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EA Issues Game Bans for Forum "Misconduct"
ArEf
Member Posts: 233
The story currently unfolding in terms of Origin / Forum bans:-
March this year: It is discovered that if someone gets banned from the EA forums, they get banned from using their registered games. EA makes a statement to the effect that it is intentional. Shortly afterwards, EA retracts their previous statement that it was intentional and say the system "had an error" and that it since has been fixed.
This month: It is discovered that EA's forum bans are STILL affecting games, and users are getting permabanned for supposedly minor offences. EA obfuscates the issue with a confusingly worded statement that doesn't directly address the issue.
Next month: Christmas and the release of SW:TOR.
I believe late last year people were claiming that EA's EULA was heavy handed even for a game's developer / publisher and that it had some interesting turns of phrase. When these were pointed out, some immediately said they were unacceptable and unthinkable even in a legal protection sense and others said they'd never get used. The latter has since been proven wrong, although whether that's intentional or not has yet to be seen.
This is extremely bad PR for EA, especially since, next month, we've got the rather obvious release of their first real flagship MMO. These policies will not necessarily be used for SW:TOR (and let's all hope not) but it's still got potential of showing a distinct vendor / consumer relationship with EA.
What do you all think? Does this affect your opinion of EA? If so, does it affect your opinion of SW:TOR? Does that lead on to the potential of you purchasing it?
Comments
TBH I think forum asshats should be banned from services be it the boards or the games. But that's just me.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Yea, it's very stupid, this is why Steam forum accounts are separate from your Steam client account.
[Mod Edit]
Simple solution, Don't be an ass on the forums?
Hey TSW Players http://www.unfair.co/ for Mission guides, Lore Locations and stuff....
One of the guys was banned for QUOTING a guy saying "e-peen".
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I am not really broken up by jerks being banned from playing. If anything the game community will improve.
Was his ban overturned?
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
As far as we can tell, no. Nothing's happened, yet.
EDIT: I should also talk about EA's customer support system, which has such a bad case of Catch-22 I'm shocked anyone there is actually sane.
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Currently Playing: World of Warcraft
So to be clear here the game bans only apply to games that require origin to play. The ban is from your Origin account, not each specific game. So if you are banned from Origin you can't access the games that that account has access to. Since SWTOR doesn't require Origin to play it shouldn't (hopefully) affect SWTOR.
Yet another reason not to buy games on Origin or games that require Origin. Personally I'll just continue steer clear of the EA forums and not use Origin.
That being said this is an absolutely ridiculous business practice. It's getting a fair amount of press coverage so hopefully they will be pressured enough to change it.
Rock, Paper, Shotgun is doing an excellent job covering this and following up with EA. So far EA is not giving them a straight answer though.
Edit: I just realized that your SWTOR account and your EA account are one and the same. This would probably invalidate everything I just posted here! We will have to see what happens I guess. Some news sites are really trying to get to the bottom of this.
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What he's talking about is the initial issue that happened back in March. The first article was a user of Bioware's forums that this happened to. Now that I think about it your Bioware account and your EA account are one and the same now. If you change your SWTOR password it changes your Origin password as well.
Even though I just posted that this might not affect your SWTOR access, I may need to reconsider that as the two appear to be linked.
Shadow's Hand Guild
Open recruitment for
The Secret World - Dragons
Planetside 2 - Terran Republic
Tera - Dragonfall Server
http://www.shadowshand.com
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Seconded.
And besides, I am *all for* in-game banning if people are idiots on the game forums. How they want to set their standards for forum bans is up to them. If you don't like it, for god's sakes only post on MMORPG.com (plug) or some other indirectly affiliated site & not the developer's forums (unless you are going to behave in a professional manner.
If you don't like that, vote with your pocketbooks. God knows, I vote with MY pocketbook when a game is great but the community is full of bots, goldfarmers, griefers, and A$$hats.
And for the smartiepants that is saying someone got banned for *quoting* the word "e-peen" ... Well, yeah I personally think that *IS* a bit harsh.. but then again.. *taps pocketbook* HERE is your voting right.... and if you cannot behave respectfully in a place you know you will be punished if you get caught misbehaving (god help us for this being a BFD) ... and cannot resist posting in such a place.. well.. shucks. sux 2 b u.
This problem has a very easy solution. Behave and do not get banned
Look up a post and be ashamed.
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And again as I orginally said I think people who can't abide by simple rules should reap the consequences be it on forums or games, because they'll do the same in game.
Certain cases not withstanding such as the guy quoting someone else ( if that's the case) that's why mods answer to a higher authority and certain bans will be overturned.
Either way the part in yellow is key, that's the bottomline.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Might as well take their home and car away from them too eh
I think it's a good practice, maybe it'll make people think about their actions before acting like jerks to others on the forums. Get banned on forums you lose your game access, makes for a better community and enjoyable gameplay experience.
That'd be fine, if it wasn't for the fact that the EA user support is such a massive game of hot potato (or, if you prefer, pass the turd) that there's literally no way to get a ban overturned. You go to the phones, they direct you to an email, you go to the email, they direct you to the website, you go to the website and it directs you to the phones again.
It's ALL scripted (even, ESPECIALLY, what the employees are allowed to say) and there's no way out of it.
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I can understand the desperate desire to avoid another WoW General.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Lets leave the baiting out of the discussion guys.
EA is in the same catagory as SOE for its poor PR & bad behaviour as well as poor quality goods,
in fact probably worse imo & that says a lot, so the OP doens't make me think any worse of EA
as they hit rock bottom with me years ago!
The Deathstar destroyed planets...Lucas Arts destroyed Galaxies
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Played:
SWG | EVE | WOW | VG | LOTRO | WAR | FML | STO | APB | AOC | MORTAL | WOT | BP | SW:TOR
To all the people who are suggesting these people got legitimate bans:-
"The first person to get in touch with us about BF3 was Nick. It’s hard to sympathise with Nick, to be frank. He made a stupid thread about “teabagging” on the EA forums, and then seemed to be a bit confused that he should get in trouble for suggesting he dangle his “balls” in dead people’s faces. Common sense would dictate that’s not a subject to be raising on a family-friendly forum. His astonishment expressed to us that this should be an issue isn’t endearing. However, less endearing was EA’s response. Following Wong’s advice above he contacted EA’s Customer Support, via email and live chat, and received a refusal to even discuss the matter each time."
There's one with a potentially legitimate ban.
"We also heard from Rob. Rob’s encounter with EA’s seemingly arbitrary banning process makes much less sense. His account was suspended for having posted a “commercial”. What he had in fact posted was a link to his non-commercial blog, to a guide to “network troubleshooting”, recently updated for helping gamers get connected to BF3. A link that’s been repeatedly posted to the same forums for a couple of years, and better still, has actually been linked to by EA Support themselves. The link, says Rob, is mentioned on their own corporate support site and FAQ! He too found that the live chat support was absolutely useless, with those replying unable to deviate from a script that endlessly, uselessly loops. This led to his being banned from his gaming account for 72 hours, as well as a permanent “strike” on EA’s “three strikes” system. Something it’s not possible for him to dispute."
I guess EA is not up for having their games supported by users? Still on one legitimate ban.
"Then we heard from James, whose tale is even more extraordinary. He has been permanently banned for using the word “e-peen”. (For those unfamiliar, this is short for “electronic penis”, and tends to be used to suggest someone is egotistically willy-waving.) However, he did not even introduce the word. It was in reply to someone else who’d said it, and responded, “Ah, back to the e-peen talk.” He was originally told this ban would be for 72 hours, but on Saturday received an email informing him that it was now to be a permanent ban from his Origin account, with no further explanation given. It was added that the matter was “now closed”. And, as ever, EA’s live chat and customer support are refusing to help him in any way. He’s also been told that his BF3 characters and levels will be deleted."
And there's the dear "e-peen quoter".
So, essentially:-
One out of three of those had a potentially legitimate ban! I guess 1/3 isn't too bad, right? That's 33%!
Yeah.
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Atfirst I was shocked to some degree but after realizing its EA I'm not even angry anymore, they are already my most hated company along with Activision-Blizzard so this only makes me hate them even more.
Devillike companies don't want like criticism for their poor quality sweatshoplike produced "games" so they threat everyone with such misconducts.
Man EA und Activision-Blizzard need to go they are destroying our genre.
We need a MMORPG Cataclysm asap, finish the dark age of MMORPGS now!
"Everything you're bitching about is wrong. People don't have the time to invest in corpse runs, impossible zones, or long winded quests. Sometimes, they just want to pop on and play."
"Then maybe MMORPGs aren't for you."
/facepalm