No Dragon Age 2 for Suspended BioWare Forumite - UPDATED

[Mouse One]

Well, I seriously doubt he got suspended for just saying that EA has "sold their soul". Look at the Bioware Social forum and if that's all it took, about 30% of the forum would be suspended.

That said, essentially EA is delaying delivery of a product that was paid for. And, while the circumstances are fairly unusual (why rage about a game you haven't even downloaded yet?), EA should have either a) permitted the download once customer service was notified or b) refunded him the money. A restaurant has the right to refuse service to an unruly customer, they don't get to charge that customer for the meal he might have eaten.

 

[Choppaduel]

I'm with Chalk on this one.

This sort of thing is probably illegal, if not... IT SHOULD BE.

[hr]

..after the update...​

[hr]
ok, one less reason to boycott EA, not that there still aren't reasons to do so. ie their marketing blunders.

 

[ComicsAreWeird]

Great PR, EA!Bravo!And Bioware, way to lose a whole bunch of cred with your fans, eh?
So, nobody wins in this situation, right?

 

[newwiseman]

All the more reason to go to the store, buy the game, then pirate it with all the extras.

 

[NLS]

Just curious, but does a similar thing happen on Steam?

Steam forum accounts and Steam accounts are separate, so even if you say "Gabe Newell is fat, trololol" on the forums, they can't do anything to your Steam account, since they don't know it.

 

[CrazyCapnMorgan]

I said it on the other thread regarding this, and I'll say it here.

I fail to see some sort of logic here. Let's see...

1) Person posts something on forum, which roughly amounts to snarky, ill-constructive criticism.
2) Person gets 72 hour ban on forums. Rough punishment, could have been handled better. And in a more mature manner.
3) Person ALSO gets a 72 hour GAME ban, because the game account is tied to the forum account.

Now, how is it that an account on a FORUM equates to an account on a GAME? Aren't they supposed to be two separate entities? And if not, then how is it legal that these two entities are merged? It just seems to me that the line between forum and game got horribly tangled, somehow.

Regardless, I will greatly reconsider buying from both of these companies. Seems as though the old Zelda imagery proves correct here - "Power", without the "Wisdom" to properly use it and the "Courage" to guide its use, will always lead to corruptive and self-destructive ends.

However, I will add that it's going to be fun wacthing EA and Activision compete for the most dramatic and spectacular self-destruction. I'm going to grab the popcorn. Maybe even some chips and salsa.

 

[Imbechile]

Number of Dragon age 2 pirated copies - +1

 

[Venereus]

Here is the root of all evil. This is what this story should be focused on:

http://tos.ea.com/legalapp/WEBTERMS/US/en/PC/#section9

 

[rsvp42]

DON'T USE THE SAME GODDAMN USERNAME TO TALK SHIT AS THE ONE YOU PLAY WITH.

QF freakin' T, right there. Such an isolated, random incident. Meanwhile, 99.9% of players have no such problem and the world keeps turning.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

What the fuck ... this is illegal. Under any framework of Western Tort Law this is wrong both ethically and by the letter of law.

You can never deny a person service to a product whether befure, during or after point of sale when there has been no infraction such as a felony or personal property damage. This is like the 'Soup Nazi', the only difference is that the customer isn't given their money back. Seriously, guys?

Argh .... it's shit like this that makes me want to retire electronic gaming altogether because I know my money is going to very, very nasty people and downright injust organizations.

 

[pneuma08]

Something doesn't add up here.

The guy got EA Community banned, not just forum banned, apparently (and I stress apparently, because no one seems to know the whole story) and solely because of a forum post. That does seem excessive, but, I can see the different pieces and how they fit together, and for what it's worth it seems like they just have a strange dependency in their enforcement.

That is to say, "Community" bans exist for a reason, and forum bans exist for a reason. The problem is how the two relate.

I think this is just a case of corporation interdependency tripping over itself, where pieces built independently simply weren't woven together well enough. Possibly someone tried to put to two departments together that are identical 99% of the time, which makes perfect sense from a managerial standpoint, especially since I doubt anyone came up a difference so specific (as Kotaku pointed out, the ban had to happen between a purchase and an install - concepts which are practically simultaneous in theory - basically, a corner case very easy to overlook).

Or possibly, EA didn't want to add the additional complexity of maintaining two states for "forum banned" and "Community banned", which isn't entirely unreasonable.

On a personal level, it's hard for me to feel sorry for they guy because, well, he's being punished for an indiscretion. (I also seriously doubt the guy is being completely upfront about the reasoning here, too - in my cynical experience, it's less likely than finding a website using gopher protocol.) It just doesn't seem "unfair" to prevent access to a game for a whopping 72 hours. Of course, this is sidestepping the real issue of a company's right to do so...

 

[mogamer]

Sheesh, suspend or ban someone from a forum if they're misbehaving but don't remove their games.

he's suspended from the EA servers nobody stole his game

He is denied use of a product he legally purchased. That's pretty close to stealing in my book. I would do a chargeback and screw with them right back.

And asking a smartass question automatically makes someone a troll? His comment could have easily been deleted and it would be done with. But Bioware/EA have just made themselves look petty and not to be trusted.

Once again a publisher shows that being a legit customer is worse than being a pirate.

 

[Cyrax987]

Ok that is just wrong. I can understand suspending people and what not but to remove access from games doesn't sound right at all. I'm guessing people in the future will talk about the day when you actually had ownership of the games you bought..

 

[Sion_Barzahd]

Yeah its a bit cruel, but i think 3 days is no big deal really. A little patience won't kill the kid.

 

[metal mustache]

SUE SUE SUE SUE SUE!!!
i'm so sick of EA's bullshit! Of all these gaming companies' bullshit!! all this retarded fucking licencing when you by the disc (you don't own this game, you own a licence to play it), so that they punish you for criticing them!? This kind of stuff should be illegal! I want EA to pay for shitting all over us for once!

 

[Korzack]

In fairness, can't properly judge it without getting the full story (Unless this is it), but so far as I can see, in between EA's frankly retarded advertising (thanks for the reminders, Extra Credits! ) and this, something tells me I just won't be buying their stuff any more, pure + simple. I'm sure more will come out on this as time passes by, but I think just not buying EA stuff might be an idea, seeing as their logic for the last 10-15 years has been suspect at the best of times...

 

[DanielDeFig]

On the one hand: It's not like he can never play the game after paying 60 bucks, but he'll have to wait a bit due to how his Bioware account is now a part of the larger online EA community. It's a shame the whole anti-piracy thing sorta brought out this somewhat unforeseen result with online registration(which i'm sure a lot of ppl aren't too fond of, but it's not a big nuisance for those that have stable internet).

On the other hand: I completely disagree with the reaction to his comment. They have no business meddling in what people say, and punishing people for criticizing EA. The only reason i can think of, is the religious reference, but that's still not any of their business.
The only reason i never get suspended, is because i just don't talk like that, i just happen to be a person who doesn't see the point in my making negative comments about people (but i have no problem with other people doing it).

 

[metal mustache]

actually you never owned your games, even back in the days of NES. they allways came with a "terms of licence" in the manual and shit, which has always bothered me.

 

[Dr. wonderful]

SUE SUE SUE SUE SUE!!!
i'm so sick of EA's bullshit! Of all these gaming companies' bullshit!! all this retarded fucking licencing when you by the disc (you don't own this game, you own a licence to play it), so that they punish you for criticing them!? This kind of stuff should be illegal! I want EA to pay for shitting all over us for once!

One, I'm pretty sure you can't sue since there is some law mumbo Jumbo involve and two) EA will get their one day. Just wait for it.