
and literally took my

00:07:48.272 --> 00:07:50.382
paid copy of Minecraft away

00:07:50.382 --> 00:07:51.717
Now, in my opinion

00:07:51.717 --> 00:07:53.608
I feel that this whole forced

00:07:53.608 --> 00:07:54.613
migration thing

00:07:54.613 --> 00:07:56.673
was a pretty crappy move

00:07:56.673 --> 00:07:58.120
Nobody deserves to have

00:07:58.120 --> 00:07:59.227
something they paid for

00:07:59.227 --> 00:08:00.991
and expected to keep

00:08:00.991 --> 00:08:02.406
be taken away from them

00:08:02.406 --> 00:08:03.121
like this

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I'm pretty sure there are

00:08:04.415 --> 00:08:06.402
thousands, possibly hundreds

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of thousands

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of Minecraft accounts

00:08:08.102 --> 00:08:09.817
that just never got migrated

00:08:09.817 --> 00:08:11.597
that are now lost forever

00:08:11.597 --> 00:08:12.967
Just reading the most recent

00:08:12.967 --> 00:08:14.637
comments of the original migration

00:08:14.637 --> 00:08:15.517
announcement video

00:08:15.517 --> 00:08:17.182
shows other users frustrations

00:08:17.182 --> 00:08:18.789
with the exact same issue

00:08:18.789 --> 00:08:20.020
Now I know some of you

00:08:20.020 --> 00:08:21.230
might say in the comments

00:08:21.230 --> 00:08:22.903
they had three years to migrate

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Sucks for them

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But let me just remind

00:08:25.417 --> 00:08:26.127
you all that

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life happens

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maybe you just weren't

00:08:28.352 --> 00:08:29.579
interested in Minecraft

00:08:29.579 --> 00:08:30.517
for three years

00:08:30.517 --> 00:08:31.998
But later decided to

00:08:31.998 --> 00:08:32.837
get back into it

00:08:32.837 --> 00:08:34.304
only to realize

00:08:34.304 --> 00:08:36.010
that your account was deleted

00:08:36.010 --> 00:08:37.512
Forcing old players to

00:08:37.512 --> 00:08:38.557
re-buy the game

00:08:38.557 --> 00:08:39.981
for no reason other

00:08:39.981 --> 00:08:42.330
than, "Sorry, you have to"

00:08:42.330 --> 00:08:44.638
is kind of an anti-consumer

00:08:44.638 --> 00:08:45.509
move

00:08:45.509 --> 00:08:46.662
In comparison,

00:08:46.662 --> 00:08:47.803
look at Google

00:08:47.803 --> 00:08:48.803
They're a big company

00:08:48.803 --> 00:08:49.933
that everyone loves to

00:08:49.933 --> 00:08:50.695
hate on

00:08:50.695 --> 00:08:51.931
But let me tell you this

00:08:51.931 --> 00:08:53.377
Google bought YouTube

00:08:53.377 --> 00:08:54.418
in 2006

00:08:54.418 --> 00:08:56.735
for $1.65 billion dollars

00:08:56.735 --> 00:08:58.081
Shortly after,

00:08:58.081 --> 00:08:59.711
old YouTube accounts were

00:08:59.711 --> 00:09:01.207
migrated to Google accounts

00:09:01.207 --> 00:09:03.548
Now seventeen years later,

00:09:03.548 --> 00:09:05.697
if you for some reason

00:09:05.697 --> 00:09:07.985
still have a legacy YouTube account,

00:09:07.985 --> 00:09:10.642
Google, still to this day,

00:09:10.642 --> 00:09:12.479
allows you to migrate it

00:09:12.479 --> 00:09:13.925
to a Google account

00:09:13.925 --> 00:09:15.267
and keep in mind,

00:09:15.267 --> 00:09:18.060
YouTube is a free service

00:09:18.060 --> 00:09:20.222
I feel that it's perfectly reasonable

00:09:20.222 --> 00:09:21.576
to expect Microsoft

00:09:21.576 --> 00:09:22.834
at minimum

00:09:22.834 --> 00:09:24.131
to credit users with a

00:09:24.131 --> 00:09:25.558
new Minecraft account

00:09:25.558 --> 00:09:27.502
if they missed the migration period

00:09:27.502 --> 00:09:29.452
Especially, if they have the original

00:09:29.452 --> 00:09:31.348
receipt with the transaction ID

00:09:31.348 --> 00:09:33.142
I hope Microsoft reconsiders

00:09:33.142 --> 00:09:34.392
their decision to lock out

00:09:34.392 --> 00:09:35.329
users like that

00:09:35.329 --> 00:09:37.348
even when they have undeniable proof

00:09:37.348 --> 00:09:38.636
of account ownership

00:09:39.026 --> 00:09:40.435
Anyways, that's the end

00:09:40.435 --> 00:09:42.308
of this crazy and admittedly

00:09:42.308 --> 00:09:43.903
stupid experiment

00:09:43.903 --> 00:09:45.233
Now that I have the rest

00:09:45.233 --> 00:09:46.508
of my accounts migrated

00:09:46.508 --> 00:09:48.437
maybe now I can safely

00:09:48.437 --> 00:09:50.372
ghost this game for awhile