I just bought this game over the weekend, not for myself but as a gift to another Minecraft account.

Damn Mojang sure have made it a bitch to buy the game! I was close to postponing or not buying it at all because it made me jump through hoops of fire and razorblades.

First we logged in to the Minecraft account for which I was supposed to buy it. At some point, it complained that the email address (mine, which I was using as the contact point for the payer, me) is already in use. I _think_, but I am not sure, it was Moneybookers/Skrill that was complaining, not the Mojang site itself.

To overcome this, I created a fake Minecraft account for myself, so I can buy a gift code to another account.

After giving the credit card details, it required me to log into Moneybookers/Skrill. Luckily I already had an account there (which I hardly use nowadays, so I had to track down my Skrill login details somewhere), otherwise I presume I should have created also a new Skrill account?

Afterwards, there was an identity check (initiated by Skrill, I presume), which required me to log in to my bank account over web.

So, WTF? Why couldn't it be like e.g. in GOG, where after the login you just give your credit card info, and that's it? Or at worst like in DotEmu where it doesn't accept my credit cards for some reason, but I can still pay using the Paypal option, even without a Paypal account (just need to give my address etc.)?

lol jealousy!

Ugh.

Finally decided to buy Minecraft, since it appeared from many sites that I could play a portable, USB version of Minecraft without needing to log in online (my ISP, sadly, is less than constant and trustworthy, so I can't always count on being able to get online).

Well, at least for now, that seems to be impossible - Minecraft has true DRM, every time you want to play it. The instructions for playing a portable version of Minecraft, on USB, offline, have all failed, tried multiple sets of instructions.

If I'm wrong, please correct me, and send me a link to how to make it work offline - I've heard tons of good things about the game, but right now I feel like I've been had - DRM-free my ass. Guess I should just stick to what's on GOG.com.

Java is the tool of Satan.

And of the lizard people

Yeah, it didn't have DRM at the time of my previous posts in this thread, but when they updated the launcher they added proper DRM.

There's an "offline mode", but it still requires you to have logged into an account at some point when you did have an internet connection. This is in contrast to the way it used to work, where you could happily leave the log in boxes blank even if you did have a connection and the game would still work. They've removed the DRM-free claim from the website as far as I know so I'm not sure you have any right to complain to them, but that doesn't change the fact that it said it was DRM-free back when I bought it. Not sure who to go to to complain about it though.

TL;DR: Minecraft used to be DRM-free, it's not any more. I'm pissed off about it.

The new launcher has introduced actual DRM now, you have to log in online and then stay logged in to be able to play offline. When I tried it, I got errors a bit like Steam's "Offline Mode' is unavailable because there is no steam login information stored on this computer."

Previously there really wasn't any DRM, you could play offline as a guest and logging in was only required for online stuff like updating.
Even now they have added DRM, it still doesn't have always online DRM. Where did you get this idea from? I notice you never came back to defend it after several people disputed it.

I was a little unsure of how the launcher worked after reading your post so I went ahead and tested it on my sisters computer. What I did was this:

1. Disconnect the computer from internet and start the launcher. As I had been logged in before I had no problems starting the game and playing.

2. Restart the launcher and press the button that says log out ( The computer still has no internet connection ). Now there is two textfields, one for email and one for your password. First I tried to just start the game without writing anything in the fields and that didn't work. Next I tried to log in using my email and password and it didn't work either.

3. Connect the computer to internet again. Log in using email and password. Success.

It seems that offline mode is available as long as you have logged in once and you don't log out. So it isn't DRM-free but the DRM is not that bad. You only need a internet connection once so you can log in and then your set. Obviously I haven't proved that offline mode won't stop working after some time has passed but maybe someone else would like to do a longer experiment.

Hope this helps those who are wondering how the launcher works.

Yes, this is in line with my experiences. The irritating thing is that it was sold as DRM-free when I bought it and previously was DRM-free (even if it was skating along the DRM-free line it didn't actually cross into DRM). You didn't need stored login information to play offline previously, in fact you could choose to play offline even if you had a connection.
Sorry if my previous post was unclear, I was complaining about the fact that offline mode can (and did) go wrong as being evidence that there is DRM, like how Steam's offline mode isn't DRM-free.

EDIT: Oops! Didn't check the date of the post I was responding to. Silly me!

The issue is not always on your end of the connection.

If they have different servers for distributing files and authenticating, you can end up being able to download the updates but are unable to sign in as the former server is online and fine while the latter is down or unreachable.

No prob, I can understand your irritation. I also bought it when it was DRM-free and wasn't too happy when I heard about the new launcher. I might be a bit irrational and grumpy but I don't even want the game to try to go online, I want to choose for myself if it should use my internet connection or not.

Try these steps. This is what I use.

I just double-checked this with the latest versions of Minecraft and the launcher and it still works as described. I copied my existing .minecraft folder to a new location, unplugged the internet and ran the custom batch file and the game went into offline mode immediately; blocking it in the firewall would probably also work but I didn't try that.

You only need a one-time online connection to save the account data; after this it can be moved between computers etc. without needing an internet connection ever again. Switching from the old launcher to the new one did require connecting again to migrate to the new account data format but this was a one-time update and the launcher format probably won't change again any time soon.

If you want Java to be portable as well you can replace the Java variable in the batch file with a path to the jPortable javaw.exe (so instead of Java it would have C:\portableapps\CommonFiles\Java64\bin\javaw.exe, or wherever you extracted the portable version to).

I understand completely, I also appreciated the ability to play offline even if I was connected to the internet (at one time it automatically updated when you logged in so playing without logging in was the only way to hold onto a older version).

At least in this case it is a game with a strong online component which you set up for online trying to figure out what to do with that online removed.

What annoys me the most is a game like Dragon Age 2, where there is no online component to the game what-so-ever but I still have to login to EA's servers or be met with an extended period of the game figuring out what to do, asking me to login, warning me I am not logged in and then finally loading up... as long as the DLCs were authenticated first.

It's the 'he's mega rich so I must hate him' mentality of some gamers.

Personally, I think Notch i amazing. He's from a poor family, educated himself so he got a good job as a programmer, and then started to design his own games. He made hundreds of millions in just a few years -- him and the couple of guys he went into business with to form Mojang.

Even with his several hundred million euros and growing every day, he believes in giving the bulk of his money to charity (kids and freedom of internet and freedom of speech charities mainly), he's against piracy but also against the way game publishers add DRM to games, he doesn't drive so he's not one of those mega-rich assholes buying the latest cars every few weeks to pollute the environment even more, oh, and he hates EA. Good enough for me :)
Yep, I do the same thing. Been playing it for a while and rarely play online and have never had a problem getting the game to work.
It's not a demo mode. He doesn't know what he's talking about. I've been playing consistently for a couple of months now, mostly offline, and have never been asked to authenticate more than the first time I downloaded it.
You authenticate ONCE to download the game and that's it. It's no different than GOG asking you to sign in to download your games. So is that DRM as well?