Minecraft is now 19+ in South Korea

Due to South Korea’s “Cinderella law” Minecraft has been turned into a 19+ game due to needing an Xbox Live account, The Korea Herald reports. 

While Minecraft continues to be recommended for ages 12 and up elsewhere, South Korean gamers are now unable to play Mojangs ever-popular building survival game, due to needing an Xbox Live account, which is restricted to people 19 years old, or older, in South Korea. 

This is due to 2011’s “Cinderella law,” which prohibits children from playing games between midnight and 6am. Rather than creating dedicated servers or a screening feature for Korea, at the time Microsoft instead chose to make users certify their age, and important that they’re 19 or older, via Xbox Live. 

Since Minecraft acquired Mojang Studios back in 2014, players have been able to access the game via their Mojang Studio’s accounts rather than their ones for Xbox Live, however, this wasn’t always to be the case. 

Last December, Microsoft decided that to play Minecraft, you’d indeed an Xbox Live account once more due to security issues, according to The Korea Herald. Players were asked to migrate their Mojang Studios accounts to Xbox Live, however, this didn’t account for Korean gamers who weren’t 19 or over. 

As a result, Minecraft has been made to be a 19+ game in South Korea now that the migration period has ended, much to the dismay of fans, who have previously been enjoying the game, and its recent updates, from a much younger age.

Thankfully it’s not all bad news, as speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, a Microsoft representative commented that “we’re working on a longer-term solution for existing and new players under the age of 19 in South Korea and will have more to share on this later this year.”