I tried to simply purchase some Minecraft thinggy for my kid and Microsoft sent me through what seemed to be a 70 step process of logging in, captcha, authenticating, verifying, logging in again, trying to buy, getting blocked, captcha, authenticating again, E-mail verification, online verification, blocked again, contacting support, authenticating, talking to their fraud team, re-logging in, captcha, authenticating, E-mail verification... All the while, the browser is redirecting between Microsoft and Xbox websites (I don't even fucking own an Xbox--this is on the PC).

Anything that touches a Microsoft account is fraught with horror and pain. Which is why the idea of requiring one in order to turn on your PC is ludicrous.

My original Minecraft account got lost in all these shenanigans as well.

Happened to many people. The system claims it's because of some suspicious activity but everybody who gave in to this blackmail and submitted personal details said that after logging in there was no notice of anything suspicious.

since this is a game it's probably mostly kids whose identifying information Microsoft is hunting for. I can't believe it's legal and the company was not sued yet

me I just pirate it now, never played on servers anyway.

I've had this happen with at least three accounts, the most recent one for the purpose of playing Grounded with a friend. IIRC, between registering and trying to log in, my account was flagged for suspicious activity and required a phone number.

> Microsoft stole my copy of Minecraft.

Microsoft stole two of my accounts.

I bought Minecraft in the alpha days when all you needed was a username and password. At some point they mandated an email in the years I wasn't playing and later found out I could no longer sign in.

I bought a new "copy" and lost it because I didn't migrate to a Microsoft account. I didn't migrate because I assumed it was just a scare tactic and I wasn't playing at the time anyway. When I later wanted to play they stopped allowing me to log in.

When I look at the top selling games[1] and see Minecraft in second place with 400 million, I wonder how many of those are the same people buying it again. I'm sure nobody bought Super Mario because it would stop letting them sign in to play offline.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_video_gam...

"Give us your phone number or we will hold your minecraft account ransom"

Same here