Coming uninvited.
I am an ordinary Minecraft International Edition player and also a BakaXL user.
As you can see, the question posted on Zhihu on February 5th was raised by me.
For those who don't know, here is the link: https://www.zhihu.com/question/582313498
Last night, I came across an article on Bilibili and found that there were many unreasonable points in the article. Therefore, I am publishing this column to explain.
Introduction#
Please do not think that I am a complete pirate player, nor do I think that I am a water army hired by BakaXL. As for the former, I have the transaction emails for purchasing Minecraft: Java Edition on July 30, 2020, and for purchasing Minecraft for Windows 10 in March 2021. I am making this public.
Main Content#
First of all, let's take a look at the content mentioned in this article:
What is a third-party launcher:
A third-party launcher uses some of the same components and services as the official launcher to achieve the effect of launching the game. The third-party launcher focuses on adding new game management functions and other independent content.
What is a pirate launcher:
The essential condition for a legitimate Minecraft International Edition player is to have a purchased game in their Microsoft account. In fact, it has nothing to do with the launcher used. However, if the launcher allows players who have not purchased the game or even players without an account to start the game normally, we consider this as piracy. Similar to the third-party login platform of legendary private servers, this is also a form of piracy.
In fact, not only BakaXL has the ability to allow users to start Minecraft with offline verification. Launchers such as HMCL and PCL2 (which can even be said to be made by the majority of domestic developers) can also allow users to start Minecraft with offline verification. The second largest skin website in China, LittleSkin, has fully implemented a set of Mojang's Yggdrasil API genuine verification server using the open-source Authlib-Injector and Blessing Skin Server. It also supports free registration, multiple characters, and functions that can be achieved with any genuine account. However, because it is still an offline account in essence, it cannot join servers that have enabled genuine verification. Therefore, personally, I believe that the term "pirate launcher" mentioned here cannot stand firm. BakaXL and HMCL will directly disable the offline login function when detecting users outside mainland China, unless they have logged in with their own purchased Minecraft Microsoft account or Mojang account.
The above facts simply reflect Mojang's interests. Any game production behavior that violates the EULA will be dealt with by Mojang according to the law.
BakaXL is fully compliant with Mojang's EULA, as mentioned earlier. BakaXL will directly disable the offline login function when detecting users outside mainland China, unless the users have logged in with their own purchased Minecraft Microsoft account or Mojang account.
BakaXL is widely used on the PC platform, and promotional videos featuring its "offline game" function are also widely circulated on video platforms.
First of all, although BakaXL is one of the "Three Great Launchers," the developer TT702 has already mentioned on the official website that it is a "launcher that no one has used since 2014."
_Source: https://www.bakaxl.com
Chat records from users outside the community
Recent AppCenter daily active user data provided by TT702
Even if the daily active users are a few hundred recently, it is still only a fraction of HMCL and PCL2 today.
Secondly, BakaXL did not mention the offline gameplay function in its promotional video. The only place where such wording appears is in the introduction of the "multiple user profiles" section and the title of the BakaXL lobby promotional video. In the title, the author's intention was to emphasize that the BakaXL lobby supports offline mode users to play together, unlike the online mode solution of HMCL and PCL2 at that time, which did not support offline users joining online rooms.
"Chinese players are not worthy of being Minecraft players," "Chinese developers are not worthy of developing Minecraft content," "NetEase's Chinese version is not worthy of cracking down on piracy."
There may indeed be people who say such things, but I believe that in the international Minecraft community, these people are in the minority. Therefore, please do not accuse all offline users in the international Minecraft community based on the statements of a few individuals.
Returning to the main topic, when the pirate community goes all out against the genuine community, using their power to intimidate and shout "thief," where are the copyright defenders of the past? Where are the rights of genuine players? When pirate launchers and their communities come forward, will the future of Minecraft become "more closed, dark, and desolate"?
NetEase's Chinese version of Minecraft is indeed genuine, and this cannot be denied. However, BakaXL has not become the leader of the pirate community nor has it gone all out against the genuine community. The developer may have just published this column with the idea of "not interfering with others' business." After all, there are countless comments in this industry like "What is Minecraft? What does it have to do with me?"
As an aside, offline login does not equal piracy. Almost all mod developers use offline login when debugging mods with VSCode or IDEA for convenient debugging. But can you say this is piracy? Obviously not, because if using offline login is piracy, then all launchers (including the official launcher) that have offline login functionality would be considered pirate launchers.
According to the "Regulations on Harmful Network Behaviors": publishing cracked software and hardware is illegal; according to the "Regulations on Copyright Infringement": without the permission of the copyright holder, spreading or selling their publicly or yet-to-be-published genuine/pirate audiovisual works. For violations, recommendations will be reduced or returned depending on the circumstances, and accounts with serious violations will be suspended.
BakaXL is just a third-party launcher and has not distributed or spread any copies of Minecraft or its associated files. Therefore, it does not violate Bilibili's regulations on creative content. BakaXL actually downloads the game using the public APIs provided by Mojang and BMCLAPI (including MCBBS) mirror sources. Strictly speaking according to Mojang's EULA, BMCLAPI and MCBBS are the ones that violate the rules. However, BMCLAPI and MCBBS have been around for a long time, and Mojang has shown no signs of taking action against them, indicating that BMCLAPI is tacitly approved by Mojang and Microsoft.
Conclusion#
The success of Minecraft and the contributions and creations of the community are of utmost importance. This includes a large number of mod loaders, mods, and unofficial launchers. As the saying goes, "existence is reasonable." In summary, the aforementioned content mentioned in the article is not valid.
Thank you, thank you.
February 12, 2023, before returning to school, I expressed my thoughts.