EA forum ban blocks Dragon Age 2 player
EA has banned a forum user, resulting in blocking him from being able to play Dragon Age 2.
User v_ware claims he was banned for asking if Bioware had 'sold their souls to the EA devil'. The ban then locked him out of the Bioware Social Network, blocking him from being able to play Dragon Age 2. A Bioware Social Network account is required to install copies of the game from the EA Store.
'Now I've got a dead game for 50 euros,' said v_ware. 'Pity.'
BioWare community representative Stanley Woo stated that the ban was in response to a breach of the EA community rules and was a result of another user pressing the report post button.
'Consider it an added incentive to follow the rules you say you're going to follow,' said Mr Woo.
A BioWare community ban can last as little as 24 hours, but may last more.
This incident is similar to Blizzard banning Starcraft 2 players for cheating on their singleplayer campaigns. The major difference here is that there is no online component to Dragon Age 2, other than downloadable content.
Let us know your thoughts in the forums.
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Discuss in the forums Replyjust to add to this, surely everyone has a right of free speach, ok if you break the forum rules you get banned. But if I said the same thing to my mate, face-to-face, it sounds like they would ban me from playing the game too.
Then i think good on EA/Bioware i would like my company to slagged off in my own forum.
The attempts to justify it are weak
Those would be illegal. And I am sure given the right backing, many of these EA/bioware terms and conditions can be challenged in court and I have no doubt some of them will be classed as illegal.
Its the principal of it dude. Why should they have the power to do that. If I buy a VW car, should VW be able to shut my engine off because I cut up their director at the lights? It would be cool...for them but its my car.
It's right there in the EULA, but how that would stand up in a court is up for debate - they stand on notoriously shaky legal ground so it's likely that if anyone did challenge EA in court then they would get that ban overturned. It's unlikely anyone will bother doing this though, so in all likelihood they will get away with this shameful behaviour.
That's not the point, and they've already stated that should the situation require it they can and will hand out permanent bans and deactivate accounts.
you know, this could make for a very interesting legal case.
The reason you get T&Cs before using software is that it's a requirement under US law.
It could be argued that if the forum contract, and the game contract are so intrinsically linked then that should be unequivocally stated in both, and if he's a minor then he may not have the capacity to interpret the two dense blocks of legalese required just to play a game.
I thought I'd check if it did actually state on the above on the bioware social network, and currently you can sign up without being provided with the contract you're signing up to - the ToS are presented in a shadowbox that just displays "Error loading content".
Looks like the onus is on Bioware to sort their act out
by letting EA commit such ****ed stupid bans cause the guy was right in what he was saying, ya know i bet there is more people out there who was thinking exaclty what he said!
Hate to say it tho guys, everyone who buys a EA game or anything to do with EA only fuels this pathetic sanctions!
Imo it shouldn't be allowed, a forum ban is a forum ban and they should provide a mechanism to allow just that. Just because something is stated in a EULA or set of T's & C's doesn't necessarily make it fair or even legal and is open to challenge.
He can't activate it by the way...
These games companies make millions from us and when they get critisised they spit the dummy out the pram. EA are w4nk3rs anyway. They take you money with little support or interest once you have purchased. Fifa being another example.
Shame on EA
Would love to see some spotty 16 year old taking em to court though
Logging into your Bioware a/c for installation seems reasonable & was employed in the first game & ME2 for recognising DLC. So I don't think any part of it should have come as a surprise.
I'm sure BT staff have been accused of selling their soul to the Dennis devil more than once, but I haven't heard of anyone getting banned for it, let alone losing access to their CPC collection.
Vote with your wallet.
You are kidding right? There's polite and then there's having the ability to question authority in whatever manner you choose to. Seriously. Getting a game banned for a minority for asking if Company A sold their souls to Company B? How was he rude in that? I think it was a very polite question and one that should be asked , but we're not privy to the details. But so what, the poster who said 'vote with your wallet' is more than right.
I concede the point about getting a temp forum bann for violating some OTT PC rules, but getting his game banned is beyond rightful action.
Whenever I hear of something like this I can't help but think of the great philosopher Zack de la Rocha who said, and I quote - "F*ck you, I won't do what you tell me" .
http://www.urbanartclothing.com/Ebay/Images_T-shirts/Shepard_Fairey_OBEY_computer.gif
It's like going to a restaurant and calling your waitress a fat and ugly cow. Don't expect to get your food any time soon.
Additionally, the poster who said "vote with your wallet" is indeed right. The user who got banned should obviously not have bought the game in the first place if he feels that EA is figuratively the devil.
I don't know where the 'devil' (no pun intended!) has entered this argument? While it obvious originates from biblical terms, the phrase "Have you sold your soul to X" is very commonly used to represent any sort of stringent contract (or one where something is sacrificed for additional money).
It seems that in fact Bioware tricked the player into selling his soul to them!
I've said before that any dev/pub who does exclusivity deals with MS or Sony as selling their souls, they are in my eyes. Gaming should be about enjoying games. Remember the days when a game was released on Spectrum 48k, C64, Amstrad, BBC, Electron [insert more here]. Gaming used to be about enjoying gaming, now they release games exclusively to make you buy a console you don't already have just to gain access to those exclusives. Anyway what that guy said and what I say are probably unrelated. Should I get banned for my opinion? No. Should he? Not sure, it does sound really harsh, maybe there is more to the guys rantings that we haven't seen.
I would really like to see more community managers take a tougher approach in certain gaming circles to rid the communities of annoying dicks that say things like "**** you crytek you fags, your games are ****" when Crytek upset a few people because they were forced to rush out the PC demo still containing console references. How the hell are the guys at Crytek supposed to feel, or any developer for that matter when they've put in 16 hour days working in an industry they love to put out the best artistic work they can and be slated like that?
Yes. I don't care what their eula and stuff says, ^ that is the way it should be.
And also, I'm very short on cash at the moment, so if anyone is genuinely interested in purchasing a soul, my price is quite reasonable.
There's a biiiiiiiiiig difference between openly insulting a waitress and posting an innocuous off the cuff remark on an Internet forum. Just sayin'.
If you start banning anyone who makes jokes on Internet forums from playing your games, then sooner or later you won't have any customers left at all. However, EA have wised up and realised that this set a dangerous precedent and the amount of media attention the story was getting them wasn't doing them any good, so they have now retracted the ban.
Additionally, it's not a ban from the game for a forum comment, it's a ban from the forum for a forum comment which broke forum rules and was reported. The forum account is then required to play the game, but it's conjecture to say that the ban was done in order to prevent the player from playing the game without EA or BioWare filling in that link. The quote in Bit's article mentions that being blocked from the game is extra incentive to not get forum banned, but doesn't say being banned from the game is a direct punishment.
Where has this story even come from? Some guy complaining on the Internet? Since when does that make something true? I've seen the same story pop up on other sites as well, with not so much of a hint of evidence to back up the claim. Some guy with no name on the Internet says X, Y and Z, and suddenly Bioware are the evil empire? Is that how easy it's gotten to perform smear a company these days?
If somebody can replicate this ban = no game phenomenon then fair enough, it's news. Until then it just looks like a lot of gullible people looking for a reason to rage.
Well, the statement from EA pretty much confirms that he's not just making it up:
As for the activation thing I'm not too sure, but it's my understanding that he bought it from the EA Store under that account.
By that logic then sentencing someone to sit in an electric chair isn't a death sentence, it's just that they happen not to be able to withstand 10,000 Volts for very long. I think you'll find (A→B)∧(B→C) → (A→C)
Dragon Age 2 stealth installs Securom without user knowledge or consent
Not sure the phrase "to sell one's soul to the Devil" appears in Marlowe's Dr Faustus. I think it has more to do with the attempted temptation of Christ by the Devil.
Ban for using algebraic logic!
for C&C3 people were banned from the EA forums for posting about EA being **** at making patches (which they truly are!!), and then couldn't play online either. The community managers / mods who were responsible for doing so were reprimanded heavily. Basically a lot of the mods are part time or volunteers or something and just see it as their kingdom and don't actually answer to a higher power, because the higher powers are too busy counting their money and/or making games and/or speaking to journalists. The executive team does not spend a lot of time worrying about community matters I don't think. In the same way the writers on bit-tech will probably spend more time reviewing hardware / games and getting good scoops than poring over every moderator decision.
So if you asked a bioware or EA executive about it, they'd probably swear under their breath, try and cover it up as a misunderstanding or something, while having serious words with the ****tards who ban people from games under their own authority. It's not a one off.
Violation:
[rape...shep rape to be specific if that helps
. *slits wrists* ]
Yeah and here's the forum topic where I showed pics ea is going nuts I just bought dragon age ultimate addition and can't use any of my damn DLC because I can't access the damn servers wtf! http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/141/index/6503413/2
First I wasn't even banned from the forums, just from using my DLC via the servers online and in game, but then later I get IP banned all together wtf is going on?
This describes roughly 99.9% of forum/game moderators.
If he is out of order on the forum then ban him from posting on the forum. That's fine.
To remove his ability to use the product he paid for is a disgrace and questionable in terms of its legality.
One day I hope they p*ss of the wrong customer (someone very rich) who takes them to court just for the principle of the thing and humbles them.
This sort of attitude just encourages piracy.
http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/games/1283536/ea-accidentally-bans-user-from-dragon-age-ii
+1 for that. It's a resounding yes, they have sold their souls.
That's wonderful. He hadn't used a single profanity, nor broken the TOS. Punished for paying for software, and for speaking his mind. I love this world where the consumer has no rights.
That sounds like a question for the EA forums :p
Ultimately though it is his fault for buying a product that requires online activation in the first place. All such systems, be they from EA, Securom, Ubisoft or Valve, place consumers at the mercy of the publisher and there are examples aplenty of people losing access to purchases due to their accounts being suspended.
I decided to boycott Dragon Age 2 the instant I heard about its online activation requirement and this event should simply confirm the risks involved for anyone else considering it.