Ever since the original launch of the mega popular game Minecraft, players have been stuck with whatever username they chose upon first signing up. With the game now over five years old, this means some people have been stuck with the same name for a long time. However, this looks like it will be changing soon with today’s announcement of username changes as a planned feature for Minecraft. No official date has been set for the release of name changes, but various devs have teased the feature via Tweets, indicating that it might come sooner rather than later.
The official username support page has also been updated, revealing some details about when the feature will be available and how it will work. It reads:
​”When you first create your username, the website lets you know that you will not be able to change it, and requires a confirmation. We do not yet support changing or editing usernames, though this is planned for the future. We do not have a set release date for this feature. Make sure that you choose wisely, as your username will be used for your multiplayer persona and is visible to others.
For information about the future of Minecraft usernames, check out the following:
- Username changes will not be available before Minecraft version 1.8. This does not mean that 1.8 is the release date for the username change feature.
- Changing your username will be free, and limited to a certain number of changes in a given time period.
- Username changes will only be available to Minecraft profiles that are on a Mojang account (those that log in with their email address). If you still log in with your username, visit account.mojang.com/migrate to update to the newer account format.
- Minecraft servers now use a player’s unique identifying number (UUIDs) to deal with player data. This means that if you have a cape, are a server admin, or are whitelisted or banned on a server, nothing will change.
- You cannot change your name to an existing username. That would be crazy.
- Unmodified servers and Minecraft itself will handle most of the transitions to using UUIDs. Custom mods or plugins will need to update to accommodate for these changes.”
