Minecraft

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Minecraft

Basic Information
Release Year	2011
Product Type	Video Games
In Production	Yes
Official Website	https://www.minecraft.net/en-us

Minecraft is a 2011 multiplayer sandbox game made by Mojang Studios. Once acquired by Microsoft, the game began to harvest telemetry data, force users to comply with an ever shifting EULA to keep access to the paid game, and hide various clauses in the EULA from the public.

Consumer impact summary

Overview of concerns that arise from the conduct towards users of the product (if applicable):

• User Freedom
• User Privacy
• Business Model
• Market Control

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Under Microsoft's ownership, Minecraft has undergone multiple anti-consumer changes in order to acquire more user data and utilizing undisclosed and an ever changing EULA terms to censor user-generated content. These practices are especially concerning since a significant amount of Minecraft players are children.

Incidents

This is a list of all consumer protection incidents related to this product. Any incidents not mentioned here can be found in the Minecraft category.

Minecraft account migration

Main article: Minecraft account migration

On October 21st, 2020, Mojang announced that all Minecraft Java Edition users must migrate their Mojang accounts to Microsoft accounts to retain access to the game. On December 18th, 2023, consumers who did not do so lost access and needed to re-purchase the game to regain it. Any game progress, including purchased first and third party in-game items were lost.

Minecraft post-purchase ownership rights changes

Main article: Minecraft post-purchase ownership rights changes

Short summary of the incident (could be the same as the summary preceding the article).

Minecraft enforceing undisclosed server EULA terms

Main article: Minecraft enforceing undisclosed server EULA terms

Minecraft began taking action against mod developers and servers in 2023 for using firearms, which was deemed 'adult' by their EULA. When asked for clarification of the changes made to their EULA, Mojang gave little response, and eventually pointed them to a new EULA which had been changed without either informing consumers about the change or asking for permission to change the contract. This information was available only internally, and was later revealed by whistleblowers, since the documents holding the internal changes to their EULA was held under NDA.

In addition they selectively ignore their own EULA rules on "gambling" (loot boxes and literally gambling) servers, and even made contract with Nerf to create Minecraft inspired weapons and in game items, while still refusing to allow weapon mods.

Shutting down of community-run Minecraft servers by Mojang

Main article: Shutting down of community-run Minecraft servers by Mojang

For the past 5-8 years, Mojang have enforced countless server shutdowns citing violations of the Minecraft End User License Agreement (EULA). However, said enforcements have been unfairly biased against operators of smaller Minecraft Java Edition servers, abusing vague and often inaccessible community guidelines to shut down these servers.

An example of this occurred in late 2024 involving the Minecraft server 'McWar', wherein Mojang contacted the developer of the server to shut it down.

Minecraft Beta pre-1.8's lack of authentication

Main article: Minecraft Beta pre-1.8's lack of authentication

In version Beta 1.8, Mojang has changed the endpoint used for authentication on Minecraft servers from "www.minecraft.net" to "session.minecraft.net". Unknown amount of time later the original endpoint used for the authentication was shut down, breaking authentication support for several old Minecraft versions, despite no actual changes in the behavior of the endpoint. The latter endpoint still works, despite being insecure (supports HTTP requests, with token being within the URL parameters) - this means that the shutdown is likely not a security concern.

Lack of authentication has caused several Minecraft servers to:

• lose part of the playerbase due to a need of modding the game client (and server) to fix the authentication issue,
• become completely insecure by allowing non-premium Minecraft users to join (e.g. opens the risk of botting the server, or brute-forcing user login passwords),
• break the EULA of the game due to allowing non-premium Minecraft users to join their server.

See also

• Microsoft
• Mojang