[HN Gopher] Microsoft banned me from playing Minecraft until I p...
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Microsoft banned me from playing Minecraft until I provide personal
info
Author : vkoskiv
Score : 28 points
Date : 2022-07-18 19:56 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (twitter.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
| vkoskiv wrote:
| Curious to hear the HN take on this. Some people I talked to
| seemed to think this is a small hill to die on. Am I just weird
| that I find this uncomfortable? The stated purpose is spam
| prevention, but CAPTCHA exists for that purpose. I'd be more than
| happy to fill out a CAPTCHA.
|
| I've been happily playing Minecraft for 12 years now, and I've
| gotten more than my money's worth out of that game. If my
| insistence on privacy means that I can't play it anymore, then
| perhaps that is a price I'm willing to pay. :(
| norwalkbear wrote:
| Minecraft is not a hard game to clone and even make better.
| bravetraveler wrote:
| I'm with you. Even if it's an over-exaggerated response to
| something truly honest, I still support the sentiment. It's the
| inevitable response to the frog [us] being boiled to where we
| have no trust
|
| With that said, I see this as thinly veiled data collection
| under the guise of spam prevention. There are perfectly capable
| methods that respect privacy as you mentioned. They chose to
| have a mountain of data as a responsibility instead
|
| I really wish the industry acted more like we do where we have
| to (eg: HIPAA) -- if you don't need it, don't collect it.
| nathanaldensr wrote:
| I've been playing Minecraft with my kids since very early on.
| It's now banned in my house. The heavy-handed approach from
| Microsoft, including essentially making the game unplayable
| after I already purchased it _multiple times_ (four to be
| precise), is a bridge too far. I do not believe in "renting"
| games; if I purchase something, it's mine. If I don't take a
| stand _somewhere_ then someday I will "own nothing," and that
| ain't happening. We'll proceed with other games like console
| emulators, Stardew Valley, Terraria, etc.
| cinntaile wrote:
| Do you use Netflix or a similar service? If yes, what's the
| difference?
| ziddoap wrote:
| I don't think it is very difficult to understand the
| difference.
|
| In the Netflix scenario, you know that you are purchasing a
| subscription service that lets you access content
| owned/distributed/licensed by Netflix. They aren't
| advertising that you can _own_ Stranger Things, for
| example. They advertise that you can _watch_ Stranger
| Things on-demand. I don 't know of anyone who has purchased
| a Netflix subscription and thought that they _own_ copies
| of everything on Netflix.
|
| In the game scenario, you believe that you are purchasing
| the game. That's how they market it. The expectation is
| that once you've made that transaction, you now own that
| copy of that game to do with as you more or less please.
| Play it offline, run a local server, put it away and pick
| it up 10 years from now and still be able to play it, etc.
|
| It's increasingly apparent that in many cases, even when
| you buy something from a game store (MS, Sony, etc.) that
| you aren't actually purchasing _the game_ , you're
| purchasing the rights to access it through a particular
| service. But that's _not_ how the advertise it. And no, I
| don 't think burying this fact behind a few thousand words
| of legalese is really addressing the issue at all.
|
| If you don't understand why that distinction might upset
| people, I don't know what to say.
| daviddever23box wrote:
| You can continue to play the game, up to a given version,
| provided that you do not upgrade the launcher during that
| period of time to a version that requires that you
| provide personal data. You are not entitled to subsequent
| updates or upgrades.
| alpaca128 wrote:
| You are forced to update the launcher and game if you
| reinstall the OS or get a new computer, and most likely
| it'll just auto-update without asking. There is no way to
| download or archive old versions.
|
| > You are not entitled to subsequent updates or upgrades.
|
| Then those should be truly optional and the store page
| should visibly state this limitation while keeping the
| purchased version accessible.
| cwillu wrote:
| Worth noting that when I purchased minecraft back in
| 2011, the store page did in fact (according to
| archive.org) say:
|
| "When you purchase Minecraft you do so as is, be it in
| the early stages of development or already fully
| released. Subsequent updates are only an added bonus and
| not a guarantee, as icing on a cake. Purchases during the
| development of the game are discounted and include the
| full game upon release."
|
| and
|
| "When you purchase a game from us, you fill in your
| personal/company details. You agree that we store and use
| your information in our organization to complete the
| agreement towards you. You have the right, according to
| the law Personuppgiftslagen (PUL) in Sweden to know about
| the information registered about you. If it is wrong,
| insufficient or irrelevant you have the right to make
| sure that it gets corrected or removed."
|
| But the rest of your comment stands.
| daviddever23box wrote:
| I keep copies of any downloadable installer I use for
| this very reason, as it's always possible that you'll
| wish later that you'd kept that n-1th version.
| alpaca128 wrote:
| Netflix doesn't have a "purchase" button under every
| movie/series.
|
| Buying games like Minecraft has always been marketed and
| communicated as a purchase, just like you'd permanently buy
| a physical product. Now publishers are slowly attempting to
| effectively steal or lock away those products after we paid
| for them. Those two things in combination are not okay,
| publishers should either be honest or keep their word.
| daviddever23box wrote:
| ...or not get acquired.
| alpaca128 wrote:
| A purchase is a purchase. Whether I buy a TV or a game,
| nobody should be able to take away access after I paid
| for it. Otherwise write "rent" on the button and clearly
| state that I might lose access at any time if the
| publisher feels like it.
| silisili wrote:
| > Some people I talked to seemed to think this is a small hill
| to die on
|
| This phrase always rubs me the wrong way, this thinking is how
| our freedoms slowly slip away.
|
| I've been told the same about the TSA, people checking
| receipts, avoiding most social media, etc etc. It's maddening
| that so many people are blah about things that they probably
| shouldn't be, and then further try make others feel bad for
| standing up for what's right.
|
| In short, no you aren't weird - everyone else is. Doing what
| you believe in is noble. But that's coming from another weirdo
| :).
| daviddever23box wrote:
| After multiple attempts from third parties to co-opt my kids'
| accounts (and the resulting multi-factor authentication efforts
| required to take them back), I'd happily take the Microsoft-
| account path than the Mojang approach.
|
| Small hill? Yes, life's too short.
|
| Also, surveillance-state concerns aside, personal info is one way
| to keep child predators aware of the fact that their actions can
| be traced back to a real person.
| ls15 wrote:
| > personal info is one way to keep child predators aware of the
| fact that their actions can be traced back to a real person.
|
| And in case of a data leak, all the (anonymous) predators know
| which players are children and where they live.
| daviddever23box wrote:
| They can get that from census data. Thank you for playing.
| discretion22 wrote:
| You're really going there?
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_of_the_children
| daviddever23box wrote:
| You're going there? It has less to do with them than me
| having to take the time to address an issue that should never
| have existed in the first place.
| tzs wrote:
| Are you implying that everything done in the name of
| protecting children is always a Helen Lovejoy kind of
| overreaction?
| lacker wrote:
| They should give you a refund if you don't want to provide
| personal information and you didn't agree to this up front, but
| at the same time, I do want Minecraft to police its userbase
| pretty actively, because my kids use it and they are not
| sophisticated about things like phishing attacks. Roblox is far
| more unsupervised and anecdotally it's far easier to stumble into
| kid-inappropriate things on Roblox.
|
| Captcha just isn't as good, spammers and other bad actors can get
| captchas done at scale a lot cheaper than they can acquire burner
| phone numbers.
| gmemstr wrote:
| _Is it_ up to Mojang/Microsoft to police this? Most multiplayer
| activity takes place on third party servers (I'm pretty sure
| this is the case for their Bedrock edition as well as Java
| edition), which have their own teams of moderators and
| administrators, or are small and private. Not quite sure how
| phishing etc. plays into this.
| antonymy wrote:
| I paid for my Minecraft account a long time ago, over a decade,
| and I've generally felt like it was money well spent. I've got a
| lot of hours of enjoyment out of Minecraft and I was glad to
| support the developer. The fact this purchase was honored for so
| long across changes in ownership and account migrations also made
| me feel good about the purchase. Now though, I'm not feeling like
| having a paid account is a good value. It's just subjecting me to
| ever more levels of control by Microsoft that pirates don't have
| to put up with.
| norwalkbear wrote:
| Embrace, extend, extinguish.
|
| I truly hate Microsoft.
| Koshkin wrote:
| In Soviet Russia, Microsoft hates _you_! Oh, wait...
| cwillu wrote:
| The text purchase screen that was displayed to me when I bought
| minecraft back in 2011, in case anyone cares:
| Purchase now! When Minecraft is finished, it will sell
| for EUR20.00. If you pre-purchase now during beta, you
| pay just EUR14.95! Please note that when you buy the
| game, you're paying for the game as it is right now! You
| will also get the full version of Minecraft when it is released.
| Read the copyright information for more information on your
| purchase. Please log in or register to pre purchase.
| (Click here to buy the game for someone other than yourself)
| Here's what you get: .* You get early access to the game
| to a discounted price! .* You help fund the development
| of Minecraft .* Custom skins in multiplayer .*
| Once you've bought the game, it's yours. No DRM.
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(page generated 2022-07-18 23:02 UTC)