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.
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.
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.
The players still have their stuff and their user ID, just under a new login process. They've been pestering users to make this migration for years and years.
Edit: also, this is Java edition, meaning the worlds they built are just Minecraft save files that a new user could access. The cloud-based one was Bedrock Edition, that's the one where you'd have cloud-based worlds that you could lose if you lost your account.
What's getting destroyed? You wouldn't be able to login to the server but the data would still be there. Transfer the account (or make a new one) and the data's still there as well.
I'm more annoyed that Microsoft split off Java Edition and Bedrock into two pieces of incompatible software, but I'm honestly surprised they've supported the old auth services for this long.
I don’t see how you could possibly make Bedrock and Java compatible with each other seeing as the whole point of Java edition is compatibility with mods written in…Java…
The shitty thing to do would have been to tell mod users to fuck off and force everyone over to Bedrock. Instead they’ve done well by the community, maintaining Java edition and even giving it preferential treatment when it comes to updates. Bedrock is built for consoles, where mods are not a thing and performance is more important.
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.
You're welcome to take on the rewrite of our auth-service too, 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.