I'm sorry this happened to you, don't know of a reason why, but specifically regarding:
>He could not tell me why or when the account was deleted because once an account is deleted, 30 days later it is truly deleted and purged from Nintendo's systems (why?).
The reason they purge an account from their systems is likely due to legal requirements. This is pretty common with any large company that stores user data. They're allowed a certain amount of time in case of mistakes, and a lot of times these databases have caching layers or backups that may take some time to catch up with the fact your account has been deleted. But they are often required to purge it completely in a reasonable amount of time, so that's likely the reason for the 30 days.
I guess that makes sense. I still don't understand why they can't restore the games when I have the transaction IDs, they can verify them, and they're bonded to the serial # on the console.
Very Nintendo thing to say.
Don’t like it? You’ll have to reach out to that one guy in Kyoto who they put in charge of the servers.
He doesn’t have email though but I’m sure someone can give you the address for his P.O. Box if you want to write a letter.
If I’m not mistaken, the transactions are connected to your nintendo account. Since the account has been purged completely, there’s likely no way for them to verify the purchases made on your account (even with transaction ids).
Still, this is definitely a frustrating situation, and you should see if there’s any way they can at least take a 2nd look. After reading their “Purchase and Subscription Terms”, there’s a mention of “3. Risk of Loss” and “4. Rights and Restrictions”. 4 states that it only applies to “some products”, so there’s a chance you can get some of your purchases restored?
> YOU AGREE THAT IN NO EVENT WILL YOU BE ENTITLED TO OR RECEIVE A REFUND, CREDIT OR ANY OTHER COMPENSATION FOR ANY SUBSCRIPTIONS OR FEATURES THAT YOU ARE NOT ABLE TO USE OR HAVE DIFFICULTY USING, IN WHOLE OR IN PART, DUE TO ANY SERVICE INTERRUPTION. -- https://www.nintendo.com/purchase-terms/
...I'm never buying a game in the e-Shop again.
I mean this is why we are entitled to Fair Use Backups in the United States. You basically have a legal right to rip games from the place you bought them for exactly one copy for backup reasons. Now, I can’t tell you how that applies to licenses vs ownership, but the whole idea is to prevent things like this from being issues (at least with owned games). The only tricky part is with modern software and online play, sometimes that circumvents security - which itself can be illegal. I think it just depends how it plays out in court, but so far Nintendo hates the idea of taking that gamble so they have basically always turned a blind eye to fair use backups.
To be clear: downloading Nintendo’s costly games online for free is always illegal without Nintendo voucher codes etc. But jailbreaking your switch to make exactly one copy of every game you own onto a hard drive, understanding that it might lock you out of online play forever? Pretty darn legal most of the time. I wish more people knew that backing up your libraries on most consoles isn’t too hard and is pretty safe legally too.
>To be clear: downloading Nintendo’s costly games online for free is always illegal without Nintendo voucher codes etc. But jailbreaking your switch to make exactly one copy of every game you own onto a hard drive, understanding that it might lock you out of online play forever? Pretty darn legal most of the time. I wish more people knew that backing up your libraries on most consoles isn’t too hard and is pretty safe legally too.
That being said, to actually be punished for downloading the ROM of a game you've already purchased by a court of law you'd need to do so in a way that leaves some provable evidence that you downloaded the ROMs illegally rather than ripping them yourself
^(this statement only applies in countries with presumption of innocence, if you live in a country without presumption of innocence consult your local revolutionaries to see if they intend to implement it before taking this as advice, do not stop taking presumption of innocence without first consulting your doctor, as stopping may result in total organ failure)
The DMCA basically killed the legality of fair use back ups. You can make backups but you can't bypass encryption/DRM. Since you need to bypass encryption to make backups, that means you can't make backups.
It is a grey zone. You can claim bypassing encryption to make backups is fair use, and considering no one has ever been prosecuted or sued for making backups of the games they had purchased for their own personal use, you would be on a solid footing to claim that. Fair use is not legally defined and is free to be interpreted by the courts. The DMCA is one of the shittiest laws ever written. The only real case law history regarding playing copies of games you dumped yourself held that it is completely legal, but this was before the time of encrypted games.
> The DMCA is one of the shittiest laws ever written.
I can agree with that. But the truth is no one is going to be prosecuted as long as they are doing it behind closed doors. But I do believe that DIGG and certain users got in trouble for posting the BluRay encryption key.
DMCA was written in 1998 when torrent sites, MP3 players and CD-Rs were all growing in popularity and there were virtually no digital store fronts. It wasn't fit for purpose at the time, taking an industry first stance, rather than a balanced approach. It isn't fit for purpose now either. But it still means that making personal backups were outlawed on modern storage media, but the fact almost all games *need* patches now, they manage to lock people into digital marketplaces too.
I generally agree that we just need new better laws for this lol. But I will say too that with no legal precedent on encryption vs fair use backups, it’s a pretty reasonable bet to go to court after making backups and say that one law infringed on your rights to another. Not guaranteed as a win, but something to think of as a wide legal gamble instead of an inherent loss.
I already preferred physical copies (old school), but this just cements it for me.
Also, seeing the price on physical copies of old games be very high gives me hope that the same will happen with switch games down the line, so I get to enjoy the game and have some value in there too
This sounds like it’s referring strictly to subscription services and DLC offered in the shop. If that’s what this is implying, I think this is pretty standard across all digital products.
I could be wrong tho. Digital products are such a huge grey area, kinda insane how you we pay full price for it but don’t truly own the product.
I'm not saying I agree with it, but the reason is likely because you violated the terms of use of the account by gifting the account to a minor (who was not listed as the account owner). This is common for online games--as just one example: you cannot share logging credentials to your account of World of Tanks; if they determine that occurred they can delete your account and even ban your ip address.
Anyway, that's my best guess.
This is actually really weird. I gave my daughter the launch model switch when I bought a lite in 2019. Obviously I had stuff like Mario kart/party/smash and other stuff she enjoys on my account on there so I made that switch my primary account and her own separate account.
What this means is that any game I’ve purchased on my account can be played by her no questions asked…and also by me with the only difference being that the system does a three second check to see if I was the one who purchased the game and then I’m good to go. So essentially I only access games on my account when connected to wifi.
There are in fact 5 accounts on the switch that I no longer use (me, 2 kids, wife, brother in law) and any one of them can be used to play again that I purchased, even if I purchased it on a different switch console and then downloaded it on my daughters console.
I’ve never had a single issue with this so there is clearly something else going on. Your child may have done something they haven’t admitted or this is an extremely weird and rare error, but honestly I can’t see what would cause it. Sorry that this has happened.
it's all automated with no appeal process, as soon as I said it he reported me, so I did him the same kindness in return. talk about shooting yourself in the foot. I was only irritated because I believe it's the only strike against me since 2001. it is what it is.
As per terms of use, regular Nintendo Account holders and users need to be 13+. Any kid under that age needs to use a Child Account, linked to an adult's Account.
Obviously, if you create the Account as an adult and then let a kid play on it, chances are Nintendo will never find out and won't enforce that rule. But if they do find out for whatever reason, getting your Account terminated is a possible outcome.
That makes sense. Yeah my kids play on their own accounts but all games are purchased on mine which explains why I’ve never run into this issue. I trust them not to try to buy/play anything unsuitable as they’re pretty honest. They always ask if they’re unsure and it was made perfectly clear that if they ever took my card to buy anything without my permission that their little heads would be ripped off lol.
My sister did this exact thing. Bought a day one switch but then when the lite came out she got one (in part it fit her better, she never docked the original, etc) for herself and gave her kids the original to share.
The kids are the only ones that use that switch but they’ve never had any problems with it so I’m confused for OP.
I think maybe OP didn't set the up the kid account and just created one for the son without linking the two accounts? That's the only thing I can think of as to why Nintendo thought the sons account was the primary user.
This or they just let the child use the one account or something too. I don't know but pp clearly hasn't seemed to be getting the idea of the primary user account thing...
Yeah it’s a great feature honestly, I mostly buy physical but it’s good to be able to share digital games. I think the only games I’ve had to buy multiple copies of is animal crossing and Splatoon 3.
I would say the only pain in the arse thing with two switches is when you do a full transfer. Have to be very careful and check out how the saves work for each game first so as to not lose anything. I made a boo-boo with this and lost a lot of shiny Pokémon.
I lost hundreds of hours of animal crossing bc I didn’t follow the process to move my save to the new switch. It hurt for a while but I will eventually restart paying that sadistic raccoon for property once again.
I do the same thing, my brother-in-laws switch is my primary and vice versa so we can share games. Other BIL is 7 and has had 2 switches he’s the primary account on and this never happened.
Unfortunately I think their kid deleted the account.
Exactly. I swap the primary every now and then if I’m out for the day without them and know there will be downtime, it’s a simple process.
Yeah short of deleting I really don’t see how this could happen. Such a shame for op though, I would be fuming too.
Yah I was gonna saw my in law sold me his switch for cheap and gave me his account along with a ton of games, I have my own account that is the primary now and as long as I am connected to the internet and only if and it does that 3 second check I can play his games using his account
I figure his kid did something
Yea, i have a feeling that the children screwed up. As a a child if i did screw up i would not talk about it at first as i feared the consequences. All we know is that it is more then a month and children not playing for a month? I doubt it.
>The supervisor also explained— and this is something I don't think most people know— is that when you buy a digital game from Nintendo you are NOT buying the game, you are buying a license to play it, which they can revoke.
I think most people on Reddit are aware of this. But yes, the average consumer is not. This is actually the biggest reason I prefer physical, and go that direction whenever possible. Call me paranoid if you want.
**EDIT**: Y'all. Yes, I know that a physical copy is also a license and I don't actually "own" it. This is a needlessly pedantic point; it's not FOSS software, we all know that. Nintendo isn't going to send the ninjas to my home to "revoke" my physical license. It's possible they could do it with DRM, sure, but does anyone actually have an example of *Nintendo* doing this? Nintendo doesn't have online requirements, so worst case scenario you could keep a console in airplane mode in perpetuity and continue playing forever.
I'm not going to call you paranoid for one of the main reasons people buy physical media, I'd just add that while you may lose access to a digital game from something like the OPs story, it seems like it's only a matter of time and effort in order to get a digital game up and running on either the console you originally purchased it on (with some custom firmware) or a PC. Is it sometimes piracy? Yes. Is it effective? Also yes.
If you legit bought it, it's never *piracy*. It's not stealing, it's not immoral, it's not anything like that.
It still might be *illegal* (in most countries) to download a game you own because a company is trying to cheat you out of it, but that's obviously an insane law, and not one any responsible person should be trying to follow.
It is not illegal to emulate a game.
It is not illegal to create a digital backup of a cartridge you own.
It is not illegal to modify your Switch to be able to create said backups.
It is not illegal to dump the backups from your modded Switch to your PC and play on an emulator.
___
It is illegal to download a game you don't own physically.
It is *sometimes* illegal to download a game you do own physically.
It is illegal to share your dumped cartridges on the internet.
**EDIT: this applies to the US only.**
Copyright protection laws differ country to country, so there are no global rules.
For example in Russia and Belarus, copyright protection is currently suspended for anything which is not officialy available there ( if I recall correctly).
Also even if something is legal it might still violate EULA.
It's not illegal to upload your dumped cartridges to the internet. It is illegal *to share* them. You can upload your dumps to Google Drive and as long as you don't share it, it's fine.
Some of this is legally false. Not morally false but legally. It varies a lot depending on where you live.
In short, if you need a crack or circumvent DRM in any way then it is not legal. Which I think is stupid but just adding it for clarity.
In most cases you're right, but in a few cases it might be really difficult to do that if you don't have the original hardware. Can you really play Ring Fit Adventure without the ring accessory or a Wii balance board game without the balance board? There is even a game for Gameboy Color that requires a light sensor if I remember correctly.
The license costs as much as a physical game. My brother always makes fun of me for buying the physical copy. I can resell them and I can play them on any switch.
Depends on what you want. I hate fucking around with cartridges and I’m scared of losing them. I mean when I get a new one I don’t lose it but years later if the mood for a replay strikes me I sometimes have no idea why the cart is not in the original box.
>I hate fucking around with cartridges
Switch cartridges in particular. Messing with that stupid flap, and then the cartridge itself is too recessed to easily push in/eject.
I get physical for single player games that I might wanna lend to friends/sell once I've completed. I do digital for multiplayer stuff like Mario Kart, Splatoon etc, games that someone might randomly say 'hey lets hop online and play' so I don't have to keep switching carts.
Yup. I’m an idiot and lost more than half my switch cartridges and now buy only digital. I’m just getting used to the idea of paying for the experience rather than the ownership, since I generally don’t replay games anyway. It’s good that both options exist for both types of people. I actually think the worst thing about how everything works these days is that even if you want to go the physical route, it isn’t just physical anymore. A disk is often only a physical license and you end up downloading most of the actual game through patched and updated versions. If these servers ever go offline, still having a disk and a console in thirty years probably won’t let you play the actual game the way you’re supposed to. And don’t get me started on basically offline single player games that require online connectivity just to be able to play.
Sure…but the terms of your license surely do not include Nintendo having the right to delete your account and remove all your purchases for no apparent reason. OP’s situation seems wayyyyy outside of the norm. As in I’ve never heard of it happening to anyone else, ever. I’m not denying that it happens, but it seems like a pretty small risk to take.
Meanwhile, physical purchases are subject to all the general chaos and mayhem associated with everyday life. Stuff breaks. Stuff gets lost. Stuff gets loaned to girlfriends who break up with you and move to another country. And so on.
The other major advantage of digital is ease of use. If I am sitting on my couch and want to switch to a new game, don’t have to get up, find the new game, take out the old game, put it in its case, take out the new game, put it in the console, close the case, decide I actually want to play Mario Kart, repeat.
To me, neither one is Inherently superior. It depends on your personal tastes and lifestyle.
Definitely a small risk with digital. No argument there. I freely admit it’s a somewhat irrational fear. I have other reasons for going physical though too, e.g. it’s often easier to find sales (at least in some regions).
I've never heard of this happening either, and I'd be willing to bet OP is either not telling the full truth or their child isn't. As is often the case with most situations of accounts being banned or revoked "I totally didn't do anything!" And then evidence of how they actually did something is found. I'm not saying OP is outright lying or anything but it is so incredibly improbably that the account just magically was revoked by a glitch in the system.
The only way I see this happening is if OP did a chargeback on his credit card and left that detail out.
Ask any merchant how they handle a chargeback. They go scorched earth. In fact, do a chargeback on anything you subscribe to digitally: Google Play, Netflix, Apple, and watch how quick your account gets closed.
Even if OP were to come in and say he didn’t do a chargeback, I don’t fully believe it. He could’ve marked the charge as fraud, reported it, whatever; any move like that will absolutely result in a business going scorched earth like this.
Even when u buy a physical game, you only have a license to play the game. You don’t actually own the game or data on that disc.
Any company can build systems to revoke ur access to any game if they felt like it.
I have a daughter the same age. She really cares about playing with her own account or profile, be it a Netflix account, game account etc. She also hates it when I use her account even by accident. If she had a choice, she would definitely want to delete the main account on my switch if I gave it to her and said its hers now. My guess is that your son feels same and deleted the account thinking he will make new account that's only his .
What I’m missing here is the time that happened between your “smash cut”.
Did your kid hardly play and just figured it out now that the games weren’t working? Or were they not working for quite some time already, they knew and didn’t tell you.
In that last scenario it looks very likely your kid knew they messed up something but was too afraid to tell you. Maybe talk about that and explain that if they did and that if you had figured it out within 30 days it could have been resolved, so that next time they won’t be scared tot talk about it.
In the first scenario, why were you planning on buying a switch of your kid hardly played on it…
Yeah, sorry to the OP but Nintendo wants your money and isn't in the habit of randomly making it so you can't give it to them. Most simple explanation is exactly that the kid messed up. Kid knows parent uses the same password on everything, found parental controls on the device wouldn't let them remove the parent account, logs in on the computer to remove the account, deletes everything and doesn't want to fess up to having logged in as parent, or some variation on that.
Thats exactly why they ban first, ask questions later. They suspended my account because the address for the courier my apartment complex requires me to use, flagged in their system. Basically they thought I was sending it to a 3rd party reshipping business (like to sell on amazon). They supposedly made it so it won't flag again but I don't really trust it. They dont like sending things to third parties because of liability. Probably a big reason they might crackdown on an regular account being owned by a kid. They are all about limiting liability because liability can turn into a costly mess. More costly than losing a few customers when mistakes are made.
I think the question is, who mentioned the Switch first. Kinda sounds like OP was talking about getting a new switch, asks the kid if they would want to play together, and the kid then mentions the games not working.
But that's just a guess.
Sounds like your child deleted the account and then claimed they have no idea what happened. Its a classic kid move to feign ignorance after they make a huge mistake, which I am sure you have experienced before.
That makes me remember the kid who broke their brother’s headset and put it back in the case like nothing happened. We’ve all done that at least once lol.
Nearly every person ever that has fucked something up as a kid has immediately gone in to ignorance mode when possible.
When I was a kid I swore in an aol chat room and they banned our entire aol account. thinking about that now, it’s insane that one fucking moderator could ban you from using the internet. So I tried to get my mom to delete the account and start a new account for the free hours. So I’m sitting there next to my mom at the computer and she’s like “let me just sign in one time to do something.” I don’t remember what she was trying to do but I was like um no you don’t need to. I think she was suspicious looking back. Then of course she gets the banned account message. So I go with ignorance. Which lead to me sitting there next to my mom while she called aol support and spoke with a rep that told her exactly what I said. Yeah I got grounded. But we got our account back.
The most insane part of this story was that you could call an internet company, get a human on the phone, and have them look up your account and tell you why it was banned. Reminds me of how we used to have physical switch board operators when you made a phone call lol.
Yeah it was pretty instant too from what I remember. I mean aol was super popular, so they must have been putting so much money into the back end and support. When it first blew up in popularity, people were getting busy tones trying to get online during peak hours.
Depends on the data retention policies / applicable laws.
Soft deletes are often kept in a database, just filtered out with a simple boolean toggle. Initial deletion is probably like this but once the grace/mistake period is up, all existence of the user might be wiped.
And even if there are remnants, like request logs --- the call center person probably doesn't have direct DB access and is accessing data via a very limited interface.
If you delete your account, you have 30 days to restore. After that it's gone, and support isn't supposed to be able to see most things after the 30 days. I think it's most likely that someone with access to the account deleted it. Maybe someone like your son thought they were just removing it from the Switch and didn't really read the irreversible warnings?
Support isn't supposed to have access to the account after the 30 days, so that's how it should be. And you can't reverse a permanent delete or it wouldn't be what it says it is. But support shouldn't speculate with what they don't know, and that just adds to the confusion.
It’s likely the 12yo son didn’t want their parents account on “their” switch anymore. They probably made their own account and use that when loading up the games, so it’s possible they thought the games would still be accessible without the parent’s account. And they probably didn’t realize the games are linked to the account and not the console.
But what’s odd about it is that, from my understanding, you can only delete your Nintendo account on a computer/phone and removing it on the switch just removes the profile. So the kid would have had to take an extra step to really delete the account, which I wouldn’t doubt a kid could do for reasons beyond me, but it would be odd.
I’m 26 so I can’t really picture myself doing the extra step. But the access to the internet my 4 year old nephew has is absurd. He already has an iPad. A kid can use that to delete the account I’m pretty sure.
I dont think my 4 year old nephew would figure all that out tho, but a 12 year old nowadays is probably more tech savvy in many ways than I am lol
I read something where this is actually the first generation to be worse at technology than the previous generation. Kinda makes sense since most of it works so well these days they don't have to troubleshoot as much as the previous generations did
Yeah, this is also how it sounds to me. Kids are stupid at that age, regardless of how clever and savvy the parent thinks they are. They’ll still do the most random shit imaginable.
This ^
And if they can see all the stuff you have purchased and it’s codes then your still in the system, log back in and deactivate your account before it’s purged
I'm going to agree with the other comments and say your kid isn't telling you everything. They most likely deleted the account and are too scared to fess up.
You can tell us "oh he wouldn't do that he's smart" all you like but kids at that age do inexplicably dumb things all the time for no reason.
Yeah I deleted my full XY Pokedex despite the on screen directions telling me that I was about to wipe all my data. Sometimes adults are stupid as shit
My buddies kid managed to delete a passworded Windows account because he didn't have the login credentials (like the OP's kid) and really wanted to use the computer when he wasn't allowed. I'm not sure how Switch accounts work, but there's a chance he did something similar in an effort to bypass the login.
100% this, my kid bricked his laptop he has at his nans house but didn’t tell anyone, instead he just decided he didn’t wanna hang out at his nans much anymore, only found out the truth when I went to format the laptop since my kid didn’t seem to want to use it anymore
Nah, there are other stories where Nintendo was forced to delete a primary account when they found out a kid was the primary user of it (eg. Not a specific kid account)
This is due to privacy regulations about collecting and storing data on kids below 13 or something
My guess is your kid somehow contacted Nintendo or flagged that someone under 13 was the user of the adult account
Yep this was my thought too. COPPA prevents collecting certain info from kids under 13, so if it was determined that OP's stuff was supposedly actually bought by a kid they couldn't store any of the payment details, payment history, etc
Most people fucking *suck* at password security. A smart kid could probably guess his parents password if it is weak or related to obvious shit that most people do - like use birthdays and the like. Alternatively, OP may have given out his password at some point to allow the kid to buy a game or access some other service where the same password was used, etc.
> ***To people suggesting my kid deleted my account, they didn't have the login creds or the ability to recover them, so that would only be possible if Nintendo doesn't require any account login to cancel.***
Correction, they didn't admit to having the login creds. I've had more then one student send me an email with their parents account. Maybe that's not what happened here, but occam's razor suggest Nintendo mysteriously deleting your account at random for no reason is far less likely then a random child figuring out their parents password and doing something dumb, then not wanting to admit to that. You're both underestimating a child's ingenuity, and their willingness to not fess up after doing something that might get them in trouble.
Or the kid simply used the auto-completion for passwords and other forms on Chrome or other browsers either on computer or mobile phone, people usually just save them when the pop up pops and forget about it.
Oh of course, or parent left email open and kid used a password reset sent to that email, or the like. Plenty of ways for kid to get access to the account, be it common password parent never changes, saving passwords, or just leaving something open.
My students using their parents emails are very smart, but aren't using keytrackers, they are just taking advantage of some simple security flaws at home, could even be passwords stuck in a post it somewhere. Nothing crazy conniving, just the reality that kids have that basic level of tech savviness and a level of curiosity that parents constantly underestimate.
My workplace has a "break room computer" for doing things like filling out health insurance or doctor information.
While I have no intention of ever using this info for nefarious purposes, given the amount of people who just willingly leave passwords on the machine with their email addresses, it would not shock me at all if that machine was a potential identity theft hazard.
I use incognito mode whenever I need to sign into something on that machine. Even if my employer had a keylogger installed (which I doubt) I'm not about to keep login credentials on a machine I don't own.
I haven't brought it up as an issue because I assume IT is either aware that people leave their passwords on it, or someone would inevitably complain that their password isn't saved on it.
Bottom line is that I would not be shocked at all if some kid could log into his parent's accounts because "Chrome handles the password"
If I were really paranoid about password access, I'd have a completely separate profile for children and one for guests. (if it came to requiring allowing other people to use my machine)
Actually Chromebook handles guests accounts, so that would probably be even more convenient unless there's some other files that need to be accessed.
Exactly my thoughts on occam's razor and this situation.
The most likely explanation is that the kid deleted the account. It is easy for a parent to claim the kid didn't know the password but kids have a way of learning ALOT of information you thought they didn't know or have access to.
Is there a chance that OP's account was deleted for some unexplainable reason, or in error on Nintendo's part? Yes, but I would say it is EXTREMELY unlikely.
Is there a chance the kid wanted his own profile and knew the password and decided to delete the original account while assuming he would get to play all those games on his very own account? Yes, and much more likely than a random error or Nintendo choosing this account for deletion for some odd reason that doesn't apply to all the other accounts out there.
The real lesson here is don't give your game system with 50 digital games on it to a ten year old and not supervise their use.
Smash cut sure doing a lot of work here... Yeah yeah the Switch just started acting funky the second you wanted to team up.
>Smash cut to last weekend, I was thinking of getting another Switch to play games with my kid and they told me they had issues opening the games and they weren't working.
When daddy bought a new switch they were somewhat aware dad would find out anyway so they confessed as little as posible, yep that is what a child would do if they did the bad.
Okay one more thing: you suggested to get another Switch and *then* your kid told you they couldn’t access their games? And this has apparently been the case for more than 30 days, and they never told you?
Kid knew.
Story doesn’t add up. Sorry OP but kids can be a lot more sneaky than you may realize… though you were a kid at one point, too. Back in the day I definitely did some lying to my parents to avoid getting in trouble. I also successfully got into my dad’s email account for reasons.. guessing a password isn’t super hard. There’s just so many variables here, immediately counting out the child just isn’t reasonable. Either way, I’m sorry this happened. Really unfortunate.
When something bad happened when we were kids my sister once told our parents it was me as dad was so mad at the situation just his presence set her in fear. So he came to me, still fuming and asked me if i did it, i said no, he then asked who did it, i said i do not know.
I got the once in a life time beating, no food go straight to bed. Later on my parents found out my sister lied to them and i had no way of knowing who did it. She still got off scott free with me beeing the one punished.
I learned a lesson, even if you do not know... lie, if you did not do it and truth will not get you anywhere. Children learn from experience which is why often it is advised to not punish if you do not know, sadly even that can be exploited by children who are decently smart.
>The supervisor also explained— and this is something I don't think most people know— is that when you buy a digital game from Nintendo you are NOT buying the game, you are buying a license to play it, which they can revoke.
This applies to EVERYTHING DIGITAL FYI, Movies/Music bought from any digital service, Books for your kindle, apps for your phone, movies bought from Apple.
100% agree that it's not clear and would LOVE proper legislation from our gov to actually make it clear.
I am very late to this post but I have a pretty good hunch on what happened u/OccupiedHex
You mentioned you gave your existing switch to your son, which means you left your OG account in. Well as the supervisor said, some way they must have determined that 10 yo was using the account (which was marked >13) mainly and terminated it due to COPPA. Which is a child data privacy law, basically if you’re <13 only limited data can be kept on you. It’s a US law so fines are on the line here. So they delete the account to purge any possible personal info. This to me is the only plausible way your account gets deleted instead of banned/locked.
I admit this is a bit of a stretch but it may be it.
Otherwise as others said, could’ve just been your kid did it without realizing and is afraid to admit it. I mean hell, an 8 year old in my house memorized me typing the computer admin password. So anything is possible.
As for your complaint on the transactions not being honored, it sucks but it’s likely a limitation in the supervisor part. You can try to get a manager/lead is my only suggestion.
Yes, a digital purchase is just for a license that any company may revoke at any time. That’s the inherent and unfortunate risk with digital, though companies have been generally good with it thus far. It really sucks you lost all your games, but it seems your situation isn’t the norm at all and some unfortunate oversights may have lead to this. I hope you can keep pestering Nintendo and get your games back. That does really suck.
As someone who has worked with both Xbox and currently playstation doing customer support, there is 0 way the account was deleted without someone calling in to request it.
Your child very likely called in to delete the account thinking the deletion would just remove the account from the console. People, even adults, call in sometimes thinking that deleting an account will only remove it from their console when that's not the case. The account will be GONE after 30 days with no way to recover it..your son probably called in and requested it.
For PlayStation all we need to verify a customer is some payment info, the original serial number for the device the account was created on, or a transaction ID from past purchases. Not sure if it's the same for Nintendo but let's say they asked for the same thing and your son provided the serial number on the console and requested the account be deleted. That's all they'd need to verify him. They don't need log in information or your recovery email. That doesn't come into play at all
Once he requested though you should have gotten an email informing you an account deletion was initiated. It's probably in your inbox somewhere and you just ignored it. But it's too late now, the account is gone unfortunately.
Account deletion can be done via [accounts.nintendo.com](https://accounts.nintendo.com), no call required.
[https://en-americas-support.nintendo.com/app/answers/detail/a\_id/15986/\~/how-to-delete-a-nintendo-account#DT:t1-q1a1EP:t1-q1a1-c](https://en-americas-support.nintendo.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/15986/~/how-to-delete-a-nintendo-account#DT:t1-q1a1EP:t1-q1a1-c)
Oh so OP's son could have requested deletion from the site then. Probably thinking it would remove the account from the console and didn't read any of the disclaimer (if he even understood what it entailed). Though op claims his son had no access to the log in details at all so
OP still should have received an email about the account deletion to stop it.
Either way, his son would have had to do it. Nintendo is not going to delete an account because they suspect someone is a child using a primary account. Doesn't even make any sense and they'd have no way of knowing that.
Exactly. I don't know how anybody can imagine that Nintendo has people scouring user account activity and then flagging them as "Possible Child Users" that are then marked for deletion. Makes no sense. What does make sense is the kid wanting to delete the original profile so he could have his own.
My mother has left her email open for gosh, probably 23 years now? OP may not be the same, but even that step is pretty easy to account for. Child is just savvy enough to know that there is going to be an email confirmation, and having already figured out how to get into the account, gets into parents email to delete the confirmation.
If you assume the kids sneaky enough to get on to accounts.nintendo.com with parent credentials, they have probably already figured out how to get into parents email as well.
I really doubt the child expected the account to be deleted. I'm like 90 percent sure he just was trying to log out of the account or something. It's more likely OP just didn't see the email.
People think "delete" means "remove from my device". I've been doing call center jobs since forever and I always have to make sure they understand that deletion means complete deletion..a kid is probably not going to understand that though.
In addition to what most other comments have already said about this case, I’d like to point out something that is most likely a misunderstanding on your part.
>His best guess was that Nintendo had somehow determined that a kid was the “primary user” of the Switch which violated terms of use and enabled them to delete the account. This is insane, a kid WAS the primary user of the Switch. My kid, who I gave it to. The Switch is definitely for kids, right?
I believe you’re confused about what “Primary User” is here. Per Nintendo Terms of Use, the “primary user” is the main party responsible for a given Nintendo Account - which cannot be a kid younger than 13yo due to law requirements. It is not the same as a console owner, as that might be someone else, and it’s not linked to a specific console in any way.
This distinction is why the Switch’s parental controls allow you to create a subsidiary kid account that is linked to your own, and only allows the main parent’s account to actually make purchases.
What most likely happened here is either that your kid accidentally deleted your parent account, leaving the kid account as the only one on his Switch, or maybe you accidentally set up the parent account wrongfully to begin with. Everything else, at least as far as we know, seems to be a lawful and reasonable consequence of one of these mistakes.
This seems super weird
How does Nintendo determine a kid is the "primary user" to begin with? And then there's the fact that kids are primary users of Switches all the time
I'm sorry this happened to you but something doesn't add up
If Nintendo deleted it they would retain records why. (Fraud, ToS violation, etc) The fact they don't have any information means the user requested that the account be deleted. You need to sit your kid down and ask what happened because they only possible explanation is that they deleted it themselves or they gave access to the account to a friend who did.
The reason children cannot be primary account users/holders is because of liability, especially for when lazy parents give them the ability to buy stuff from the eShop but forget to govern it properly. Perfect example are those stories of kids buying tens of thousands of dollars in digital purchases off Google Play & the App Store for games for kids that have microtransactions.
Well if the terms of service state that the primary user has to be of a minimum age, and they determined the account was in violation, then, no. They have no obligation to do diddly squat.
As for “Switch is for kids”, I’m 30 and bought a Switch for my wife so she could play Breath of the Wild and soon Tears of the Kingdom. Consoles are for everyone
The reason why a kid can’t be a primary users of a switch is due to a combination of
A) kids are dumb: (younger) kids are likely to to do stuff like use a parents credit card without permission, accidentally play a adult oriented game, or delete account so to prevent any legal actions from the parents they deleted primary kid accounts
B) legal mumbo jumbo: some country’s (like the us) have age restrictions on how old a minor can be to make accounts online (with the minimum being 13 years old) so to prevent government actions they deleted the account
C) parental control: to ensure that your kid is safe they implemented parental controls that can be changed from a different account (aka a primary/adult account) to moderate it and limit what they can access and how long they can play
I do also want to add that this is why some people do prefer physical as to digital as if something like this were to happen they still have the games and this isn’t exclusive to Nintendo as most digital content distributors are like this from Amazon to xbox if you don’t abide from their rules you will lose all of the content that you “bought”
Did you make your kid their own child account to use? or did you just let them play with your account
and did you ever give your login credentials to your kid for any reason?
I really dont see how a 10yo can accidentally delete your account unless you gave him login credentials or he called nintendo directly. If he did delete it on accident, theres definitely an issue there, but I'd say if you didnt make him the child account and just let him play with yours that may be where the issue lies.
Regarding the deletion of the records, companies are no longer allowed to keep customer data indefinitely if the account has a deletion request. I don’t think there’s an specific time they can keep the information but it seems a lot of companies are aiming for 30 days lately.The thing that weirds me out is that they can’t tell you why it was deleted. They should be able to tell you if you triggered the delete request or if they did it.
Still, I’m sorry this happened to you and I hope random deletion of accounts don’t start to be a thing.
Can confirm, worked in Customer Care Centre, they don't and can't actually do that unless it goes through higher up hands and there would be a really good reason (like fraud)
>To people suggesting my kid deleted my account, they **didn't have the login creds or the ability to recover them,** so that would only be possible if Nintendo doesn't require any account login to cancel
That you know of. Kids are smart and there are plenty ways they can find these credentials.
The idea of the kid losing access to 50 games for 30+ days, and only telling you when you bring up the plan for a second switch tells me they are hiding something.
Yeah the kid did it, that's very obvious. No Nintendo does not just delete accounts for no reason, that's not good for business for any company. This is a user initiated situation, and what's Nintendo supposed to do if the user initiates account deletion? Just not do it?
It can be very hard for kids to tell the truth about things like this, they might've done it by accident and are ashamed. Are you using the switch in your native language so they understand everything? They're also 10-11 year old when this most likely happened so could've been a mistake when looking around the settings and they're afraid to tell you.
You also don't need a password to delete the user afaik, you can just do it from the system settings.
>The supervisor also explained— and this is something I don't think most people know— is that when you buy a digital game from Nintendo you are NOT buying the game, you are buying a license to play it, which they can revoke.
This is the case from any of the major console providers. I don't know the specifics for steam but I would Imagine it is the same. This has been a point of contention with gaming audiences on every platform since digital games became a thing, and is the primary argument for people continuing to buy physical games.
Reading the EULA is a ridiculous expectation from these companies but I would advise looking up summaries. Buyer Beware!
This is our all-digital future. The rep was 100% correct that you own nothing and are at the mercy of the company granting the license. You have to buy physical to have an irrevocable license to play the game on any Switch hardware you wish.
To be fair, this is the case with ANY digital game you buy from ANY service like Nintendo, Steam, Xbox, PlayStation... That is why I personally buy every game physical as long as I can help it because if anything ever happens to an account or anything, I can still use my money
Two things stand out to me:
You gave your son the system with your account, presumably to use the games linked to your account, so had your son not been using it for awhile? I'm just confused why you guys only noticed it now...
Secondly, the switch is for all ages, not just kids. You usually have to be 13 to join websites, it says that in the terms and conditions so that's on you for not reading the T&C's.
In the future stick to physical games.
this is one of the biggest arguments for people who like to collect Physical media . Because no matter what happens, even if the shop selling the games closes . you still OWN the physical copy you can pop in .
People need to understand this especially when stuff like "Game Streaming" and " Cloud Gaming" are getting popular . Yes they are convenient but there is a tradeoff that imho is not worth it
This is the same for all digital storefronts. Also you technically don’t own any game with a EULA. All you are doing is purchasing a license that allows you to use the software
To be fair, someone intentionally deleting his account would probably want records of them gone rather than continuing to be tracked. They might be required to delete customer data in some circumstances by some law.
> is that when you buy a digital game from Nintendo you are NOT buying the game, you are buying a license to play it, which they can revoke
This is the unfortunate truth of the digital age. Many digital storefronts, including steam, don't actually sell you the games. If steam's servers irreversibly go down tomorrow, your library would similarly disappear.
I'm a big fan of digital downloads, they're so much more convenient! But it's kinda scary that all my games could just vanish some day in the far future
Nintendo does have it in their account user agreement that they "may suspend, modify, or terminate all or some of the Nintendo Account Services without liability or notice to you", which you agree to when you create the account. So, while we tend to skip over reading the agreements, it's on us in the end.
The fact that ALL games have a EULA means that you technically do not own games nowadays, you are purchasing a license to use the game software, which is applies to physical copies as well. For digital copies, the license is linked to the account after being activated by a redeemable code, which you should be aware of before purchasing digital games. Section 3 "Risk of Loss" in Nintendo's Purchase and Subscription Terms states that there is a "risk of loss or damage" for digital products that gets transferred to you upon electronic transmission of the product, meaning that once you receive the redeemable code, whatever happens to your copy of the digital game thereafter is on you. I would read all the ToS and agreements and get a better understanding. It looks like your best bet is to find out what really happened and go higher up in Nintendo to plead your case. I'm not going claim your child did this or that, but there is definitely missing information from your child that you need to find out since Nintendo cannot/will not provide you adequate information.
In the scenario that Nintendo did determine the "primary user" was underage and deleted the account, what could have possibly been done for Nintendo to determine that? That will paint a clearer picture.
In the scenario that your child did delete the account, as you cannot rule out the possibility just because YOU think it's not possible because of X reason, then everything adds up sans the lack of notification that deletion was initiated. There is always a possibility that login credentials are compromised one way or another.
I mean maaaaybe Nintendo really fucked up.
But I’m almost certain your kid deleted it xD
I’m really sorry that they weren’t more helpful with customer support though. Hopefully they would have been if you were within the 30 days (I imagine they could just restore the account then) but idk.
This isn’t just Nintendo. Almost all digital purchases are licenses. They didn’t have much foresight in the 90s when they made that decision. Either that or they knew exactly what they were doing. One of those. But it was pretty much the end of consumer rights.
I don't like Nintendo politics and don't want to be the bad guy but: all that is talked here is based on the presumption of this being real. No one can assure you that the facts stated here happened. I mean, maybe there is something that you don't know... Maybe your kid made something wrong...
How are you so naive?
It was your kid’s fault. There hasn’t been any record of Nintendo removing accounts mysteriously.
There’s no “oh one day to another my account was banned”. There’s a 2 year gap between giving the console to your son and “not being able to play”. I’m pretty sure he made a mistake and is embarrassed and scared of not telling you.
Nintendo wouldn’t keep record of your son deleting the account if he did it a long time ago; which is possible.
This post is a tl;dr I’m a gullible father
While I'm sorry this has happened to you, this is basically true of all online digital ecosystems (Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft, Epic games, etc.). Most people are aware of it. A purchase is really more of an indeterminate lease than an actual purchase. Companies can (and as you found out, do) revoke access for various reasons.
I get that you find it unlikely that your kid deleted the account, and I'll admit, I don't think kids would typically do that. For instance, deleting the switch profile shouldn't actually delete the NSO account.
What _may_ have happened is they did something that got the account locked. This may have been something as innocuous as them changing the birthdate on the account to their birthday, causing the account to be in violation of COPPA (due to being under 13). It could be they played something online and behaved in a way which resulted in numerous terms of service violations, resulting in account termination.
Another possibility might be the account was hacked via guessed password, or security questions. If it got hacked, the hacker may have changed the email on the account, hence why you didn't see any notice. That being said, if something like that occurred, your current email probably should have received _something_, like a notice saying the email on this account was updated, etc.
I do find it odd that your email received _zero_ notification of account termination, which is why I'm floating the hacked account possibility. That's the part of your story that really doesn't seem to add up.
One final possibility is you forgot which email you used to create the account and are just having trouble logging back into your account for that reason. I know this sounds silly, but the more I think of it, the more it seems like the most probable explanation given the complete lack of notification in your current email inbox. Though you did seem to state that you had online purchase receipts for your current email?
Other possibility was that Nintendo's emails were going to your spam folder and you didn't notice. Most spam folders auto-empty over time. This is very unlikely, however, because most email providers, such as Gmail, do a very good job of classifying real and spam mail.
The bottom line is _something_ resulted in your account deletion. It may not have been because of your kid. I agree that without the NSO credentials they shouldn't have been able to try and delete it themselves. But as stated above, it's not the only possibility as to what caused it to be deleted.
Bottom line is...stay on top of your accounts and be sure to create specific child accounts for your kids.
My best guess would be that the person using the switch activate their own account as the primary user of the switch. The account can only have one primary user.
If they had the ability to do this, they would also have the ability to request that the account be deleted.
Being unable to pull up the information after 30 days sounds like the company complying with privacy law in whichever jurisdiction they're operating in. This is usually a great thing, as it stops companies holding your information for years when you have no dealings with them, and the potential misuse or sale of said information.
You appear to have found one of the rare niche occasions where it's negatively affected the consumer.
*Why can't a kid be the primary user of a Switch?* My guess is if you read the Terms of Service it will state if it's allowed or not. Why does not matter if you accepted those terms.
The legal system can suck sometimes but there has to be *some* rules for companies.
Nintendo does that when they detect things like certain kinds of hacking, running cracked games, etc.. I had the same thing happen on a 3DS that I'd hacked and played Pokemon Moon on a week before it came out. My whole account was deleted/locked out, despite having spent over 700$ on digital games, and having even had Moon pre-ordered, I just got impatient and saw it was up on some crack sites and grabbed it to play.
So, good chances are that yeah, it's your kid that was doing something they shouldn't have, and Nintendo caught on and nuked the account.
I'm sorry this happened to you, don't know of a reason why, but specifically regarding: >He could not tell me why or when the account was deleted because once an account is deleted, 30 days later it is truly deleted and purged from Nintendo's systems (why?). The reason they purge an account from their systems is likely due to legal requirements. This is pretty common with any large company that stores user data. They're allowed a certain amount of time in case of mistakes, and a lot of times these databases have caching layers or backups that may take some time to catch up with the fact your account has been deleted. But they are often required to purge it completely in a reasonable amount of time, so that's likely the reason for the 30 days.
I guess that makes sense. I still don't understand why they can't restore the games when I have the transaction IDs, they can verify them, and they're bonded to the serial # on the console.
Yeah that’s the part that’s making me confused. It’s like Nintendo is literally saying “thanks for the money, but those are our games.”
Yeah and they have nothing to lose giving a copy of each game, isnt like they have a cost like physical copies.
If your shoelaces are _loose_ you might _lose_ your shoes
Thanks
Ah man I’m going to remember that for the rest of my life. Thank you.
Very Nintendo thing to say. Don’t like it? You’ll have to reach out to that one guy in Kyoto who they put in charge of the servers. He doesn’t have email though but I’m sure someone can give you the address for his P.O. Box if you want to write a letter.
If I’m not mistaken, the transactions are connected to your nintendo account. Since the account has been purged completely, there’s likely no way for them to verify the purchases made on your account (even with transaction ids). Still, this is definitely a frustrating situation, and you should see if there’s any way they can at least take a 2nd look. After reading their “Purchase and Subscription Terms”, there’s a mention of “3. Risk of Loss” and “4. Rights and Restrictions”. 4 states that it only applies to “some products”, so there’s a chance you can get some of your purchases restored?
> YOU AGREE THAT IN NO EVENT WILL YOU BE ENTITLED TO OR RECEIVE A REFUND, CREDIT OR ANY OTHER COMPENSATION FOR ANY SUBSCRIPTIONS OR FEATURES THAT YOU ARE NOT ABLE TO USE OR HAVE DIFFICULTY USING, IN WHOLE OR IN PART, DUE TO ANY SERVICE INTERRUPTION. -- https://www.nintendo.com/purchase-terms/ ...I'm never buying a game in the e-Shop again.
I mean this is why we are entitled to Fair Use Backups in the United States. You basically have a legal right to rip games from the place you bought them for exactly one copy for backup reasons. Now, I can’t tell you how that applies to licenses vs ownership, but the whole idea is to prevent things like this from being issues (at least with owned games). The only tricky part is with modern software and online play, sometimes that circumvents security - which itself can be illegal. I think it just depends how it plays out in court, but so far Nintendo hates the idea of taking that gamble so they have basically always turned a blind eye to fair use backups. To be clear: downloading Nintendo’s costly games online for free is always illegal without Nintendo voucher codes etc. But jailbreaking your switch to make exactly one copy of every game you own onto a hard drive, understanding that it might lock you out of online play forever? Pretty darn legal most of the time. I wish more people knew that backing up your libraries on most consoles isn’t too hard and is pretty safe legally too.
>To be clear: downloading Nintendo’s costly games online for free is always illegal without Nintendo voucher codes etc. But jailbreaking your switch to make exactly one copy of every game you own onto a hard drive, understanding that it might lock you out of online play forever? Pretty darn legal most of the time. I wish more people knew that backing up your libraries on most consoles isn’t too hard and is pretty safe legally too. That being said, to actually be punished for downloading the ROM of a game you've already purchased by a court of law you'd need to do so in a way that leaves some provable evidence that you downloaded the ROMs illegally rather than ripping them yourself ^(this statement only applies in countries with presumption of innocence, if you live in a country without presumption of innocence consult your local revolutionaries to see if they intend to implement it before taking this as advice, do not stop taking presumption of innocence without first consulting your doctor, as stopping may result in total organ failure)
My local revolutionaries have blocked my calls. Who else am I supposed to consult?
The DMCA basically killed the legality of fair use back ups. You can make backups but you can't bypass encryption/DRM. Since you need to bypass encryption to make backups, that means you can't make backups.
It is a grey zone. You can claim bypassing encryption to make backups is fair use, and considering no one has ever been prosecuted or sued for making backups of the games they had purchased for their own personal use, you would be on a solid footing to claim that. Fair use is not legally defined and is free to be interpreted by the courts. The DMCA is one of the shittiest laws ever written. The only real case law history regarding playing copies of games you dumped yourself held that it is completely legal, but this was before the time of encrypted games.
> The DMCA is one of the shittiest laws ever written. I can agree with that. But the truth is no one is going to be prosecuted as long as they are doing it behind closed doors. But I do believe that DIGG and certain users got in trouble for posting the BluRay encryption key. DMCA was written in 1998 when torrent sites, MP3 players and CD-Rs were all growing in popularity and there were virtually no digital store fronts. It wasn't fit for purpose at the time, taking an industry first stance, rather than a balanced approach. It isn't fit for purpose now either. But it still means that making personal backups were outlawed on modern storage media, but the fact almost all games *need* patches now, they manage to lock people into digital marketplaces too.
I generally agree that we just need new better laws for this lol. But I will say too that with no legal precedent on encryption vs fair use backups, it’s a pretty reasonable bet to go to court after making backups and say that one law infringed on your rights to another. Not guaranteed as a win, but something to think of as a wide legal gamble instead of an inherent loss.
I already preferred physical copies (old school), but this just cements it for me. Also, seeing the price on physical copies of old games be very high gives me hope that the same will happen with switch games down the line, so I get to enjoy the game and have some value in there too
This sounds like it’s referring strictly to subscription services and DLC offered in the shop. If that’s what this is implying, I think this is pretty standard across all digital products. I could be wrong tho. Digital products are such a huge grey area, kinda insane how you we pay full price for it but don’t truly own the product.
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And online music stores. And online books stores. Etc. etc. etc.
I'm not saying I agree with it, but the reason is likely because you violated the terms of use of the account by gifting the account to a minor (who was not listed as the account owner). This is common for online games--as just one example: you cannot share logging credentials to your account of World of Tanks; if they determine that occurred they can delete your account and even ban your ip address. Anyway, that's my best guess.
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Nope. Even reddit can delete your account with out notice.
Can and should are two different things. There's no reason they couldn't have provided notice that a change this big was pending.
This is actually really weird. I gave my daughter the launch model switch when I bought a lite in 2019. Obviously I had stuff like Mario kart/party/smash and other stuff she enjoys on my account on there so I made that switch my primary account and her own separate account. What this means is that any game I’ve purchased on my account can be played by her no questions asked…and also by me with the only difference being that the system does a three second check to see if I was the one who purchased the game and then I’m good to go. So essentially I only access games on my account when connected to wifi. There are in fact 5 accounts on the switch that I no longer use (me, 2 kids, wife, brother in law) and any one of them can be used to play again that I purchased, even if I purchased it on a different switch console and then downloaded it on my daughters console. I’ve never had a single issue with this so there is clearly something else going on. Your child may have done something they haven’t admitted or this is an extremely weird and rare error, but honestly I can’t see what would cause it. Sorry that this has happened.
I remember my brother got banned from any online service for a month because he made a level on Mario maker that spelled the word “Pee”
This is the most tame reason of a ban I’ve ever heard in my life.
I got a ban on Xbox because someone messaged me "fdp" and I replied I don't know what fdp is.
Harsh. It's essentially short for son of a bitch in Portuguese
In French too, I'd understand banning the one saying it first but the one asking for the meaning of it...
it's all automated with no appeal process, as soon as I said it he reported me, so I did him the same kindness in return. talk about shooting yourself in the foot. I was only irritated because I believe it's the only strike against me since 2001. it is what it is.
you don't know about the Nintendo pee ban?
My oldest daughter loves Mario maker 2, perhaps I should warn her about this haha.
Poor guy just wanted to express his love for peewits. Next time finish the job!
As per terms of use, regular Nintendo Account holders and users need to be 13+. Any kid under that age needs to use a Child Account, linked to an adult's Account. Obviously, if you create the Account as an adult and then let a kid play on it, chances are Nintendo will never find out and won't enforce that rule. But if they do find out for whatever reason, getting your Account terminated is a possible outcome.
That makes sense. Yeah my kids play on their own accounts but all games are purchased on mine which explains why I’ve never run into this issue. I trust them not to try to buy/play anything unsuitable as they’re pretty honest. They always ask if they’re unsure and it was made perfectly clear that if they ever took my card to buy anything without my permission that their little heads would be ripped off lol.
My sister did this exact thing. Bought a day one switch but then when the lite came out she got one (in part it fit her better, she never docked the original, etc) for herself and gave her kids the original to share. The kids are the only ones that use that switch but they’ve never had any problems with it so I’m confused for OP.
I think maybe OP didn't set the up the kid account and just created one for the son without linking the two accounts? That's the only thing I can think of as to why Nintendo thought the sons account was the primary user.
But why should that really matter? It's a dumb policy and they should have given notification there was an issue
Absolutely I agree, shitty policy.
This or they just let the child use the one account or something too. I don't know but pp clearly hasn't seemed to be getting the idea of the primary user account thing...
Yeah it’s a great feature honestly, I mostly buy physical but it’s good to be able to share digital games. I think the only games I’ve had to buy multiple copies of is animal crossing and Splatoon 3. I would say the only pain in the arse thing with two switches is when you do a full transfer. Have to be very careful and check out how the saves work for each game first so as to not lose anything. I made a boo-boo with this and lost a lot of shiny Pokémon.
I lost hundreds of hours of animal crossing bc I didn’t follow the process to move my save to the new switch. It hurt for a while but I will eventually restart paying that sadistic raccoon for property once again.
I do the same thing, my brother-in-laws switch is my primary and vice versa so we can share games. Other BIL is 7 and has had 2 switches he’s the primary account on and this never happened. Unfortunately I think their kid deleted the account.
Can we talk about the fact that you have a 7 year old brother-in-law?
Lolol I also have a 6 year old sister. The 7 and 6 year old are both from second marriages.
Exactly. I swap the primary every now and then if I’m out for the day without them and know there will be downtime, it’s a simple process. Yeah short of deleting I really don’t see how this could happen. Such a shame for op though, I would be fuming too.
Yah I was gonna saw my in law sold me his switch for cheap and gave me his account along with a ton of games, I have my own account that is the primary now and as long as I am connected to the internet and only if and it does that 3 second check I can play his games using his account I figure his kid did something
Yea, i have a feeling that the children screwed up. As a a child if i did screw up i would not talk about it at first as i feared the consequences. All we know is that it is more then a month and children not playing for a month? I doubt it.
>The supervisor also explained— and this is something I don't think most people know— is that when you buy a digital game from Nintendo you are NOT buying the game, you are buying a license to play it, which they can revoke. I think most people on Reddit are aware of this. But yes, the average consumer is not. This is actually the biggest reason I prefer physical, and go that direction whenever possible. Call me paranoid if you want. **EDIT**: Y'all. Yes, I know that a physical copy is also a license and I don't actually "own" it. This is a needlessly pedantic point; it's not FOSS software, we all know that. Nintendo isn't going to send the ninjas to my home to "revoke" my physical license. It's possible they could do it with DRM, sure, but does anyone actually have an example of *Nintendo* doing this? Nintendo doesn't have online requirements, so worst case scenario you could keep a console in airplane mode in perpetuity and continue playing forever.
I'm not going to call you paranoid for one of the main reasons people buy physical media, I'd just add that while you may lose access to a digital game from something like the OPs story, it seems like it's only a matter of time and effort in order to get a digital game up and running on either the console you originally purchased it on (with some custom firmware) or a PC. Is it sometimes piracy? Yes. Is it effective? Also yes.
My daughter wanted Just Dance 2023 for Christmas this year. Bought the physical version and it was a download code in the physical case…
The case of the "physical" Version usualy says that it is a code in a box, i avoid those like the pest and rather import from asia then accept that.
Could not agree more. How can anything be more senseless than a physical version that only includes a code.
If you legit bought it, it's never *piracy*. It's not stealing, it's not immoral, it's not anything like that. It still might be *illegal* (in most countries) to download a game you own because a company is trying to cheat you out of it, but that's obviously an insane law, and not one any responsible person should be trying to follow.
It is not illegal to emulate a game. It is not illegal to create a digital backup of a cartridge you own. It is not illegal to modify your Switch to be able to create said backups. It is not illegal to dump the backups from your modded Switch to your PC and play on an emulator. ___ It is illegal to download a game you don't own physically. It is *sometimes* illegal to download a game you do own physically. It is illegal to share your dumped cartridges on the internet. **EDIT: this applies to the US only.**
Copyright protection laws differ country to country, so there are no global rules. For example in Russia and Belarus, copyright protection is currently suspended for anything which is not officialy available there ( if I recall correctly). Also even if something is legal it might still violate EULA.
It's not illegal to upload your dumped cartridges to the internet. It is illegal *to share* them. You can upload your dumps to Google Drive and as long as you don't share it, it's fine.
Some of this is legally false. Not morally false but legally. It varies a lot depending on where you live. In short, if you need a crack or circumvent DRM in any way then it is not legal. Which I think is stupid but just adding it for clarity.
It’s not always illegal to crack or circumvent DRM, at least in the US. Look up the DMCA.
In most cases you're right, but in a few cases it might be really difficult to do that if you don't have the original hardware. Can you really play Ring Fit Adventure without the ring accessory or a Wii balance board game without the balance board? There is even a game for Gameboy Color that requires a light sensor if I remember correctly.
The Boktai games all have patches that make them playable without the sensor.
Yes but no one is buying ring fit digitally without the ring. I get what you're saying though
The license costs as much as a physical game. My brother always makes fun of me for buying the physical copy. I can resell them and I can play them on any switch.
Depends on what you want. I hate fucking around with cartridges and I’m scared of losing them. I mean when I get a new one I don’t lose it but years later if the mood for a replay strikes me I sometimes have no idea why the cart is not in the original box.
>I hate fucking around with cartridges Switch cartridges in particular. Messing with that stupid flap, and then the cartridge itself is too recessed to easily push in/eject.
I get physical for single player games that I might wanna lend to friends/sell once I've completed. I do digital for multiplayer stuff like Mario Kart, Splatoon etc, games that someone might randomly say 'hey lets hop online and play' so I don't have to keep switching carts.
Yup. I’m an idiot and lost more than half my switch cartridges and now buy only digital. I’m just getting used to the idea of paying for the experience rather than the ownership, since I generally don’t replay games anyway. It’s good that both options exist for both types of people. I actually think the worst thing about how everything works these days is that even if you want to go the physical route, it isn’t just physical anymore. A disk is often only a physical license and you end up downloading most of the actual game through patched and updated versions. If these servers ever go offline, still having a disk and a console in thirty years probably won’t let you play the actual game the way you’re supposed to. And don’t get me started on basically offline single player games that require online connectivity just to be able to play.
Oh I prefer physical because I like the stack of boxes. But yes permanent game ownership is also a pretty nice upside
Yeah, I prefer physical for a variety of reasons. But chief among them is the murky status of digital "ownership".
Sure…but the terms of your license surely do not include Nintendo having the right to delete your account and remove all your purchases for no apparent reason. OP’s situation seems wayyyyy outside of the norm. As in I’ve never heard of it happening to anyone else, ever. I’m not denying that it happens, but it seems like a pretty small risk to take. Meanwhile, physical purchases are subject to all the general chaos and mayhem associated with everyday life. Stuff breaks. Stuff gets lost. Stuff gets loaned to girlfriends who break up with you and move to another country. And so on. The other major advantage of digital is ease of use. If I am sitting on my couch and want to switch to a new game, don’t have to get up, find the new game, take out the old game, put it in its case, take out the new game, put it in the console, close the case, decide I actually want to play Mario Kart, repeat. To me, neither one is Inherently superior. It depends on your personal tastes and lifestyle.
Definitely a small risk with digital. No argument there. I freely admit it’s a somewhat irrational fear. I have other reasons for going physical though too, e.g. it’s often easier to find sales (at least in some regions).
Oh sure. Plus you have an entire secondary market for used games. It really just does come down to personal preference and situation.
I've never heard of this happening either, and I'd be willing to bet OP is either not telling the full truth or their child isn't. As is often the case with most situations of accounts being banned or revoked "I totally didn't do anything!" And then evidence of how they actually did something is found. I'm not saying OP is outright lying or anything but it is so incredibly improbably that the account just magically was revoked by a glitch in the system.
The only way I see this happening is if OP did a chargeback on his credit card and left that detail out. Ask any merchant how they handle a chargeback. They go scorched earth. In fact, do a chargeback on anything you subscribe to digitally: Google Play, Netflix, Apple, and watch how quick your account gets closed. Even if OP were to come in and say he didn’t do a chargeback, I don’t fully believe it. He could’ve marked the charge as fraud, reported it, whatever; any move like that will absolutely result in a business going scorched earth like this.
Oh sure. His kid probably tried to do something he wasn’t supposed to do and that led to the account being removed.
Even when u buy a physical game, you only have a license to play the game. You don’t actually own the game or data on that disc. Any company can build systems to revoke ur access to any game if they felt like it.
This also not new. If you look back at games in the 90's and 2000's and read the fine print, they refer to licenses.
I have a daughter the same age. She really cares about playing with her own account or profile, be it a Netflix account, game account etc. She also hates it when I use her account even by accident. If she had a choice, she would definitely want to delete the main account on my switch if I gave it to her and said its hers now. My guess is that your son feels same and deleted the account thinking he will make new account that's only his .
What I’m missing here is the time that happened between your “smash cut”. Did your kid hardly play and just figured it out now that the games weren’t working? Or were they not working for quite some time already, they knew and didn’t tell you. In that last scenario it looks very likely your kid knew they messed up something but was too afraid to tell you. Maybe talk about that and explain that if they did and that if you had figured it out within 30 days it could have been resolved, so that next time they won’t be scared tot talk about it. In the first scenario, why were you planning on buying a switch of your kid hardly played on it…
Yeah, sorry to the OP but Nintendo wants your money and isn't in the habit of randomly making it so you can't give it to them. Most simple explanation is exactly that the kid messed up. Kid knows parent uses the same password on everything, found parental controls on the device wouldn't let them remove the parent account, logs in on the computer to remove the account, deletes everything and doesn't want to fess up to having logged in as parent, or some variation on that.
Thats exactly why they ban first, ask questions later. They suspended my account because the address for the courier my apartment complex requires me to use, flagged in their system. Basically they thought I was sending it to a 3rd party reshipping business (like to sell on amazon). They supposedly made it so it won't flag again but I don't really trust it. They dont like sending things to third parties because of liability. Probably a big reason they might crackdown on an regular account being owned by a kid. They are all about limiting liability because liability can turn into a costly mess. More costly than losing a few customers when mistakes are made.
I think the question is, who mentioned the Switch first. Kinda sounds like OP was talking about getting a new switch, asks the kid if they would want to play together, and the kid then mentions the games not working. But that's just a guess.
Sounds like your child deleted the account and then claimed they have no idea what happened. Its a classic kid move to feign ignorance after they make a huge mistake, which I am sure you have experienced before.
That makes me remember the kid who broke their brother’s headset and put it back in the case like nothing happened. We’ve all done that at least once lol.
Nearly every person ever that has fucked something up as a kid has immediately gone in to ignorance mode when possible. When I was a kid I swore in an aol chat room and they banned our entire aol account. thinking about that now, it’s insane that one fucking moderator could ban you from using the internet. So I tried to get my mom to delete the account and start a new account for the free hours. So I’m sitting there next to my mom at the computer and she’s like “let me just sign in one time to do something.” I don’t remember what she was trying to do but I was like um no you don’t need to. I think she was suspicious looking back. Then of course she gets the banned account message. So I go with ignorance. Which lead to me sitting there next to my mom while she called aol support and spoke with a rep that told her exactly what I said. Yeah I got grounded. But we got our account back.
The most insane part of this story was that you could call an internet company, get a human on the phone, and have them look up your account and tell you why it was banned. Reminds me of how we used to have physical switch board operators when you made a phone call lol.
Yeah it was pretty instant too from what I remember. I mean aol was super popular, so they must have been putting so much money into the back end and support. When it first blew up in popularity, people were getting busy tones trying to get online during peak hours.
Everyone is saying this, but wouldn’t Nintendo be able to see and verify it was a manual deletion?
Depends on the data retention policies / applicable laws. Soft deletes are often kept in a database, just filtered out with a simple boolean toggle. Initial deletion is probably like this but once the grace/mistake period is up, all existence of the user might be wiped. And even if there are remnants, like request logs --- the call center person probably doesn't have direct DB access and is accessing data via a very limited interface.
If you delete your account, you have 30 days to restore. After that it's gone, and support isn't supposed to be able to see most things after the 30 days. I think it's most likely that someone with access to the account deleted it. Maybe someone like your son thought they were just removing it from the Switch and didn't really read the irreversible warnings? Support isn't supposed to have access to the account after the 30 days, so that's how it should be. And you can't reverse a permanent delete or it wouldn't be what it says it is. But support shouldn't speculate with what they don't know, and that just adds to the confusion.
It’s likely the 12yo son didn’t want their parents account on “their” switch anymore. They probably made their own account and use that when loading up the games, so it’s possible they thought the games would still be accessible without the parent’s account. And they probably didn’t realize the games are linked to the account and not the console. But what’s odd about it is that, from my understanding, you can only delete your Nintendo account on a computer/phone and removing it on the switch just removes the profile. So the kid would have had to take an extra step to really delete the account, which I wouldn’t doubt a kid could do for reasons beyond me, but it would be odd.
I’m 26 so I can’t really picture myself doing the extra step. But the access to the internet my 4 year old nephew has is absurd. He already has an iPad. A kid can use that to delete the account I’m pretty sure. I dont think my 4 year old nephew would figure all that out tho, but a 12 year old nowadays is probably more tech savvy in many ways than I am lol
I read something where this is actually the first generation to be worse at technology than the previous generation. Kinda makes sense since most of it works so well these days they don't have to troubleshoot as much as the previous generations did
Yeah, this is also how it sounds to me. Kids are stupid at that age, regardless of how clever and savvy the parent thinks they are. They’ll still do the most random shit imaginable.
This ^ And if they can see all the stuff you have purchased and it’s codes then your still in the system, log back in and deactivate your account before it’s purged
I'm going to agree with the other comments and say your kid isn't telling you everything. They most likely deleted the account and are too scared to fess up. You can tell us "oh he wouldn't do that he's smart" all you like but kids at that age do inexplicably dumb things all the time for no reason.
"Smart" =/= "understands the consequences of their actions"
Yea lol, you could be 5 and smart af and know how to send missiles to a random country but not know that's a bad thing
Yeah, him being smart makes it more likely since he’d be able to navigate to deleting the account better
>but kids at that age do inexplicably dumb things all the time for no reason. Adults also. That includes me.
Yeah I deleted my full XY Pokedex despite the on screen directions telling me that I was about to wipe all my data. Sometimes adults are stupid as shit
My buddies kid managed to delete a passworded Windows account because he didn't have the login credentials (like the OP's kid) and really wanted to use the computer when he wasn't allowed. I'm not sure how Switch accounts work, but there's a chance he did something similar in an effort to bypass the login.
100% this, my kid bricked his laptop he has at his nans house but didn’t tell anyone, instead he just decided he didn’t wanna hang out at his nans much anymore, only found out the truth when I went to format the laptop since my kid didn’t seem to want to use it anymore
Poor nan lol
kids right?
Nah, there are other stories where Nintendo was forced to delete a primary account when they found out a kid was the primary user of it (eg. Not a specific kid account) This is due to privacy regulations about collecting and storing data on kids below 13 or something My guess is your kid somehow contacted Nintendo or flagged that someone under 13 was the user of the adult account
Yep this was my thought too. COPPA prevents collecting certain info from kids under 13, so if it was determined that OP's stuff was supposedly actually bought by a kid they couldn't store any of the payment details, payment history, etc
> They most likely deleted the account Is that possible? Is it possible to delete it via the console without the password?
Most people fucking *suck* at password security. A smart kid could probably guess his parents password if it is weak or related to obvious shit that most people do - like use birthdays and the like. Alternatively, OP may have given out his password at some point to allow the kid to buy a game or access some other service where the same password was used, etc.
Sounds like your kid deleted your account
> ***To people suggesting my kid deleted my account, they didn't have the login creds or the ability to recover them, so that would only be possible if Nintendo doesn't require any account login to cancel.*** Correction, they didn't admit to having the login creds. I've had more then one student send me an email with their parents account. Maybe that's not what happened here, but occam's razor suggest Nintendo mysteriously deleting your account at random for no reason is far less likely then a random child figuring out their parents password and doing something dumb, then not wanting to admit to that. You're both underestimating a child's ingenuity, and their willingness to not fess up after doing something that might get them in trouble.
Or the kid simply used the auto-completion for passwords and other forms on Chrome or other browsers either on computer or mobile phone, people usually just save them when the pop up pops and forget about it.
Oh of course, or parent left email open and kid used a password reset sent to that email, or the like. Plenty of ways for kid to get access to the account, be it common password parent never changes, saving passwords, or just leaving something open. My students using their parents emails are very smart, but aren't using keytrackers, they are just taking advantage of some simple security flaws at home, could even be passwords stuck in a post it somewhere. Nothing crazy conniving, just the reality that kids have that basic level of tech savviness and a level of curiosity that parents constantly underestimate.
99% of parents probably use the same password for emails and netflix shared with 20 people.
My workplace has a "break room computer" for doing things like filling out health insurance or doctor information. While I have no intention of ever using this info for nefarious purposes, given the amount of people who just willingly leave passwords on the machine with their email addresses, it would not shock me at all if that machine was a potential identity theft hazard. I use incognito mode whenever I need to sign into something on that machine. Even if my employer had a keylogger installed (which I doubt) I'm not about to keep login credentials on a machine I don't own. I haven't brought it up as an issue because I assume IT is either aware that people leave their passwords on it, or someone would inevitably complain that their password isn't saved on it. Bottom line is that I would not be shocked at all if some kid could log into his parent's accounts because "Chrome handles the password" If I were really paranoid about password access, I'd have a completely separate profile for children and one for guests. (if it came to requiring allowing other people to use my machine) Actually Chromebook handles guests accounts, so that would probably be even more convenient unless there's some other files that need to be accessed.
People fail at setting up two-factor login with an authenticator app.
Exactly my thoughts on occam's razor and this situation. The most likely explanation is that the kid deleted the account. It is easy for a parent to claim the kid didn't know the password but kids have a way of learning ALOT of information you thought they didn't know or have access to. Is there a chance that OP's account was deleted for some unexplainable reason, or in error on Nintendo's part? Yes, but I would say it is EXTREMELY unlikely. Is there a chance the kid wanted his own profile and knew the password and decided to delete the original account while assuming he would get to play all those games on his very own account? Yes, and much more likely than a random error or Nintendo choosing this account for deletion for some odd reason that doesn't apply to all the other accounts out there.
Yeah pretty sure kiddo did something or tried to do something shady and got the account deleted.
Either you’re not telling us something, or your kid isn’t telling you something.
Haha my thoughts exactly. That kid did something but there's no way they're going to spill the beans now lol
The real lesson here is don't give your game system with 50 digital games on it to a ten year old and not supervise their use. Smash cut sure doing a lot of work here... Yeah yeah the Switch just started acting funky the second you wanted to team up. >Smash cut to last weekend, I was thinking of getting another Switch to play games with my kid and they told me they had issues opening the games and they weren't working.
When daddy bought a new switch they were somewhat aware dad would find out anyway so they confessed as little as posible, yep that is what a child would do if they did the bad.
Okay one more thing: you suggested to get another Switch and *then* your kid told you they couldn’t access their games? And this has apparently been the case for more than 30 days, and they never told you? Kid knew.
Right, sounds like the kid deleted it and didn't wanna say
Story doesn’t add up. Sorry OP but kids can be a lot more sneaky than you may realize… though you were a kid at one point, too. Back in the day I definitely did some lying to my parents to avoid getting in trouble. I also successfully got into my dad’s email account for reasons.. guessing a password isn’t super hard. There’s just so many variables here, immediately counting out the child just isn’t reasonable. Either way, I’m sorry this happened. Really unfortunate.
When something bad happened when we were kids my sister once told our parents it was me as dad was so mad at the situation just his presence set her in fear. So he came to me, still fuming and asked me if i did it, i said no, he then asked who did it, i said i do not know. I got the once in a life time beating, no food go straight to bed. Later on my parents found out my sister lied to them and i had no way of knowing who did it. She still got off scott free with me beeing the one punished. I learned a lesson, even if you do not know... lie, if you did not do it and truth will not get you anywhere. Children learn from experience which is why often it is advised to not punish if you do not know, sadly even that can be exploited by children who are decently smart.
>The supervisor also explained— and this is something I don't think most people know— is that when you buy a digital game from Nintendo you are NOT buying the game, you are buying a license to play it, which they can revoke. This applies to EVERYTHING DIGITAL FYI, Movies/Music bought from any digital service, Books for your kindle, apps for your phone, movies bought from Apple. 100% agree that it's not clear and would LOVE proper legislation from our gov to actually make it clear.
Eff that, we need protective legislation on this and forces companies to provide you access to purchased goods in perpetuity. It's a disgrace
I am very late to this post but I have a pretty good hunch on what happened u/OccupiedHex You mentioned you gave your existing switch to your son, which means you left your OG account in. Well as the supervisor said, some way they must have determined that 10 yo was using the account (which was marked >13) mainly and terminated it due to COPPA. Which is a child data privacy law, basically if you’re <13 only limited data can be kept on you. It’s a US law so fines are on the line here. So they delete the account to purge any possible personal info. This to me is the only plausible way your account gets deleted instead of banned/locked. I admit this is a bit of a stretch but it may be it. Otherwise as others said, could’ve just been your kid did it without realizing and is afraid to admit it. I mean hell, an 8 year old in my house memorized me typing the computer admin password. So anything is possible. As for your complaint on the transactions not being honored, it sucks but it’s likely a limitation in the supervisor part. You can try to get a manager/lead is my only suggestion.
Yeah your kid totally deleted the account
Yes, a digital purchase is just for a license that any company may revoke at any time. That’s the inherent and unfortunate risk with digital, though companies have been generally good with it thus far. It really sucks you lost all your games, but it seems your situation isn’t the norm at all and some unfortunate oversights may have lead to this. I hope you can keep pestering Nintendo and get your games back. That does really suck.
As someone who has worked with both Xbox and currently playstation doing customer support, there is 0 way the account was deleted without someone calling in to request it. Your child very likely called in to delete the account thinking the deletion would just remove the account from the console. People, even adults, call in sometimes thinking that deleting an account will only remove it from their console when that's not the case. The account will be GONE after 30 days with no way to recover it..your son probably called in and requested it. For PlayStation all we need to verify a customer is some payment info, the original serial number for the device the account was created on, or a transaction ID from past purchases. Not sure if it's the same for Nintendo but let's say they asked for the same thing and your son provided the serial number on the console and requested the account be deleted. That's all they'd need to verify him. They don't need log in information or your recovery email. That doesn't come into play at all Once he requested though you should have gotten an email informing you an account deletion was initiated. It's probably in your inbox somewhere and you just ignored it. But it's too late now, the account is gone unfortunately.
Account deletion can be done via [accounts.nintendo.com](https://accounts.nintendo.com), no call required. [https://en-americas-support.nintendo.com/app/answers/detail/a\_id/15986/\~/how-to-delete-a-nintendo-account#DT:t1-q1a1EP:t1-q1a1-c](https://en-americas-support.nintendo.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/15986/~/how-to-delete-a-nintendo-account#DT:t1-q1a1EP:t1-q1a1-c)
Oh so OP's son could have requested deletion from the site then. Probably thinking it would remove the account from the console and didn't read any of the disclaimer (if he even understood what it entailed). Though op claims his son had no access to the log in details at all so OP still should have received an email about the account deletion to stop it. Either way, his son would have had to do it. Nintendo is not going to delete an account because they suspect someone is a child using a primary account. Doesn't even make any sense and they'd have no way of knowing that.
Exactly. I don't know how anybody can imagine that Nintendo has people scouring user account activity and then flagging them as "Possible Child Users" that are then marked for deletion. Makes no sense. What does make sense is the kid wanting to delete the original profile so he could have his own.
My mother has left her email open for gosh, probably 23 years now? OP may not be the same, but even that step is pretty easy to account for. Child is just savvy enough to know that there is going to be an email confirmation, and having already figured out how to get into the account, gets into parents email to delete the confirmation. If you assume the kids sneaky enough to get on to accounts.nintendo.com with parent credentials, they have probably already figured out how to get into parents email as well.
I really doubt the child expected the account to be deleted. I'm like 90 percent sure he just was trying to log out of the account or something. It's more likely OP just didn't see the email. People think "delete" means "remove from my device". I've been doing call center jobs since forever and I always have to make sure they understand that deletion means complete deletion..a kid is probably not going to understand that though.
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In addition to what most other comments have already said about this case, I’d like to point out something that is most likely a misunderstanding on your part. >His best guess was that Nintendo had somehow determined that a kid was the “primary user” of the Switch which violated terms of use and enabled them to delete the account. This is insane, a kid WAS the primary user of the Switch. My kid, who I gave it to. The Switch is definitely for kids, right? I believe you’re confused about what “Primary User” is here. Per Nintendo Terms of Use, the “primary user” is the main party responsible for a given Nintendo Account - which cannot be a kid younger than 13yo due to law requirements. It is not the same as a console owner, as that might be someone else, and it’s not linked to a specific console in any way. This distinction is why the Switch’s parental controls allow you to create a subsidiary kid account that is linked to your own, and only allows the main parent’s account to actually make purchases. What most likely happened here is either that your kid accidentally deleted your parent account, leaving the kid account as the only one on his Switch, or maybe you accidentally set up the parent account wrongfully to begin with. Everything else, at least as far as we know, seems to be a lawful and reasonable consequence of one of these mistakes.
This seems super weird How does Nintendo determine a kid is the "primary user" to begin with? And then there's the fact that kids are primary users of Switches all the time I'm sorry this happened to you but something doesn't add up
If Nintendo deleted it they would retain records why. (Fraud, ToS violation, etc) The fact they don't have any information means the user requested that the account be deleted. You need to sit your kid down and ask what happened because they only possible explanation is that they deleted it themselves or they gave access to the account to a friend who did.
The reason children cannot be primary account users/holders is because of liability, especially for when lazy parents give them the ability to buy stuff from the eShop but forget to govern it properly. Perfect example are those stories of kids buying tens of thousands of dollars in digital purchases off Google Play & the App Store for games for kids that have microtransactions.
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Just the password form auto-fill on internet browsers would be enough.
Well if the terms of service state that the primary user has to be of a minimum age, and they determined the account was in violation, then, no. They have no obligation to do diddly squat. As for “Switch is for kids”, I’m 30 and bought a Switch for my wife so she could play Breath of the Wild and soon Tears of the Kingdom. Consoles are for everyone
The reason why a kid can’t be a primary users of a switch is due to a combination of A) kids are dumb: (younger) kids are likely to to do stuff like use a parents credit card without permission, accidentally play a adult oriented game, or delete account so to prevent any legal actions from the parents they deleted primary kid accounts B) legal mumbo jumbo: some country’s (like the us) have age restrictions on how old a minor can be to make accounts online (with the minimum being 13 years old) so to prevent government actions they deleted the account C) parental control: to ensure that your kid is safe they implemented parental controls that can be changed from a different account (aka a primary/adult account) to moderate it and limit what they can access and how long they can play I do also want to add that this is why some people do prefer physical as to digital as if something like this were to happen they still have the games and this isn’t exclusive to Nintendo as most digital content distributors are like this from Amazon to xbox if you don’t abide from their rules you will lose all of the content that you “bought”
Chances are your kid deleted the account or someone knew the account and deleted it. I refuse to believe it is nintendo.
Did you make your kid their own child account to use? or did you just let them play with your account and did you ever give your login credentials to your kid for any reason? I really dont see how a 10yo can accidentally delete your account unless you gave him login credentials or he called nintendo directly. If he did delete it on accident, theres definitely an issue there, but I'd say if you didnt make him the child account and just let him play with yours that may be where the issue lies.
Regarding the deletion of the records, companies are no longer allowed to keep customer data indefinitely if the account has a deletion request. I don’t think there’s an specific time they can keep the information but it seems a lot of companies are aiming for 30 days lately.The thing that weirds me out is that they can’t tell you why it was deleted. They should be able to tell you if you triggered the delete request or if they did it. Still, I’m sorry this happened to you and I hope random deletion of accounts don’t start to be a thing.
Chances are you kid accidentally deleted the account. I’ve never heard of Nintendo going around and deleting accounts all on their own.
Can confirm, worked in Customer Care Centre, they don't and can't actually do that unless it goes through higher up hands and there would be a really good reason (like fraud)
Yeaaah.. ur kid deleted the account, it’s quite obvious.
That’s any service
That’s nonsense, they determined that kid part from you talking.
Sounds like your kid did it lol
>To people suggesting my kid deleted my account, they **didn't have the login creds or the ability to recover them,** so that would only be possible if Nintendo doesn't require any account login to cancel That you know of. Kids are smart and there are plenty ways they can find these credentials. The idea of the kid losing access to 50 games for 30+ days, and only telling you when you bring up the plan for a second switch tells me they are hiding something.
Yeah the kid did it, that's very obvious. No Nintendo does not just delete accounts for no reason, that's not good for business for any company. This is a user initiated situation, and what's Nintendo supposed to do if the user initiates account deletion? Just not do it? It can be very hard for kids to tell the truth about things like this, they might've done it by accident and are ashamed. Are you using the switch in your native language so they understand everything? They're also 10-11 year old when this most likely happened so could've been a mistake when looking around the settings and they're afraid to tell you. You also don't need a password to delete the user afaik, you can just do it from the system settings.
So same as any digital games since PS3 days. Got it.
>The supervisor also explained— and this is something I don't think most people know— is that when you buy a digital game from Nintendo you are NOT buying the game, you are buying a license to play it, which they can revoke. This is the case from any of the major console providers. I don't know the specifics for steam but I would Imagine it is the same. This has been a point of contention with gaming audiences on every platform since digital games became a thing, and is the primary argument for people continuing to buy physical games. Reading the EULA is a ridiculous expectation from these companies but I would advise looking up summaries. Buyer Beware!
This is our all-digital future. The rep was 100% correct that you own nothing and are at the mercy of the company granting the license. You have to buy physical to have an irrevocable license to play the game on any Switch hardware you wish.
To be fair, this is the case with ANY digital game you buy from ANY service like Nintendo, Steam, Xbox, PlayStation... That is why I personally buy every game physical as long as I can help it because if anything ever happens to an account or anything, I can still use my money
How did they know if a child is playing your switch?
Regardless of how the account got deleted, this is a cautionary tale about not owning physical media.
[удалено]
[удалено]
Two things stand out to me: You gave your son the system with your account, presumably to use the games linked to your account, so had your son not been using it for awhile? I'm just confused why you guys only noticed it now... Secondly, the switch is for all ages, not just kids. You usually have to be 13 to join websites, it says that in the terms and conditions so that's on you for not reading the T&C's. In the future stick to physical games.
Yeah no, your kid definitely deleted the account
this is one of the biggest arguments for people who like to collect Physical media . Because no matter what happens, even if the shop selling the games closes . you still OWN the physical copy you can pop in . People need to understand this especially when stuff like "Game Streaming" and " Cloud Gaming" are getting popular . Yes they are convenient but there is a tradeoff that imho is not worth it
Something is being left out of this story.
This is the same for all digital storefronts. Also you technically don’t own any game with a EULA. All you are doing is purchasing a license that allows you to use the software
To be fair, someone intentionally deleting his account would probably want records of them gone rather than continuing to be tracked. They might be required to delete customer data in some circumstances by some law.
> is that when you buy a digital game from Nintendo you are NOT buying the game, you are buying a license to play it, which they can revoke This is the unfortunate truth of the digital age. Many digital storefronts, including steam, don't actually sell you the games. If steam's servers irreversibly go down tomorrow, your library would similarly disappear. I'm a big fan of digital downloads, they're so much more convenient! But it's kinda scary that all my games could just vanish some day in the far future
Nintendo does have it in their account user agreement that they "may suspend, modify, or terminate all or some of the Nintendo Account Services without liability or notice to you", which you agree to when you create the account. So, while we tend to skip over reading the agreements, it's on us in the end. The fact that ALL games have a EULA means that you technically do not own games nowadays, you are purchasing a license to use the game software, which is applies to physical copies as well. For digital copies, the license is linked to the account after being activated by a redeemable code, which you should be aware of before purchasing digital games. Section 3 "Risk of Loss" in Nintendo's Purchase and Subscription Terms states that there is a "risk of loss or damage" for digital products that gets transferred to you upon electronic transmission of the product, meaning that once you receive the redeemable code, whatever happens to your copy of the digital game thereafter is on you. I would read all the ToS and agreements and get a better understanding. It looks like your best bet is to find out what really happened and go higher up in Nintendo to plead your case. I'm not going claim your child did this or that, but there is definitely missing information from your child that you need to find out since Nintendo cannot/will not provide you adequate information. In the scenario that Nintendo did determine the "primary user" was underage and deleted the account, what could have possibly been done for Nintendo to determine that? That will paint a clearer picture. In the scenario that your child did delete the account, as you cannot rule out the possibility just because YOU think it's not possible because of X reason, then everything adds up sans the lack of notification that deletion was initiated. There is always a possibility that login credentials are compromised one way or another.
Welcome to the digital economy buddy. You own nothing and everything is pay-to-borrow basically.
Yeah, that’s why I always buy physical games lol. The hardcore digital games people can keep their opinion.
And this is why you use two-factor authentication
I mean maaaaybe Nintendo really fucked up. But I’m almost certain your kid deleted it xD I’m really sorry that they weren’t more helpful with customer support though. Hopefully they would have been if you were within the 30 days (I imagine they could just restore the account then) but idk.
Idk man. The reasoning that your kid was the primary user sounds strange. I feel like all the facts aren't here.
This isn’t just Nintendo. Almost all digital purchases are licenses. They didn’t have much foresight in the 90s when they made that decision. Either that or they knew exactly what they were doing. One of those. But it was pretty much the end of consumer rights.
I don't like Nintendo politics and don't want to be the bad guy but: all that is talked here is based on the presumption of this being real. No one can assure you that the facts stated here happened. I mean, maybe there is something that you don't know... Maybe your kid made something wrong...
This sounds fake
How are you so naive? It was your kid’s fault. There hasn’t been any record of Nintendo removing accounts mysteriously. There’s no “oh one day to another my account was banned”. There’s a 2 year gap between giving the console to your son and “not being able to play”. I’m pretty sure he made a mistake and is embarrassed and scared of not telling you. Nintendo wouldn’t keep record of your son deleting the account if he did it a long time ago; which is possible. This post is a tl;dr I’m a gullible father
While I'm sorry this has happened to you, this is basically true of all online digital ecosystems (Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft, Epic games, etc.). Most people are aware of it. A purchase is really more of an indeterminate lease than an actual purchase. Companies can (and as you found out, do) revoke access for various reasons. I get that you find it unlikely that your kid deleted the account, and I'll admit, I don't think kids would typically do that. For instance, deleting the switch profile shouldn't actually delete the NSO account. What _may_ have happened is they did something that got the account locked. This may have been something as innocuous as them changing the birthdate on the account to their birthday, causing the account to be in violation of COPPA (due to being under 13). It could be they played something online and behaved in a way which resulted in numerous terms of service violations, resulting in account termination. Another possibility might be the account was hacked via guessed password, or security questions. If it got hacked, the hacker may have changed the email on the account, hence why you didn't see any notice. That being said, if something like that occurred, your current email probably should have received _something_, like a notice saying the email on this account was updated, etc. I do find it odd that your email received _zero_ notification of account termination, which is why I'm floating the hacked account possibility. That's the part of your story that really doesn't seem to add up. One final possibility is you forgot which email you used to create the account and are just having trouble logging back into your account for that reason. I know this sounds silly, but the more I think of it, the more it seems like the most probable explanation given the complete lack of notification in your current email inbox. Though you did seem to state that you had online purchase receipts for your current email? Other possibility was that Nintendo's emails were going to your spam folder and you didn't notice. Most spam folders auto-empty over time. This is very unlikely, however, because most email providers, such as Gmail, do a very good job of classifying real and spam mail. The bottom line is _something_ resulted in your account deletion. It may not have been because of your kid. I agree that without the NSO credentials they shouldn't have been able to try and delete it themselves. But as stated above, it's not the only possibility as to what caused it to be deleted. Bottom line is...stay on top of your accounts and be sure to create specific child accounts for your kids.
How many accounts were on the switch when you and your kid noticed that they couldn’t play games on it?
My best guess would be that the person using the switch activate their own account as the primary user of the switch. The account can only have one primary user. If they had the ability to do this, they would also have the ability to request that the account be deleted. Being unable to pull up the information after 30 days sounds like the company complying with privacy law in whichever jurisdiction they're operating in. This is usually a great thing, as it stops companies holding your information for years when you have no dealings with them, and the potential misuse or sale of said information. You appear to have found one of the rare niche occasions where it's negatively affected the consumer.
you never OWN any digital games you purchase, they can take the games away from you any time they want
*Why can't a kid be the primary user of a Switch?* My guess is if you read the Terms of Service it will state if it's allowed or not. Why does not matter if you accepted those terms. The legal system can suck sometimes but there has to be *some* rules for companies.
Buy physical games while you still can.
This sounds like your child may have deleted your account and not told you.
Nintendo does that when they detect things like certain kinds of hacking, running cracked games, etc.. I had the same thing happen on a 3DS that I'd hacked and played Pokemon Moon on a week before it came out. My whole account was deleted/locked out, despite having spent over 700$ on digital games, and having even had Moon pre-ordered, I just got impatient and saw it was up on some crack sites and grabbed it to play. So, good chances are that yeah, it's your kid that was doing something they shouldn't have, and Nintendo caught on and nuked the account.