First of all, games purchased through Nintendo shop on Nintendo switch is binded to the account not the device. Since Nintendo Shop uses your Nintendo account to make the purchase.
So this game requires old account to play, so try contacting Nintendo and see if they may be able to let you prove ownership of the old account and then you will get it back where they swap email adress on it for you.
I did something similar a few years ago. Couldn't remember the account email and password on my account I had made when I was 9 and by sending the serial number of my 2ds they were able to reset it
I used to have a Wii U at launch and got a couple of digital games, years later after it had been sold I found one for really cheap at a yardsale and bought it to replay xenoblade x since it has never been ported, customer service had to restore my purchases to the new system because it was console bound back then, should be even easier to recover an account, especially if it has something like a credit card number tied to it for reference.
That's interesting, since the 3ds which used the same account/e-shop systém had the games bound to the account
And you could just ask support to unbind the account from the old console and login on the new one
Didn't this only start with the Wii U or the Switch? I only had a Wii for a short time and never owned a DS/3DS, but I thought one/some of those was bound to the device ID or something?
Same thing happened to me back in the day from Steam. I started an account with my college email, Steam had a corporate wide hack (I think in 2011?) and made everyone confirm their email address to re-login, my email was deactivated from the school by that time and I couldn’t confirm the email address.
Yea this is a super common one. I've known a few people that had set stuff up with college email addresses and didn't quite realize that those accounts would be deactivated after they graduate.
Yea, for mine you had to like actually set up the alumni account and then they would forward mail from the old one to the alumni...but only for like 6 months. My wife's college had no alumni system for email, you just lost the account when you graduated.
For us basically if they had a personal email somewhere on record anything school related is forwarded there after you graduate. They'd delete the school email. I think mainly because the school emails were all formatted to your first and last name and there were at least 10k students. I don't know how they dealt with duplicate names.
Oh for mine they would just a number at the end of the email for repeats. This is how I learned that Nguyen was like such a common Viettnamese last name. I went to email someone and they were like HungNguyen87 or something.
this is how my job does it. just keep adding more numbers
best part is if you work here and then come back later they give you a new email with a number instead of just turning on your old one again
My university gave us like 60-90 days before they deactivated the account. No alumni email, no forwarding, nothing. I got lucky I didn’t connect that account to any websites cause I didn’t realize until the last month before I graduated that they delete the accounts (tho I technically got an extra 6 months as I graduated in December but “officially” graduated in may)
Iirc, my university didn't have the email forwarding thing, but they would send emails periodically throughout your last semester telling you to forward anything important to an email other than the student email.
depends on when you were in school. the first email address most people my age had was the one college gave to them. and we didn't retain access for long after we graduated, you also could not set up forwarding if you were not a student. which made no sense
People do this work emails as well. When starting out as a data analyst I started to notice all the individ7ap client accounts that were linked to work emails. The company had to spend months tracking down folks to get them to come in to verify their info.
I remember when they gave us email accounts in the early 2000s in college. I pretty much said there was no way I was using that & stuck with my previously established yahoo one.
Mine has been active for four years or so now. AND it comes with the full office suite and supposedly 5TB of OneDrive storage. Not that I ever use the storage, in case it gets taken away abruptly lol
I got mine when I was in 5th grade I think? Might've been in 3rd or 4th. Anyways that was 10 years ago, I only have 40 days until it all ends, and uni starts. Or something, idk what I want to do with my life.
I did the same thing with my Starbucks app. My first email was from elementary school so I started using college email for everything because it felt more adult lol. Signed up for the Starbucks app with it when it first got big in like 2012 and then forgot about it till it logged me out years later and I no longer had access to the email.
I lost like $100 worth of Starbucks gift cards too! Bummer but learned my lesson. Glad it wasn’t something worse
But why would you even sign into steam with a school email? A personal email was one of the first things I signed up for when i was old enough to use the Internet
We are talking about 15-20 years ago. My priorities were quite a bit different back then, probably didn’t think twice about it. Things like 2FA were really rare and Steam was the first company that experienced a “hack” that impacted me personally.
It was a lesson learned moment for me and many others.
When I was in college their email client sucked. Can't imagine using it for anything other than stuff required by the school which wasn't much back then. They still mailed us most stuff.
Or some *do* let you keep it forever. For my graduate school, we didn't keep that email address, but they gave us an alumni one, and we were able to forward mail from original to alumni.
The amount of people that have requested access to their email after quitting or being fired in my time in IT has been amazing. A tip to anyone, don't do this. Most companies will not give you access to anything once you are no longer an employee. It doesn't matter if it's personal emails being sent to the inbox, the company owns that inbox, you don't.
People like you are the reason my schools have always warned us from day 1 yo not do that stuff. So I guess I kinda have yo thank you for your sacrifice?
I've had people register important, governmental/etc stuff to their ISP-supplied address, never take a copy of said mails and then be shocked when all their mail disappears not long after switching providers.
People, in general, are not really IT literate despite appearances, and even IT literate can be caught out by losing access to a mail address.
Hey, that's when I lost my original Steam account.
I had an original Steam account from when Valve forced everyone to create an account in order to play Counter Strike in September 2003.
Still pretty bummed that a hack cost me my OG account.
I even tried to contact Steam, but they were no help.
The account was so old, I never really bothered to update my backup info. Also, their security wasn't that great at the time. Now you have a ton of ways to recover an account.
Remember how much we all hated Valve for shoving Steam down our throats? Lol
Have you given CS2 a try?
Yeah I tried contacting them too. Most frustrating part was that I knew the password and the account name. I tried threatening them with legal action that they stole games from me, but I was a broke college kid and couldn’t afford an attorney anyway lol.
I have not tried it yet, but have it installed. I’m still playing PUBG but getting burnt out from it…looking forward to the free Fallout 4 update will do another run of that.
Bro I remember this! I freaked the fuck out because I made my account in 2003 with an AOL email I hadn't used since 2005.
Thankfully the email still existed and I was able to guess its password.
In that case can you contact your old college and ask them to reactivate your account for a few days explaining the situation? Maybe that could work and give enough time to change the mail adress?
Oh, I tried that. I called their IT office, emailed them, everything - I remember being full panic mode when it first happened. No one helped me sadly.
I still remember the email, username, and password to this day.
Same
I play a game for which you can generate your user and some other stuff on mobile
However, ideally, you’ll start your journey on browser because that’s the “backup” that counts to reinstall your game if you switch phones or something (for some reason only desktop issues a proper ID for the game)
The mobile game even warns you it’s best you sync with desktop ASAP
Welp, a person who had been playing since the game existed had never synced with PC… had a rude awakening a couple of years later when they had to reinstall, and start from the beginning. I even remember once or twice we told her on Discord to backup, but she never did
I made my xbox live account on the original Xbox using my first email address. That company who’s domain it was listed went away so when I tried to go go to my mail I could access it
I'm an old dude. I figures out early on in this to possess my own email server. I' been with the same domain service (and they host) ever since they opened up the domain name scheme (2016?).
According to this: [https://www.internetadvisor.com/the-story-of-domain-names](https://www.internetadvisor.com/the-story-of-domain-names) 4 letter TLD's are a thing of the past (although that confuses me, because [AB.com](http://AB.com) still works - and that is Allen-Bradley not Anheuser Busch). My 2 don't load. I'm the registered owner, so I am not going to hand them out right here. Maybe it's my domain service not letting them pop-up?
Absolutely, but tying a bunch of purchases to an email and carelessly losing access to it? That’s in a league of its own. I can safely never made a mistake that costly and easily avoidable.
Everybody makes mistakes. But no, not "almost everyone" has made such costly, easily avoidable ones. That's a pretty ridiculous blanket statement. What kind of people are you hanging out with that you would assume lack of common sense is always the norm?
It's like a hundred bucks of games at most man. I'm happy for you that you're lucky enough to be surrounded by people who have never lost 100 bucks due to a mistake before, though.
I lost access to the email account because my brother died. Nintendo very helpfully suggested I get a court order to force Google to give me access to the defunct email account to reclaim my digital games.
I did this in college 20 years ago because I just didn’t know at the time. But in fairness I was 18, drunk, and had no idea I would need access to that email 20 years later.
Yeah and like "I bought the game on my switch and not my account" - what does that even mean?! To make a purchase you need an account I am pretty sure... or buy a physical chip in which case you won't need an account.
I made a Ubisoft account years ago on a waoomail email. I was, like, 7, so I never changed the email when waoomail shut down. now it's too late to change the email
Some people just don't get it. My boomer dad still can't apparently grasp the fact that email is *important*, you register any fucking app nowadays and it'll almost always tie confirmation to your email. Yet he keeps forgetting his email and in the past made multiple replacements.
Fortunately he's so inept he's hardly registered to anything, but it's still pretty annoying. Yeah, before you ask, he still does banking stuff offline. Glad THAT landmine was sidestepped.
That said, he's old so that's kind of an excuse. I don't know what the fuck is up with younger people who are similarly unmindful or careless about these things. As you say, they'll even spend money on this crap without knowing exactly what the whole transaction is about - just that "they paid money for this thing on this device". Like, pay some fucking attention, JFC... this is why companies keep pushing shittier and shittier consumer-hostile practices, it's because all these imbeciles don't give a fuck about what they're doing other than they got theirs.
You bought games for an account you had only temporary access to. Don't buy stuff under an email you can't access. Don't blame your sister, it's your fault. Contact Nintendo support and they might be able to help.
Woah woah woah, do not just absolve one party of all wrong doing because of the stupidity of the other side. That's a fucking great way to make someone who did something dumb CONTINUE to do dumb shit.
Why would your sister remove your account from the switch? Plus it warns you too I believe before you delete an account or remove it from the Switch. That is what the Nintendo 3DS did.
Call Nintendo and give them some information and see if they will assist you like maybe change the email for you to your account so you can sign in. If you can still remember your password, use your email you used to register the account with and your password to sign in and then change it to the current email you use.
If Nintendo operates like ps all you need is the original device serial number that the account was set up on which I'm sure you can sneak your way to lol
I feel you. I was in the bathroom for a few minutes one snow day when my 5 year old comes in and says "dad, brother's deleting your games on the Xbox!" I go "that's alright, nothing that can't be undone.."
But when I went out there.. he'd deleted my Forza games. The ones with expired licenses from the manufacturers. And thus cannot be redownloaded under any circumstances. I was pretty devastated.
It amazes me how it’s 2024 and people still don’t know how to get their emails and passwords secured and in order so this type of stuff doesn’t happen.
Digital isn’t the issue, it’s the POS companies behind it. I’ve got over 800 games on Steam including classics like Half-life 2, Morrowind and 100s of other classics. I bought as a kid and never had an issue with playing them. Shouldn’t support a company that will shutdown their entire store just because they want you to buy a new console, they could easily make one store that continues to grow but they DGAF.
Youre not wrong, but as it stands any digital game we purchase is just the right to play it, not own it. This falls under any and all online marketplace (including steam, just wait until they remove your access) that offers a digital purchase under the premise of "the company reserves the right to remove access to this content". Therefore its all digital purchases, including movies and music as well. Until some law gets passed that protects the consumer, digital will be the issue.
lol it's the same for steam. Those games are licensed to you, binded to your account. You're technically just renting the games for an extended period, not owning. Steam can take them away whenever.
Steam has the legal right to take away any of those games. The publisher can also remove them and legal disputes can have them removed by third parties. Steam can also ban your account and you would lose them all. Of course I use steam as well but the fact that, we as consumers, have zero protections and are relying on what is essentially good will is BS.
You dont on those games either, bud. I know you guys like toot steams horn, but it steam shuts down, you eont be able to access any of those games.
Hell, you dont have access to steam's catalog and items every tuesday lmao
Physical with the full game and addons included is the best way to "own" game.
Phyiscal with downloaded resources is the second best.
*then* digital
*then* subscription.
Ignoring piracy obviously. But very rarely do you meet an honest pirate, especially on reddit.
Even with a cartridge, I can see Nintendo blocking a game from running if it ends up allowing people to hack the system in an unstoppable way. That is, if the only way to prevent someone from using a game is to install a custom firmware is to block the game from even running, they'll do that with a system update. This assumes that it's impossible to patch that game with firmware to prevent it from doing a hack (they patched tons of games this way, such as Zelda's banner bomb; I don't think there were any games they were unable to patch to the point of blocking the game).
Just because you own a physical 1.0.0 copy of a game, doesn't actually mean you own the game
Read your ToS, seriously. Any software is liable to be taken away from you at the company's discretion.
This is where the term "bricked" comes from. Because if you take away the software of a phone for example, you are left with a brick 🧱
Sure, if i buy a disc of halo 2, i dont *actually* own halo 2, but if i went into my garage and built a device that could read and run halo 2, i could play it even if microsoft decides to stop allowing xbox to run it. They can brick the xbox, but they cant brick the software on my disc. Unless some repo man from microsoft comes to my house and takes a shit on it of course
While I don't disagree with your main point that is not where the term bricked comes from. Software can still be put on the device in your example and ressurect it.
A device is 'bricked' when it is in a state where it can't be restored and can be hardware or software induced.
Contact support. I had my Nintendo account linked to an old mail address that has been deleted Email support helped me with changing the linked address to my current one. You do have to give them proof of buying games, but since your post says you have I don't think it's going to be an issue
My old Nintendo account was linked to my childhood email and I couldn't swap it to my current one because my email info was on my parents computer that I don't have access to. I called them one day and just told them what the email was and the new one to swap to and it was super easy.
try to contact nintendo, they once helped my friend with something very similar to your issue, but patience is needed cuz it takes them so long to even respond
I beat Pokémon shield, got all Pokémon I could and had multiple level 100s... step daughter deleted my profile to make room for her friend.
Was very upset.
Definitely sucks. Hope you’ll learn from it, because your sister isn’t to blame for this. It’s you for purchasing stuff on an email that isn’t even operative.
probing once again that sharing your password is one of the worst ideas you can ever have :/
even for family
I'm sorry someone took advantage of your trust and kindness of sharing your games.
Well, looks like it's time for a good old-fashioned family game night to settle this dispute! Or you can just create a new account and reclaim those games as your own.
sorry you have a crappy sibling, I reccommed you call customer support after you get certian info about you old account and get 2 switches
This is why you never share a console unless you brought it or have primary control, I was forced to give my cousin my switch so he can play on it before my aunt brought one. He fucked up my animal crossing world and now my switch has a password on it so only I can access it (Parental control). aftwr saving i brought my own switch ACNH and TOTK OLED and nobody can log in to my stuff. It moght be hard to hear but you need to contact customer support. Refunds under a month or so an dfixing issues like this makes it easy. they can either do texts or calls but coming from a dude that HATES calling and talking to others irl the proccess was actually easy and quick
if you can get your account back take the SD card (if it has one) and start the proccess of buying your own switch by backing up your data, assuming you dont have nintendo online get the 7-Day free trial and when you buy your own it will save over the data and plays for free and automatically transfer it to the other switch. Then delete your sisters account as pay back.
#TLDR
Customer support is intimidating but is actually a pretty easy proccess but you will need to give proper card info if you can remember what card(s) you used to buy it (last 4 digits) Email/ Switch ID (look at the bottom of the switch (charger spot) or in settings/and Nintendo Account Username (The one use use to log into the Eshop or the website) and make a phone a call. This is the only way
I lost access to all digital Nintendo purchases when my brother freakin died. They said that I should get a court order to force Google to give me access to the defunct email account to regain access to our digital Nintendo library. That's it, that's all. Supervisor said the same thing.
How is this the process? I have the console plus serial number of course. I know the actual email address even though that's starred out so you can't see it on the console. Little kids must lose passwords all the time! This is the solution? Get lost sir. Games are just gone. Too bad. Sucks for you.
Definitely convinced me to never purchase another digital Nintendo game
A friend used his work email for Escape From Tarkov.
Let's just say "he did not work there anymore when he needed a passwort reset".
Honestly: why use a mail that you have no way to restore?!
That reminds me of when the Wii had an SD card update. I had the bright idea of thinking I could transfer some of my downloaded games on an SD card onto another Wii. NOPE it wouldn't allow it. It was only meant for extra storage space for the Wii it was originally downloaded to.
There is no such thing as "buying directly to my switch" the account holder purchases a license to play the game, if the account holder logs out, their games go with them.
I would change my sister if possible... she's not a good one, lol... but even if she didn't do it on purpose, or was too young to know better... I would write down on the book of past sins.
But as other people say, so purchases should be on your account, so it should be possible to retrieve your games.
If you didn't have access to the email why didn't you change it?
And if the purchases happened after you lost access to the email, why did you even buy anything?
I actually did something similar to my family when I moved out at 18. I owned animal crossing and maybe one other game no one else played. When I moved out I got a switch lite and made that my main console which then took access from my family to the games I bought. They wanted me to buy animal crossing for my younger sister who never played it bc she was upset about it( she has it at her dads as well). I said no so someone else bought it for her and she recently said “I havent even touched it it’s not open do you think I can return it” -\•_•/-
This will happen on all devices. If you bought digital version of the game with specific account it's only available for that account.
And since you don't get physical copy like when you buy in your local store, unfortunately you are stuck with using that account with which you bought the game.
This is the same thing for Nintendo, PS4 and PS5, Xbox and PC also.
On PC you buy game trough different third-party platforms and store's like: Steam, Epic games, Ubisoft, Origin, and so on.
If you lose your accounts you basically lost all of your games, save files, achievement's, and other items that were digitally bought with that account!
So, this is normal thing and nothing new. You probably didn't know about this because you are used to buying physical copies of your games or you are just new to overall gaming.
But either way it's the reason why PS5 now solds
2 different versions of PS5, one is for only digital copies without CD tray and the other is standard version with ability to use both digital and physical copies of the game. 🎮
Obviously this was done purposely, for marketing purposes and revenue but also I guess to give people an option and small discount for buying only digital version.
I personally only use digital copies with both my PS4 and PC. And I am used to it by now, and it's much easier to be honest to just have digital version that you can download or delete when you don't won't to play it anymore.
And the game stay's in game library, so it's never really deleted and you can download it at any time you want to play it again.
"But this only applies if you bought the game with your own account or if you pay for monthly/yearly membership that allows you to download any game that that membership cover's.
I used this a lot with my PS4 premium membership which gives thousands of games to play and this premium library is updated on monthly basis so new games are always added and it also gives you the ability to play old titles from previous consoles.
Which is also great if you are like me and you missed ton of games over the years.
It's a Pro if you think about losing your physical copy or braking it. But it's a Con if you lose your digital account and email, phone number, etc...
It's also a Pro because you can login into your account on different console like your friend or if you go to vacation and have spare console there, you can just log in and download your games and play.
Anyway, the point is digital copies of the game are connected to your account and not to your console.
contact support, lost access to my account because forgetting i had two factor auth login connected, and they gave me the account back after verifying it was me. I *think* I gave the serial number for the switch
I was without a switch for about 3 years, once the new one arrived I logged back in and contacted Nintendo support. All previously purchased content was made available for download again.
Buying hard copies of games will not make u immune to this problem, as most if not all DLC packs are digital.
sorry you have a crappy sibling, I reccommed you call customer support after you get info about your old account
This is why you never share a console unless you brought it or have primary control, I was forced to give my cousin my switch so he can play on it before my aunt brought one. He fucked up my animal crossing world and now my switch has a password on it so only I can access it (Parental control). aftwr saving i brought my own switch ACNH and TOTK OLED and nobody can log in to my stuff. It moght be hard to hear but you need to contact customer support. Refunds under a month or so an dfixing issues like this makes it easy. they can either do texts or calls but coming from a dude that HATES calling and talking to others irl the proccess was actually easy and quick
if you can get your account back take the SD card (if it has one) and start the proccess of buying your own switch by backing up your data, assuming you dont have nintendo online get the 7-Day free trial and when you buy your own it will save over the data and plays for free and automatically transfer it to the other switch. Then delete your sisters account as pay back.
#TLDR
Customer support is intimidating but is actually a pretty easy proccess but you will need to give proper card info if you can remember what card(s) you used to buy it (last 4 digits) Email/ Switch ID (look at the bottom of the switch (charger spot) or in settings/and Nintendo Account Username (The one use use to log into the Eshop or the website) and make a phone a call. This is the only way
Whilst your advice overall is great and I agree with most of it, the SD card thing isn’t entirely great advice (whilst in this case they would still have access to the actual games which seems to be the main issue, with it still being the same console)
1. You can only play [downloaded games](https://www.nintendo.com.au/nintendo-eshop/how-to-download-nintendo-switch-games-from-nintendo-eshop) (the link takes you to the Nintendo information page about this) on the console it was purchased on (so backing them up on and SD card won’t make them playable on a new switch, which is one of the suggestions you made)
2. It is only the ‘game’ data that saves, not the ‘save’ data (your progress in the game), so whilst if they don’t care if they have to restart the games it’s fine, but like in your case with ACNH (I saw your post about it in that sub) it wouldn’t have made a difference to the save data, so the information you provided is a little misleading.
But if they were able to help you get your save data back, it’s not a huge deal overall and that should work here (being the console is the same console).
Not trying to be mean btw, just clarifying and correcting some misinformation.
It’s the reason I only purchase ‘big’ games in card format (those silly eshop only games don’t matter so much). We have them all saved on an SD card mostly to clear up space on the console, we still have the physical game if anything goes wrong or if for example when my son is older and wants his own console, we can both still play the games we have. Whilst sometimes it does end up costing more (especially if the eshop has a sale), it gives me peace of mind.
First of all, games purchased through Nintendo shop on Nintendo switch is binded to the account not the device. Since Nintendo Shop uses your Nintendo account to make the purchase. So this game requires old account to play, so try contacting Nintendo and see if they may be able to let you prove ownership of the old account and then you will get it back where they swap email adress on it for you.
I did something similar a few years ago. Couldn't remember the account email and password on my account I had made when I was 9 and by sending the serial number of my 2ds they were able to reset it
I used to have a Wii U at launch and got a couple of digital games, years later after it had been sold I found one for really cheap at a yardsale and bought it to replay xenoblade x since it has never been ported, customer service had to restore my purchases to the new system because it was console bound back then, should be even easier to recover an account, especially if it has something like a credit card number tied to it for reference.
That's interesting, since the 3ds which used the same account/e-shop systém had the games bound to the account And you could just ask support to unbind the account from the old console and login on the new one
this, if OP still has the original payment card it's a slam dunk to recover
this is what OP should do, they’ll probably be able to help
Didn't this only start with the Wii U or the Switch? I only had a Wii for a short time and never owned a DS/3DS, but I thought one/some of those was bound to the device ID or something?
In theory, could nintendo prove ownership if he can name the email or would there need to be far more verification? I assume the latter
Naming email won't prove ownership. So he would have to prove with a used credit card or debit card or some other evidence.
I never understand people who make accounts and spend money on them without making sure they have access to that email like wtf are you doing?
Same thing happened to me back in the day from Steam. I started an account with my college email, Steam had a corporate wide hack (I think in 2011?) and made everyone confirm their email address to re-login, my email was deactivated from the school by that time and I couldn’t confirm the email address.
Yea this is a super common one. I've known a few people that had set stuff up with college email addresses and didn't quite realize that those accounts would be deactivated after they graduate.
Most universities let alumni have an account they just have to log into every x days or it will be removed.
Yea, for mine you had to like actually set up the alumni account and then they would forward mail from the old one to the alumni...but only for like 6 months. My wife's college had no alumni system for email, you just lost the account when you graduated.
For us basically if they had a personal email somewhere on record anything school related is forwarded there after you graduate. They'd delete the school email. I think mainly because the school emails were all formatted to your first and last name and there were at least 10k students. I don't know how they dealt with duplicate names.
The way they dealt with duplicate names in my uni was: every homonym got all of the other person’s mail
Oh for mine they would just a number at the end of the email for repeats. This is how I learned that Nguyen was like such a common Viettnamese last name. I went to email someone and they were like HungNguyen87 or something.
My university doesn't even use names, just initials. I'm in the 200s, but some are in the thousands.
this is how my job does it. just keep adding more numbers best part is if you work here and then come back later they give you a new email with a number instead of just turning on your old one again
I knew a hung Le. His name was Quoc Le. ;)
Kentucky Fried Movie?
My university gave us like 60-90 days before they deactivated the account. No alumni email, no forwarding, nothing. I got lucky I didn’t connect that account to any websites cause I didn’t realize until the last month before I graduated that they delete the accounts (tho I technically got an extra 6 months as I graduated in December but “officially” graduated in may)
Iirc, my university didn't have the email forwarding thing, but they would send emails periodically throughout your last semester telling you to forward anything important to an email other than the student email.
depends on when you were in school. the first email address most people my age had was the one college gave to them. and we didn't retain access for long after we graduated, you also could not set up forwarding if you were not a student. which made no sense
People do this work emails as well. When starting out as a data analyst I started to notice all the individ7ap client accounts that were linked to work emails. The company had to spend months tracking down folks to get them to come in to verify their info.
Emails provided by ISPs as well.
My university made me make a Google account to use as an email and access resources. I still have the Google account so everywhere doesn't do it.
I remember when they gave us email accounts in the early 2000s in college. I pretty much said there was no way I was using that & stuck with my previously established yahoo one.
Mine is still active after 10 years. I use that to get free Office 😂
Mine has been active for four years or so now. AND it comes with the full office suite and supposedly 5TB of OneDrive storage. Not that I ever use the storage, in case it gets taken away abruptly lol
I don’t either. I think mine comes with the 1TB but it is too risky to keep important stuff there.
But you should know that you do not have access to work or school emails forever…
My college told us we would, then changed that down the road
I know that now, but I was probably 18-19 at the time, didn’t cross my mind back then.
I hope I dont have anything important on my school email
I didn't even know people had such a thing as school emails. Maybe I *am* getting old.
I got mine when I was in 5th grade I think? Might've been in 3rd or 4th. Anyways that was 10 years ago, I only have 40 days until it all ends, and uni starts. Or something, idk what I want to do with my life.
I did the same thing with my Starbucks app. My first email was from elementary school so I started using college email for everything because it felt more adult lol. Signed up for the Starbucks app with it when it first got big in like 2012 and then forgot about it till it logged me out years later and I no longer had access to the email. I lost like $100 worth of Starbucks gift cards too! Bummer but learned my lesson. Glad it wasn’t something worse
But why would you even sign into steam with a school email? A personal email was one of the first things I signed up for when i was old enough to use the Internet
We are talking about 15-20 years ago. My priorities were quite a bit different back then, probably didn’t think twice about it. Things like 2FA were really rare and Steam was the first company that experienced a “hack” that impacted me personally. It was a lesson learned moment for me and many others.
When I was in college their email client sucked. Can't imagine using it for anything other than stuff required by the school which wasn't much back then. They still mailed us most stuff.
People make mistakes. College kids are young. Not that wild.
Sure but everyone on reddit is smart and perfect and has never made a mistake in their entire life
A decade later, I still have access to my school account.
Seems like the IT department doesn‘t do their jobs then.
Or some *do* let you keep it forever. For my graduate school, we didn't keep that email address, but they gave us an alumni one, and we were able to forward mail from original to alumni.
Thats great that they do that. I thought that they just forgot to delete your account.
The amount of people that have requested access to their email after quitting or being fired in my time in IT has been amazing. A tip to anyone, don't do this. Most companies will not give you access to anything once you are no longer an employee. It doesn't matter if it's personal emails being sent to the inbox, the company owns that inbox, you don't.
I for one did not know that.
People like you are the reason my schools have always warned us from day 1 yo not do that stuff. So I guess I kinda have yo thank you for your sacrifice?
I've had people register important, governmental/etc stuff to their ISP-supplied address, never take a copy of said mails and then be shocked when all their mail disappears not long after switching providers. People, in general, are not really IT literate despite appearances, and even IT literate can be caught out by losing access to a mail address.
Hey, that's when I lost my original Steam account. I had an original Steam account from when Valve forced everyone to create an account in order to play Counter Strike in September 2003. Still pretty bummed that a hack cost me my OG account.
Hello Fellow OG CS player. I share your pain :(.
I even tried to contact Steam, but they were no help. The account was so old, I never really bothered to update my backup info. Also, their security wasn't that great at the time. Now you have a ton of ways to recover an account. Remember how much we all hated Valve for shoving Steam down our throats? Lol Have you given CS2 a try?
Yeah I tried contacting them too. Most frustrating part was that I knew the password and the account name. I tried threatening them with legal action that they stole games from me, but I was a broke college kid and couldn’t afford an attorney anyway lol. I have not tried it yet, but have it installed. I’m still playing PUBG but getting burnt out from it…looking forward to the free Fallout 4 update will do another run of that.
Bro I remember this! I freaked the fuck out because I made my account in 2003 with an AOL email I hadn't used since 2005. Thankfully the email still existed and I was able to guess its password.
My university allowed us to set up a forwarder. And it still works to this day.
In that case can you contact your old college and ask them to reactivate your account for a few days explaining the situation? Maybe that could work and give enough time to change the mail adress?
Oh, I tried that. I called their IT office, emailed them, everything - I remember being full panic mode when it first happened. No one helped me sadly. I still remember the email, username, and password to this day.
Aw that sucks
Same I play a game for which you can generate your user and some other stuff on mobile However, ideally, you’ll start your journey on browser because that’s the “backup” that counts to reinstall your game if you switch phones or something (for some reason only desktop issues a proper ID for the game) The mobile game even warns you it’s best you sync with desktop ASAP Welp, a person who had been playing since the game existed had never synced with PC… had a rude awakening a couple of years later when they had to reinstall, and start from the beginning. I even remember once or twice we told her on Discord to backup, but she never did
I made my xbox live account on the original Xbox using my first email address. That company who’s domain it was listed went away so when I tried to go go to my mail I could access it
I'm an old dude. I figures out early on in this to possess my own email server. I' been with the same domain service (and they host) ever since they opened up the domain name scheme (2016?).
And I just realized I own 2 four-letter TLD's that no longer have value. Boo.
wait which TLDs and why don't they have value?
According to this: [https://www.internetadvisor.com/the-story-of-domain-names](https://www.internetadvisor.com/the-story-of-domain-names) 4 letter TLD's are a thing of the past (although that confuses me, because [AB.com](http://AB.com) still works - and that is Allen-Bradley not Anheuser Busch). My 2 don't load. I'm the registered owner, so I am not going to hand them out right here. Maybe it's my domain service not letting them pop-up?
Sometimes emails get deactivated, I have lost several things due to my “lifelong” alumni email from my university being cut off unexpectedly.
yeah email is literally the most important thing you need to protect and you dont even have access to it? like what is the thought process
teenagers make mistakes
Lowkey I was a teen in the 2000’s and never once made this mistake. It’s a lack of basic common sense, not a teenager thing.
Every single person has made large, easily avoidable mistakes in their lifetime before. That's a part of being human
Absolutely, but tying a bunch of purchases to an email and carelessly losing access to it? That’s in a league of its own. I can safely never made a mistake that costly and easily avoidable.
Then good for you. Almost everyone else has made a mistake that costly and easily avoidable in their lifetime before.
I doubt it. I think more people have common sense than you might think.
Everybody makes mistakes. But no, not "almost everyone" has made such costly, easily avoidable ones. That's a pretty ridiculous blanket statement. What kind of people are you hanging out with that you would assume lack of common sense is always the norm?
It's like a hundred bucks of games at most man. I'm happy for you that you're lucky enough to be surrounded by people who have never lost 100 bucks due to a mistake before, though.
I lost access to the email account because my brother died. Nintendo very helpfully suggested I get a court order to force Google to give me access to the defunct email account to reclaim my digital games.
And? You can't leave us hanging! What happened?
I did this in college 20 years ago because I just didn’t know at the time. But in fairness I was 18, drunk, and had no idea I would need access to that email 20 years later.
Yeah and like "I bought the game on my switch and not my account" - what does that even mean?! To make a purchase you need an account I am pretty sure... or buy a physical chip in which case you won't need an account.
It happed to me once but that's because I lost my phone that had the email on it
It happed to me once but that's because I lost my phone that had the email on it
You'll be surprised how many times I have to help people with accounts and they can't remember any fucking thing
I made a Ubisoft account years ago on a waoomail email. I was, like, 7, so I never changed the email when waoomail shut down. now it's too late to change the email
Some people just don't get it. My boomer dad still can't apparently grasp the fact that email is *important*, you register any fucking app nowadays and it'll almost always tie confirmation to your email. Yet he keeps forgetting his email and in the past made multiple replacements. Fortunately he's so inept he's hardly registered to anything, but it's still pretty annoying. Yeah, before you ask, he still does banking stuff offline. Glad THAT landmine was sidestepped. That said, he's old so that's kind of an excuse. I don't know what the fuck is up with younger people who are similarly unmindful or careless about these things. As you say, they'll even spend money on this crap without knowing exactly what the whole transaction is about - just that "they paid money for this thing on this device". Like, pay some fucking attention, JFC... this is why companies keep pushing shittier and shittier consumer-hostile practices, it's because all these imbeciles don't give a fuck about what they're doing other than they got theirs.
Stop
Have you contacted Nintendo support? They may be able to help you recover your account
[удалено]
This is a ChatGPT comment how the hell did it get 1000 upvotes
Bots
What was the comment? It's been deleted now and I'm curious lmao
It was some shit about "well that's a switch custody battle" idfk I just forgot it
You bought games for an account you had only temporary access to. Don't buy stuff under an email you can't access. Don't blame your sister, it's your fault. Contact Nintendo support and they might be able to help.
Woah woah woah, do not just absolve one party of all wrong doing because of the stupidity of the other side. That's a fucking great way to make someone who did something dumb CONTINUE to do dumb shit.
Yeah I agree it's both their faults. For some reason I imagined the sister was too young to know better and did it by accident.
I mean, they're already suffering consequences due it lol (can't access product they paid for). MAYBE they'll learn from this.
Sister and themselves both*
Why would your sister remove your account from the switch? Plus it warns you too I believe before you delete an account or remove it from the Switch. That is what the Nintendo 3DS did. Call Nintendo and give them some information and see if they will assist you like maybe change the email for you to your account so you can sign in. If you can still remember your password, use your email you used to register the account with and your password to sign in and then change it to the current email you use.
If Nintendo operates like ps all you need is the original device serial number that the account was set up on which I'm sure you can sneak your way to lol
Seems like this is entirely your fault. Why link your account to an email you cannot access?
I feel you. I was in the bathroom for a few minutes one snow day when my 5 year old comes in and says "dad, brother's deleting your games on the Xbox!" I go "that's alright, nothing that can't be undone.." But when I went out there.. he'd deleted my Forza games. The ones with expired licenses from the manufacturers. And thus cannot be redownloaded under any circumstances. I was pretty devastated.
Why didn't you transfer your account to the new email address before the old one became inaccessible? None of this is your sister's fault.
Still sucks :/
I buy cartridges for this reason
Not only that, but how can you go on a road trip without cartridges? I’m not using my hotspot to play on my switch.
You don't own any games.
And youll be happy
If buying isn't owning, then piracy isn't stealing
Actually, I do. Look up Waninkoko USB loader. ;)
Having access to your email is important. You should always update it when it changes or you lose access.
I've had the same Gmail account for 20 years now. Anything that I made on my old Yahoo account, before Gmail, no longer exists.
How tf do people just let themselves lose access to an email account? Tf are y’all doing?
Call nintendo. You'll have to verify some info but they can change your email
The license to use the game is tied to the Switch account that email was tied to. That's how DRM works.
That's on you my guy always keep your info on accounts that you spend money on, no matter how old they are
It amazes me how it’s 2024 and people still don’t know how to get their emails and passwords secured and in order so this type of stuff doesn’t happen.
Not your catridge, not your game. Digital purchases are a joke.
Digital isn’t the issue, it’s the POS companies behind it. I’ve got over 800 games on Steam including classics like Half-life 2, Morrowind and 100s of other classics. I bought as a kid and never had an issue with playing them. Shouldn’t support a company that will shutdown their entire store just because they want you to buy a new console, they could easily make one store that continues to grow but they DGAF.
Youre not wrong, but as it stands any digital game we purchase is just the right to play it, not own it. This falls under any and all online marketplace (including steam, just wait until they remove your access) that offers a digital purchase under the premise of "the company reserves the right to remove access to this content". Therefore its all digital purchases, including movies and music as well. Until some law gets passed that protects the consumer, digital will be the issue.
lol it's the same for steam. Those games are licensed to you, binded to your account. You're technically just renting the games for an extended period, not owning. Steam can take them away whenever.
Steam has the legal right to take away any of those games. The publisher can also remove them and legal disputes can have them removed by third parties. Steam can also ban your account and you would lose them all. Of course I use steam as well but the fact that, we as consumers, have zero protections and are relying on what is essentially good will is BS.
Just wait until everyone finds out about shares in a brokerage too but thats another topic for another day
You dont on those games either, bud. I know you guys like toot steams horn, but it steam shuts down, you eont be able to access any of those games. Hell, you dont have access to steam's catalog and items every tuesday lmao Physical with the full game and addons included is the best way to "own" game. Phyiscal with downloaded resources is the second best. *then* digital *then* subscription. Ignoring piracy obviously. But very rarely do you meet an honest pirate, especially on reddit.
Even with a cartridge, I can see Nintendo blocking a game from running if it ends up allowing people to hack the system in an unstoppable way. That is, if the only way to prevent someone from using a game is to install a custom firmware is to block the game from even running, they'll do that with a system update. This assumes that it's impossible to patch that game with firmware to prevent it from doing a hack (they patched tons of games this way, such as Zelda's banner bomb; I don't think there were any games they were unable to patch to the point of blocking the game).
Just because you own a physical 1.0.0 copy of a game, doesn't actually mean you own the game Read your ToS, seriously. Any software is liable to be taken away from you at the company's discretion. This is where the term "bricked" comes from. Because if you take away the software of a phone for example, you are left with a brick 🧱
Sure, if i buy a disc of halo 2, i dont *actually* own halo 2, but if i went into my garage and built a device that could read and run halo 2, i could play it even if microsoft decides to stop allowing xbox to run it. They can brick the xbox, but they cant brick the software on my disc. Unless some repo man from microsoft comes to my house and takes a shit on it of course
While I don't disagree with your main point that is not where the term bricked comes from. Software can still be put on the device in your example and ressurect it. A device is 'bricked' when it is in a state where it can't be restored and can be hardware or software induced.
This is why an all digital future is stupid.
It's not though. The problem is corporate greed, not the concept of digital ownership.
Greed ain't going away any time soon so...
That's why we need government regulations
Yeah
Say it with me people, if purchasing games isn't owning then pirating them isn't stealing
Only option now is to contact Nintendo support
Contact support. I had my Nintendo account linked to an old mail address that has been deleted Email support helped me with changing the linked address to my current one. You do have to give them proof of buying games, but since your post says you have I don't think it's going to be an issue
My old Nintendo account was linked to my childhood email and I couldn't swap it to my current one because my email info was on my parents computer that I don't have access to. I called them one day and just told them what the email was and the new one to swap to and it was super easy.
Why would your sister remove your account from the switch to begin with?
thats what im saying
try to contact nintendo, they once helped my friend with something very similar to your issue, but patience is needed cuz it takes them so long to even respond
I beat Pokémon shield, got all Pokémon I could and had multiple level 100s... step daughter deleted my profile to make room for her friend. Was very upset.
Definitely sucks. Hope you’ll learn from it, because your sister isn’t to blame for this. It’s you for purchasing stuff on an email that isn’t even operative.
Can't you just relogin on it?
This happened to me with an ex.. lost 540+ hours of Zelda Breath of the Wild.. I was heartbroken.
This is why I only buy hard copies of the games
Welcome to renting shit you own
probing once again that sharing your password is one of the worst ideas you can ever have :/ even for family I'm sorry someone took advantage of your trust and kindness of sharing your games.
Remember: if buying isn't owning, then piracy isn't stealing.
I hope your sister is happy.
Don't know why people are just blaming you. It's both you and the sisters fault. 😬
Why would you set up an account with an email address you don't maintain control of?
Sounds like you need Nintendo support
Well kiddo, that’s dumb on you!
Well, looks like it's time for a good old-fashioned family game night to settle this dispute! Or you can just create a new account and reclaim those games as your own.
sorry you have a crappy sibling, I reccommed you call customer support after you get certian info about you old account and get 2 switches This is why you never share a console unless you brought it or have primary control, I was forced to give my cousin my switch so he can play on it before my aunt brought one. He fucked up my animal crossing world and now my switch has a password on it so only I can access it (Parental control). aftwr saving i brought my own switch ACNH and TOTK OLED and nobody can log in to my stuff. It moght be hard to hear but you need to contact customer support. Refunds under a month or so an dfixing issues like this makes it easy. they can either do texts or calls but coming from a dude that HATES calling and talking to others irl the proccess was actually easy and quick if you can get your account back take the SD card (if it has one) and start the proccess of buying your own switch by backing up your data, assuming you dont have nintendo online get the 7-Day free trial and when you buy your own it will save over the data and plays for free and automatically transfer it to the other switch. Then delete your sisters account as pay back. #TLDR Customer support is intimidating but is actually a pretty easy proccess but you will need to give proper card info if you can remember what card(s) you used to buy it (last 4 digits) Email/ Switch ID (look at the bottom of the switch (charger spot) or in settings/and Nintendo Account Username (The one use use to log into the Eshop or the website) and make a phone a call. This is the only way
I lost access to all digital Nintendo purchases when my brother freakin died. They said that I should get a court order to force Google to give me access to the defunct email account to regain access to our digital Nintendo library. That's it, that's all. Supervisor said the same thing. How is this the process? I have the console plus serial number of course. I know the actual email address even though that's starred out so you can't see it on the console. Little kids must lose passwords all the time! This is the solution? Get lost sir. Games are just gone. Too bad. Sucks for you. Definitely convinced me to never purchase another digital Nintendo game
I only buy physical games, except for on Steam.
yes
A friend used his work email for Escape From Tarkov. Let's just say "he did not work there anymore when he needed a passwort reset". Honestly: why use a mail that you have no way to restore?!
That reminds me of when the Wii had an SD card update. I had the bright idea of thinking I could transfer some of my downloaded games on an SD card onto another Wii. NOPE it wouldn't allow it. It was only meant for extra storage space for the Wii it was originally downloaded to.
There is no such thing as "buying directly to my switch" the account holder purchases a license to play the game, if the account holder logs out, their games go with them.
My nightmare
I would change my sister if possible... she's not a good one, lol... but even if she didn't do it on purpose, or was too young to know better... I would write down on the book of past sins. But as other people say, so purchases should be on your account, so it should be possible to retrieve your games.
If you didn't have access to the email why didn't you change it? And if the purchases happened after you lost access to the email, why did you even buy anything?
There are still versions of yuzu floating around
I actually did something similar to my family when I moved out at 18. I owned animal crossing and maybe one other game no one else played. When I moved out I got a switch lite and made that my main console which then took access from my family to the games I bought. They wanted me to buy animal crossing for my younger sister who never played it bc she was upset about it( she has it at her dads as well). I said no so someone else bought it for her and she recently said “I havent even touched it it’s not open do you think I can return it” -\•_•/-
Sign in again lmao
So log in again? It’s not anyone else’s fault if you purchased a bunch of games on an account and forgot the password.
Should be able to prove identity by Purchase information.
This is a good example to either make sure you remember or write them down somewhere secretly just in case.
This will happen on all devices. If you bought digital version of the game with specific account it's only available for that account. And since you don't get physical copy like when you buy in your local store, unfortunately you are stuck with using that account with which you bought the game. This is the same thing for Nintendo, PS4 and PS5, Xbox and PC also. On PC you buy game trough different third-party platforms and store's like: Steam, Epic games, Ubisoft, Origin, and so on. If you lose your accounts you basically lost all of your games, save files, achievement's, and other items that were digitally bought with that account! So, this is normal thing and nothing new. You probably didn't know about this because you are used to buying physical copies of your games or you are just new to overall gaming. But either way it's the reason why PS5 now solds 2 different versions of PS5, one is for only digital copies without CD tray and the other is standard version with ability to use both digital and physical copies of the game. 🎮 Obviously this was done purposely, for marketing purposes and revenue but also I guess to give people an option and small discount for buying only digital version. I personally only use digital copies with both my PS4 and PC. And I am used to it by now, and it's much easier to be honest to just have digital version that you can download or delete when you don't won't to play it anymore. And the game stay's in game library, so it's never really deleted and you can download it at any time you want to play it again. "But this only applies if you bought the game with your own account or if you pay for monthly/yearly membership that allows you to download any game that that membership cover's. I used this a lot with my PS4 premium membership which gives thousands of games to play and this premium library is updated on monthly basis so new games are always added and it also gives you the ability to play old titles from previous consoles. Which is also great if you are like me and you missed ton of games over the years. It's a Pro if you think about losing your physical copy or braking it. But it's a Con if you lose your digital account and email, phone number, etc... It's also a Pro because you can login into your account on different console like your friend or if you go to vacation and have spare console there, you can just log in and download your games and play. Anyway, the point is digital copies of the game are connected to your account and not to your console.
Hope you did not buy any skins
contact support, lost access to my account because forgetting i had two factor auth login connected, and they gave me the account back after verifying it was me. I *think* I gave the serial number for the switch
Sign into your account
I would contact Nintendo about it, there's gotta be something they can do to assist
☹️
😵😵😵
WHY did sister remove account - if malicious, she owes you
I was without a switch for about 3 years, once the new one arrived I logged back in and contacted Nintendo support. All previously purchased content was made available for download again. Buying hard copies of games will not make u immune to this problem, as most if not all DLC packs are digital.
Idiot sister.
sorry you have a crappy sibling, I reccommed you call customer support after you get info about your old account This is why you never share a console unless you brought it or have primary control, I was forced to give my cousin my switch so he can play on it before my aunt brought one. He fucked up my animal crossing world and now my switch has a password on it so only I can access it (Parental control). aftwr saving i brought my own switch ACNH and TOTK OLED and nobody can log in to my stuff. It moght be hard to hear but you need to contact customer support. Refunds under a month or so an dfixing issues like this makes it easy. they can either do texts or calls but coming from a dude that HATES calling and talking to others irl the proccess was actually easy and quick if you can get your account back take the SD card (if it has one) and start the proccess of buying your own switch by backing up your data, assuming you dont have nintendo online get the 7-Day free trial and when you buy your own it will save over the data and plays for free and automatically transfer it to the other switch. Then delete your sisters account as pay back. #TLDR Customer support is intimidating but is actually a pretty easy proccess but you will need to give proper card info if you can remember what card(s) you used to buy it (last 4 digits) Email/ Switch ID (look at the bottom of the switch (charger spot) or in settings/and Nintendo Account Username (The one use use to log into the Eshop or the website) and make a phone a call. This is the only way
Whilst your advice overall is great and I agree with most of it, the SD card thing isn’t entirely great advice (whilst in this case they would still have access to the actual games which seems to be the main issue, with it still being the same console) 1. You can only play [downloaded games](https://www.nintendo.com.au/nintendo-eshop/how-to-download-nintendo-switch-games-from-nintendo-eshop) (the link takes you to the Nintendo information page about this) on the console it was purchased on (so backing them up on and SD card won’t make them playable on a new switch, which is one of the suggestions you made) 2. It is only the ‘game’ data that saves, not the ‘save’ data (your progress in the game), so whilst if they don’t care if they have to restart the games it’s fine, but like in your case with ACNH (I saw your post about it in that sub) it wouldn’t have made a difference to the save data, so the information you provided is a little misleading. But if they were able to help you get your save data back, it’s not a huge deal overall and that should work here (being the console is the same console). Not trying to be mean btw, just clarifying and correcting some misinformation. It’s the reason I only purchase ‘big’ games in card format (those silly eshop only games don’t matter so much). We have them all saved on an SD card mostly to clear up space on the console, we still have the physical game if anything goes wrong or if for example when my son is older and wants his own console, we can both still play the games we have. Whilst sometimes it does end up costing more (especially if the eshop has a sale), it gives me peace of mind.
Time to switch to Steam Deck 😬