Minecraft Issues Last Call To Complete This Task Or Be Booted From Game
That last point is one reason why the most enthusiastic Minecraft players are still playing on the Java version of the game, but another reason is that it didn't require the use of a Microsoft account. You see, the Bedrock Edition is a Windows Store app, and thus it requires sign-in with a Microsoft account to play.
Well, Microsoft has actually been trying to shepherd Java Edition players over to Microsoft accounts since 2021. It's been an ongoing campaign, and holdouts like your author here have stubbornly refused to migrate since logging in with our existing Mojang accounts works just fine and doesn't associate our play data with a sprawling online presence.
Unfortunately, folks who want to keep playing the legitimate version of Minecraft Java Edition won't have a choice before long. The game's developer just announced the "last call" to migrate Mojang accounts over to Microsoft accounts. What this means is that they've finally decided when to pull the plug on unmigrated accounts: September 19th, 2023.
After that date, you won't be able to login to Minecraft Java with your Mojang account credentials. You'll have to migrate to a Microsoft account, and hopefully it goes well, because the company also says that support staff won't be able to help with migration issues after September 5th—two weeks before the deadline.
If you've held off on migrating simply out of inertia or laziness, you can rest assured that all of your account data will be preserved. That includes your username, progress, any creations you have saved, and your skins. If you instead ardently oppose the conglomeration of all online services into a handful of privacy nightmares, you can always play on private servers that don't require authentication with Microsoft.
