EA: Get Banned From Forums, Lose Your Games

[Andy Chalk]

EA: Get Banned From Forums, Lose Your Games

Electronic Arts [http://www.ea.com] apparently has a new policy wherein acting badly in their support forums will get you banned not just from the forums but from all your EA games as well.

I get a little tired of bashing EA, to be quite honest about it, but it's hard not to do when the company appears to have rewritten its mission statement to include alienating and angering everyone and everything it sees. The latest kerfuffle revolves around a post in EA's support forum for unable to access their single player games [http://www.ea.com/redalert/].

"Your forum account will be directly tied to your Master EA Account, so if we ban you on the forums, you would be banned from the game as well since the login process is the same," he wrote. "And you'd actually be banned from your other EA games as well since it's all tied to your account. So if you have Spore [http://www.spore.com] and Red Alert 3 and you get yourself banned on our forums or in-game, well, your Spore account would be banned to. It's all one in the same, so I strongly recommend people play nice and act mature."

"Those banned will stay banned, but like most other internet services, its not that hard to create a new fake e-mail account," he added. "However, its a lot harder to get a new serial key."

As front page [http://kotaku.com/5070957/backtalk-in-eas-forums-get-banned-from-your-games#viewcomments] says, "We ask all members of the community to respect each other and each other's opinion. These message boards should be considered 'E' for Everyone and the moderators will close any posts that break the EA Terms of Service. Further violation of the EA Terms of Service will result in a banning of the offending account."

Some forum users are questioning the legality of such a policy, while others seem resigned to the fate to which EULA fine print has them consigned. There's also a possibility that this isn't an EA policy at all, but instead just a forum moderator who's wandered off the ranch a bit. We've contacted EA regarding this policy and are waiting, not particularly hopefully, for a response.


Permalink

 

[Anton P. Nym]

Knowing full well what moderating an online forum is like I have trouble feeling quite as enraged as I should be at EA. There are some blamtards who really do deserve that drastic measure, if only because it limits their blamtardery in the games that would otherwise affect other paying customers.

Locking them out of single player is too much, though. I suspect that the signal has been somewhat degraded, if it's at all legitimate.

-- Steve

 

[Dectilon]

I'm unsure of what to feel about this : / While I'd be the first to promote good behaviour on the internet, I don't want to leave it up to a company to determine where the line is drawn, especially after I've given them my money.

Friends can call each other any number of things humorously, but to an outside viewer it could appear quite hostile, especially when taken out of context (irony is hard on the internet).

It's a bit ironic too considering how incredibly infantile for example Red Alert 3 is. What kind of customer will infantile humor attract? Infantile people! Mixed messages, I say.

I can sort of see what they are aiming for though. SomethingAwful, one of the biggest communities on the internet, has very strict moderation, but it works. If I had a forum I would probably apply similar restrictions. But EA is a company that sells products to people who think saying "LOLOL!" is really funny and meaningful, and if they ban them they've banned most of their customers : )

 

[donbueck]

I wouldn't worry too much about this. For one it would be a serious invitation to have some very losable lawsuits filed against you. Also, this is not the first time a questionable EA forum mod shoots off his/her mouth without all the facts.

 

[COR 2000]

Seems a bit cruel, But if EA's forums are rampant with misbehaving idiots (I can't tell since I've never been to the forums.), then it seems like a.... reasonable tactic to get the forum behavior under control.

Just one Question, though: Does this include restriction from 360/PS3 games as well as PC, or just PC games?

 

[johnman]

When will EA stop trying to destory themselves and make a good game?

 

[Melaisis]

Seems a bit cruel, But if EA's forums are rampant with misbehaving idiots (I can't tell since I've never been to the forums.), then it seems like a.... reasonable tactic to get the forum behavior under control.

Just one Question, though: Does this include restriction from 360/PS3 games as well as PC, or just PC games?

Just PC. They have absolutely no hold over your Live/Home account because EA games only probably make up a certain percentage of what you play.

This is why I hate Valve's STEAM system, and EA, and any other company who has an online connectivity requirement to single-player games. On a whim, they can disable your purchase, and what can you honestly do about it? They're located in a different state, often a different country from most users. They have your money, and enough money to make sure you can't sue (or at least, can't win), and the EULA gives them the right to do this shit.

You are misinformed. Especially about Steam, which is moderated fairly and only sure-fine hackers get banned. Besides, people agree to signing up to these terms when installing these games, so they can whine all they want but they're still in a contract with the publisher.

 

[SimuLord]

All I can say to this is Fifteen men on a dead man's chest, Yo Ho Ho and a bottle of rum! Arrr, matey!

EDIT: As a side note, who's running EA? The guys from The Producers or the Indians owner from Major League?

 

[Amnestic]

Just one Question, though: Does this include restriction from 360/PS3 games as well as PC, or just PC games?

Do you register your console games with an EA-centred account? I wasn't aware that you do, personally. I think consoles are safe.

I'm glad to see EA is continuing its trend of pointing people in the direction of piracy and saying "If you want to play our games hassle free, that's where you want to be."

 

[TheSear]

WE PAY FOR THE GAMES, SO THEY HAVE NO RIGHT TO BAN US

Edit:

Well, I guess EA decided SecuROM wasn't enough, and are truly striving to bankrupt themselves. Yes, the easy solution is stay off the forums, but that's not the issue here. As the paying customer, your right to play the games purchased cannot be restricted by unrelated actions elsewhere on the internet. In-game behavior within an online game, yes, but even then they cannot restrict your right to offline play.

This is why I hate Valve's STEAM system, and EA, and any other company who has an online connectivity requirement to single-player games. On a whim, they can disable your purchase, and what can you honestly do about it? They're located in a different state, often a different country from most users. They have your money, and enough money to make sure you can't sue (or at least, can't win), and the EULA gives them the right to do this shit. When is the government going to step in and regulate how much an EULA covers, and start protecting consumer rights? And how much longer before EA's investors begin firing their CEO and management staff?

You do originally need to get steam online but you never have to go online to play your games, you can log in offline.

 

[fix-the-spade]

Haven't bought an EA game since BF2142. Looks less and less likely I ever will again at this rate.

 

[tijuanatim]

Meh, this is exactly the reason I have yet to register with EA's service, I dont play sports games, and I could care less about playing co-op on Mercs 2...

 

[Jursa]

Why stick your nose in those forums if you're under such a risk anyway. For example, Dattebayo gives bans to people who piss them off in the slightest, so why even get near that big pit with tigers in it. Tho I guess the only people that actually do go complain in the forums of the company itself are total idiots, so what I said before doesn't count for normal people. To me it seems like EA is setting up a huge neon glowing mouse trap with an even bigger sign of danger next to it. Most mice will avoid it, while the other lot will react "hey look CHEESE!".

 

[raemiel]

Although I can understand the rationale someone had in devising this, it just seems to be symptomatic of the whole DRM and treating gamers with hostility approach which companies currently have adopted.

Additinally, how effective is this going to really be? Sure there will be a lot of people on the EA forums whom aren't as polite as is the average on a forum such as this, but really it just seems that the people who just sign on to be trolls from their first post onwards will be banned. I don't think this will be effective in dealing with bad behaviour of people who frequent the forums as by their very nature they probably wouldn't be stupid enough to say something so offensive because otherwise they would be shunned from the boards already.

Effective or not, this is a really horrible move on EA's (or any company's) part and if it weren't real you'd think it were something someone made up in a joking post which was too extreme or stupid to ever be real.

Tim Curry is just awesome though! That smile and glint in his Soviet eye is just screaming 'I've got fishnets and heels on under this desk' - the soviets should be able to use the cloning vats to make an army of Rockys!

 

[Rath709]

I have always been of the opinion that people who can't be bothered to type full sentences or use a spell checker should be banned from all aspects of everything, be it gaming, the internet, and any activity in the public domain, to say nothing of racists, homophobes and zealots. A faceless forum moderator at EA wielding an indiscriminate banhammer the size of Titans' Tower, however, is worrying even to me because it seems like they don't have to fully explain themselves on the subject, and whether you get flattened by said hammer could actually be down to a mod taking an active dislike to you whether you've commited an offence or not.

The list of banworthy offences should be made extremely clear, and an objective appeal process put in place, perhaps with a probationary period.

 

[calelogan]

This is completely insane.

Though it makes perfect sense to uphold rigid rules in order to enforce a good conduct in the forums, I think two very distinct elements are being inadequately mixed.

Were it not enough for EA to start using the very inconvenient and user-unfriendly DRM methods, now they're alleging they are in the position to BAN YOUR RENTALS.

It doesn't make sense to stop people from playing their paid-for single player games, which are a totally different issue. I might have thought twice about banning multiplayer accounts, but single player games is exaggeratedly offensive, especially given the fact there is no communication between users/gamers.

If only they followed CD Projekt's example.

 

[klakkat]

Definitely an overreaction. They're shooting themselves in the foot here. Temporary bans from online play are acceptable, but being unable to play a single-player game you paid for is pushing it too far. They're going to piss off a lot of people if they do this.