Bioware blocks user from playing his store-bought copy of DA2, for bad-mouthing EA?

Choppaduel

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Mar 20, 2009
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Caliostro said:
Your SPUF account and your Steam account are completely separate. You can be banned a billion times on a billion different accounts on the forums and nothing will happen to your games or Steam account.

In fact, even getting VAC banned doesn't keep you out of your games... merely out of VAC-protected servers.

Getting banned from Steam itself actually requires something extremely serious (like credit card fraud or hacking another user's account, etc), bordering on the illegal.

This is just Bioware being retards. Do they have the legal right to? Sort of, yes. Not because "Free speech doesn't apply to everything", it does, but because it's their own private space, so they can do as they will within it. That said, if the person in question had enough money to take this to court, it wouldn't exactly be a done deal for Bioware either. "OH BUT EULA BLABLABLA!". EULAs are worth fuck all in court, and will never override actual laws.
Right on!
[hr]
All the more reason to boycott EA.
 

Eri

The Light of Dawn
Feb 21, 2009
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Trolldor said:
Dansrage said:
http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/141/index/6459941/1#6460241

Just stumbled upon this little gem and wondered what you fine gentlemen thought about it?
I would suggest he takes them to court because they aren't legally allowed to do that.

And this is a fine example of why excess moderation of forums produces only arse-candy.
Good luck making a defense budget when you're a regular person. They could just drag it out until you run out of money and then you lose and they'll make you pay their court costs, and then you're doubly screwed.
 

Aureliano

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It's your classic catch-22: If you can't stop EA from messing with you, they will do it. Even if it's illegal in the place you live, if they will not get prosecuted for it, they will still happily do it to you if they think it will somehow improve their bottom line.

I know some people out there want to defend EA on the grounds that 'their job is to make money, and if they have to go to extreme or possibly illegal measures to do so, so what?' Well, the problem is that nearly all of us are consumers. Few of us run multi-billion dollar companies, and everybody gets screwed who participates in the system when companies act like EA. Defend consumer rights. There are enough lawyers, professors and politicians in the world defending billionaires' and corporations' rights already.
 

burningdragoon

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Jul 27, 2009
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Just cuz you don't read the EULA (or whatever rules were broken) doesn't mean you can't get in trouble for breaking them after hitting 'agree'. If you don't like that, than don't buy EA. Simple enough.

Also it looks like it the suspension was for 3 days. Suck it up.
 

SovietSecrets

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Nov 16, 2008
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Three day suspension for breaking the code of conduct? He should be happy. I don't care if that thing is too long for you to read, you hit the I agree button. You are now bound to those rules. There is no issue here and EA/Bioware used their power as he agreed to them. All of you princesses suck it up. Don't like it? Don't buy games then.
 

StarCecil

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Zaik said:
StarCecil said:
Zaik said:
*shrug* Sucks for him, and I'm not saying Bioware or EA or whoever was in the right here, but he picked the wrong time to be posting pointlessly critical crap.

There's a lot of people out there mindlessly bashing bioware just to do it. Those people *should* have DA2 access cut off for being twats. I don't know or care whether he actually had a legitimate opinion on anything or not(gut says no, but I have no proof) but if you lives in a city with 50 households, and the 49 other households broke off from your government and started a rebellion, and you just happened to be doing some harmless marksmanship practice with a rifle when your government's army comes and steamrolls all of them, don't be shocked if you get shot too. It was the wrong place, at the wrong time.
I hardly think making an amusing, semi-critical comment about EA is akin to separatist insurrection.
Didn't read it. It's not that big of a paragraph. I'll break it up for you anyway.

*shrug* Sucks for him, and I'm not saying Bioware or EA or whoever was in the right here, but he picked the wrong time to be posting pointlessly critical crap.

There's a lot of people out there mindlessly bashing bioware just to do it.

Those people *should* have DA2 access cut off for being twats.

I don't know or care whether he actually had a legitimate opinion on anything or not(gut says no, but I have no proof) but if you lives in a city with 50 households, and the 49 other households broke off from your government and started a rebellion, and you just happened to be doing some harmless marksmanship practice with a rifle when your government's army comes and steamrolls all of them, don't be shocked if you get shot too.

It was the wrong place, at the wrong time.
I thank you for your condescension, though it is not necessary in this instance.

I did in fact read your full post.

However, trolling a game is not equivalent to insurrection. He expressed his opinion - which ironically is shown to be pretty valid - and was banned from his game. This goes beyond "wrong place, wrong time" and right into the question of whether or not a game company has the right, legal or otherwise, to prevent people from using their products.
 

Zaik

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StarCecil said:
Zaik said:
StarCecil said:
Zaik said:
*shrug* Sucks for him, and I'm not saying Bioware or EA or whoever was in the right here, but he picked the wrong time to be posting pointlessly critical crap.

There's a lot of people out there mindlessly bashing bioware just to do it. Those people *should* have DA2 access cut off for being twats. I don't know or care whether he actually had a legitimate opinion on anything or not(gut says no, but I have no proof) but if you lives in a city with 50 households, and the 49 other households broke off from your government and started a rebellion, and you just happened to be doing some harmless marksmanship practice with a rifle when your government's army comes and steamrolls all of them, don't be shocked if you get shot too. It was the wrong place, at the wrong time.
I hardly think making an amusing, semi-critical comment about EA is akin to separatist insurrection.
Didn't read it. It's not that big of a paragraph. I'll break it up for you anyway.

*shrug* Sucks for him, and I'm not saying Bioware or EA or whoever was in the right here, but he picked the wrong time to be posting pointlessly critical crap.

There's a lot of people out there mindlessly bashing bioware just to do it.

Those people *should* have DA2 access cut off for being twats.

I don't know or care whether he actually had a legitimate opinion on anything or not(gut says no, but I have no proof) but if you lives in a city with 50 households, and the 49 other households broke off from your government and started a rebellion, and you just happened to be doing some harmless marksmanship practice with a rifle when your government's army comes and steamrolls all of them, don't be shocked if you get shot too.

It was the wrong place, at the wrong time.
I thank you for your condescension, though it is not necessary in this instance.

I did in fact read your full post.

However, trolling a game is not equivalent to insurrection. He expressed his opinion - which ironically is shown to be pretty valid - and was banned from his game. This goes beyond "wrong place, wrong time" and right into the question of whether or not a game company has the right, legal or otherwise, to prevent people from using their products.
Right, and it was just trolling up until metacritic got involved. There's a lot of white collar executives who've never worked a day in their lives that don't know how to relate to anything beyond a metacritic score. Since they already pay off all the critics to give them good reviews, the user review score is the only one relevant to their interests.

Once they stepped into that area, it stopped being trolling and started being a financial attack.

Edit: Is it legal? No, EULAs today are only written so that publishers can establish a bare bones proper defense in court, they would never actually stand. But is anyone going to take a court case with EA all the way up the appeal ladder over $60? Nope.
 

Negatempest

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RhombusHatesYou said:
bob1052 said:
From the banned guy in his thread:
You can't login to Bioware Social. So you can't acces the forums or your personal profile and content. I also tried to login in DA:O, this too doesn't work.
He can't even play Origins for the duration of his ban
Monkey balls. Once a Bioware game is authenticated online it can be played without logging in. Hell, once you've authenticated the game you can add it to your firewall blocking list and it'll still run fine.
Exactly. I played Origins when my internet was up and down. I remember getting REALLY annoyed by the "Can't access servers" popped up MANY times during my Origins play. I think the OP of the Bioware forum site must have said that he could not log into the Origin thread/forum as well.
 

Eri

The Light of Dawn
Feb 21, 2009
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StarCecil said:
Zaik said:
StarCecil said:
Zaik said:
*shrug* Sucks for him, and I'm not saying Bioware or EA or whoever was in the right here, but he picked the wrong time to be posting pointlessly critical crap.

There's a lot of people out there mindlessly bashing bioware just to do it. Those people *should* have DA2 access cut off for being twats. I don't know or care whether he actually had a legitimate opinion on anything or not(gut says no, but I have no proof) but if you lives in a city with 50 households, and the 49 other households broke off from your government and started a rebellion, and you just happened to be doing some harmless marksmanship practice with a rifle when your government's army comes and steamrolls all of them, don't be shocked if you get shot too. It was the wrong place, at the wrong time.
I hardly think making an amusing, semi-critical comment about EA is akin to separatist insurrection.
Didn't read it. It's not that big of a paragraph. I'll break it up for you anyway.

*shrug* Sucks for him, and I'm not saying Bioware or EA or whoever was in the right here, but he picked the wrong time to be posting pointlessly critical crap.

There's a lot of people out there mindlessly bashing bioware just to do it.

Those people *should* have DA2 access cut off for being twats.

I don't know or care whether he actually had a legitimate opinion on anything or not(gut says no, but I have no proof) but if you lives in a city with 50 households, and the 49 other households broke off from your government and started a rebellion, and you just happened to be doing some harmless marksmanship practice with a rifle when your government's army comes and steamrolls all of them, don't be shocked if you get shot too.

It was the wrong place, at the wrong time.
I thank you for your condescension, though it is not necessary in this instance.

I did in fact read your full post.

However, trolling a game is not equivalent to insurrection. He expressed his opinion - which ironically is shown to be pretty valid - and was banned from his game. This goes beyond "wrong place, wrong time" and right into the question of whether or not a game company has the right, legal or otherwise, to prevent people from using their products.
As several people have noted, Until someone challenges someone overstepping their legal authority, they will continue to do so. The irony being most people they step on, have no way to fight back. The legal costs would just be ridiculous. So I guess you better hope a rich guy comes along.
 

StarCecil

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Feb 28, 2010
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Eri said:
StarCecil said:
Zaik said:
StarCecil said:
Zaik said:
*shrug* Sucks for him, and I'm not saying Bioware or EA or whoever was in the right here, but he picked the wrong time to be posting pointlessly critical crap.

There's a lot of people out there mindlessly bashing bioware just to do it. Those people *should* have DA2 access cut off for being twats. I don't know or care whether he actually had a legitimate opinion on anything or not(gut says no, but I have no proof) but if you lives in a city with 50 households, and the 49 other households broke off from your government and started a rebellion, and you just happened to be doing some harmless marksmanship practice with a rifle when your government's army comes and steamrolls all of them, don't be shocked if you get shot too. It was the wrong place, at the wrong time.
I hardly think making an amusing, semi-critical comment about EA is akin to separatist insurrection.
Didn't read it. It's not that big of a paragraph. I'll break it up for you anyway.

*shrug* Sucks for him, and I'm not saying Bioware or EA or whoever was in the right here, but he picked the wrong time to be posting pointlessly critical crap.

There's a lot of people out there mindlessly bashing bioware just to do it.

Those people *should* have DA2 access cut off for being twats.

I don't know or care whether he actually had a legitimate opinion on anything or not(gut says no, but I have no proof) but if you lives in a city with 50 households, and the 49 other households broke off from your government and started a rebellion, and you just happened to be doing some harmless marksmanship practice with a rifle when your government's army comes and steamrolls all of them, don't be shocked if you get shot too.

It was the wrong place, at the wrong time.
I thank you for your condescension, though it is not necessary in this instance.

I did in fact read your full post.

However, trolling a game is not equivalent to insurrection. He expressed his opinion - which ironically is shown to be pretty valid - and was banned from his game. This goes beyond "wrong place, wrong time" and right into the question of whether or not a game company has the right, legal or otherwise, to prevent people from using their products.
As several people have noted, Until someone challenges someone overstepping their legal authority, they will continue to do so. The irony being most people they step on, have no way to fight back. The legal costs would just be ridiculous. So I guess you better hope a rich guy comes along.
Well, with any "luck", someday there'll be enough people for a class action suit.
 

fooddood3

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jayman52 said:
fooddood3 said:
ImprovizoR said:
What they did is illegal. It's that simple. It's his opinion and his right to free speech.
That's... Very incorrect.
How is that incorrect? Explain to me in what way that is not theft of purchased property.
Because they didn't take the game itself. He still owns the game, but the developer reserves the ownership of the coding that makes the game run. Besides, I was referring to the freedom of speech comment.
 

TiefBlau

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Apr 16, 2009
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HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

OH WOW.

Dansrage said:
Eri said:
0mn1p0t3ntg6y said:
He can say what he likes and they can't do anything.
I'm pretty sure they already proved you wrong.
But the question is, do they have the RIGHT to do anything about it? It wasn't even real criticism, it was more of a joke than anything.
I quote:
"Have you sold your souls to the EA devil?"

That isn't even an opinion worth censoring if you ask me, it's like shooting someone for saying you have a silly hat.
Yeah, it's a pretty harmless comment. I've heard worse Gabe Newell comments that went largely ignored by Steam. Insulting Bill Gates might bring the wrath of the Xbox Live god afoot, though.

In any case, I'm just wondering, can they do that? Can they take away access to a product that he paid for because he said something they didn't like? This sounds really, really sketch. I can only imagine their argument would be that he's "being disruptive on the live chat", but even that is a long shot in my opinion, since it was a single comment.
 

Double A

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EcksTeaSea said:
Three day suspension for breaking the code of conduct? He should be happy. I don't care if that thing is too long for you to read, you hit the I agree button. You are now bound to those rules. There is no issue here and EA/Bioware used their power as he agreed to them. All of you princesses suck it up. Don't like it? Don't buy games then.
There is a serious flaw in your argument.

Games are fun.

On the other hand, dealing with asshole companies like EA and Kotickvision are not fun. I seriously don't see how you can defend them. Sure, it's just 3 days, but it's the principle of the matter. EA fired artillery at one tiny little protest. It's a gross overreaction to something that was, ultimately, meaningless.
 

SovietSecrets

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Nov 16, 2008
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TiefBlau said:
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

OH WOW.

In any case, I'm just wondering, can they do that? Can they take away access to a product that he paid for because he said something they didn't like? This sounds really, really sketch. I can only imagine their argument would be that he's "being disruptive on the live chat", but even that is a long shot in my opinion, since it was a single comment.
They can. Why? You broke their terms of conduct. Sure you can say he has the freedom to say whatever he wants, but if you break the rules in the process then you're going to get punished. Whats so sketch about that?
 

Xorph

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Aug 24, 2010
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And you people got pissed at me when I raged about the improved version of ME2 being PS3 only and not an all platform GotY edition. My anger is stemming from the fact that one of my most cherished game developers is crumbling before my eyes. I'm more pissed at EA than Bioware regarding this particular incident, but Bioware are all idiots if they ever thought partnering with EA was a good idea. The most they could have gotten was money, and that just goes to show that when good people are blinded by greed they become incredibly, incredibly stupid. F U Bioware, you guys used to be awesome, but now you're just a husk of your old selves (lol ME joke).

And as a side note if Bioware got more than money let me know, otherwise I will continue my angry streak against them :p
 

SovietSecrets

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Double A said:
EcksTeaSea said:
Three day suspension for breaking the code of conduct? He should be happy. I don't care if that thing is too long for you to read, you hit the I agree button. You are now bound to those rules. There is no issue here and EA/Bioware used their power as he agreed to them. All of you princesses suck it up. Don't like it? Don't buy games then.
There is a serious flaw in your argument.

Games are fun.

On the other hand, dealing with asshole companies like EA and Kotickvision are not fun. I seriously don't see how you can defend them. Sure, it's just 3 days, but it's the principle of the matter. EA fired artillery at one tiny little protest. It's a gross overreaction to something that was, ultimately, meaningless.
That is not a flaw at all. Why? Because while its an overreaction sure, I can agree with that, he still broke their rules. Companies are now allowed to do what they see fit to him for breaking their rules that he agreed to even if he didn't read them, be it a complete ban or a suspension. There is no flaw in my argument.

EDIT: Jaywalking is still a crime, whether the police fines you or not. If they do fine you, you have nothing to say, you broke the law. What are you going to do? Sue them?

Little example in the edit.