Minecraft blocks all VPN users from playing their game

[greenclaydog 6]

It would seem that in an effort to shill for the Chinese Government, Mojang has decided to ban all users on VPN's from connecting to the login servers needed to access the game.

 

In doing so, they hope to force all Chinese players to fall back to the Chinese government approved version of Minecraft.

 

All VPN users should now be logged out when connecting and fed the message "Invalid username or password" 

 

When emailing Mojang about the issue, they recommend connecting without a VPN to fix the issue, and in one instance in the reddit thread below, a user was informed that their account was outright banned for using a VPN (However it is unknown if this was because of a previous infraction such as bypassing server bans etc.?) And told to use the Chinese version instead. 

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/Minecraft/comments/5vwve1/mojang_now_ban_accounts_for_vpn_usage/

 

Now i personally do not play Minecraft that much at all anymore, but because of this i cannot access my game simply for trying to protect my privacy, and I'm not even from China. I Refuse to remove the VPN connection simply to play a game, and no one else should have to either.

 

Sadly, i already purchased the game a very long time ago, so i cannot boycott them, but i can certainly spread the news of what they are doing, so that other VPN users looking to play the game should know either not to buy it, expect to disconnect if you do, and if you don't you will have to get the game through other means to retain the ability to play when connected to VPN's. 

[LZ1 662]

Hello!

 

Thank you for sharing. That's interesting. I wonder if they can be sued for, in a sense, stopping people from accessing something they bought in good faith. I can just imagine this is possible.

[greenclaydog 6]

Hello!

 

Thank you for sharing. That's interesting. I wonder if they can be sued for, in a sense, stopping people from accessing something they bought in good faith. I can just imagine this is possible.

Particularly considering nowhere can I find mentions in any of the games agreements or the agreements for the Mojang account explicitly forbidding the use or access via VPN.

[OpenSourcerer 1359]

It's not Mojang, it's Microsoft. Call it MojaSoft.

[garmiste 2]

I took a quick look at the EULA for Minecraft. It appears if you have the US version you agree to arbitration and basically sign away all rights to any kind of court action.

 

Having said that, I'm wanting to get an account for my child. I live in China and it seems like I can log into my Mojang account when my VPN is up, but I haven't tried to actually download anything.

 

Pardon my ignorance, but what is the advantage of using a VPN to log into Minecraft? I've done a few searches and here's what I sort of understand.

 

1) A VPN would allow you to download the normal version of Minecraft, as opposed to the Chinese version.

2) Using a VPN would also allow you to connect to some servers with a higher speed, depending on the location of the server.

 

Is there any other real advantage for using a VPN with Minecraft? Are some servers blocked by China? 

 

Thanks

[OpenSourcerer 1359]

Is there any other real advantage for using a VPN with Minecraft?

 

Same advantages as for any other website or service on the internet apply.