(Alternate title: Never visit EA’s official forums just to be safe)
But here we are days later no anouncement, no apology, no anything. So apparently this policy is real:
Well, its actually going to be a bit nastier for those who get banned.
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. And you’d actually be banned from your other EA games as well since its all tied to your account. So if you have SPORE 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 reccommend people play nice and act mature.
All in all, we expect people to come on here and abide by our ToS. We hate banning people, it makes our lives a lot tougher, but its what we have to do.
Those banned will stay banned, but like most other internet services, its not that hard to create a new fake e-mail account. However, its a lot harder to get a new serial key =)
To paraphrase, "We own you, bitches!". I’m kind of stunned that this is actual policy. Still, now almost two weeks later, I can’t believe any company would ban people from any online component of their games because of getting banned from a forum. I want to get all worked up about this, but it’s so ludicrous, I just can’t bring myself to even be surprised. I guess this EA now. Instead, I’ll let Shamus Young do my dirty work:
You are now obliged to obey the Terms of Service and the EULA (legalese-dense documents that can change on a whim) or you will be locked out of every game you’ve legally purchased from them. You can’t see the EULA or the TOS before you buy. You can’t get your money back after opening the product to see those agreements. You can’t get your money back if they change it and you don’t like the new terms. You can’t get your money back if they ban you for breaking rules they can change at a moment’s notice. You can’t appeal if you think you were banned unfairly. And really, they can ban you for whatever reason they like, anytime they like, even if you abide by the rules. What are you gonna do? Sue Electronic Arts?
Explain to me again who the thieves are
Yeah, exactly. EA has to be one of the dumbest companies out there. Really, Sony has called them up and asked how they manage to be so god damned dumb and yet haven’t eaten their feet. It’s that impressive.
So does this mean for their piracy is bad claims when they will happily (notice the smiley) lock people out of games for saying stupid shit (or complaining about DRM) on their forums? I’d say that’s exactly what they are saying. Next they are going to threaten take back the games if we can’t show modicum of restraint? Fuck EA.
What Would Matt Do: Am I really going to have to stop buying games because of a publisher? Am I really going to have to skip Dragon Age because EA distributes it? Should I have skipped Warhammer? Fuckers. I already skipped Spore and Far Cry 2 because of DRM and I was planning on at least giving RA3 another look, but I guess not now. What else can I do but call them assholes and refuse to by their products… Most important question of all, does this mean I have to skip Dragon Age because EA own Bioware now? That’s going to suck something fierce…
Update: So it turns out my initial thoughts were right, but apparently EA is just slow on responding (It took them almost two weeks to respond). The idiot community manager was just flexing his non-existant powers and talking out his ass. So if you get banned, it’s just from the forums. Nothing to see here, move on. Other than that EA has stupid community managers.
5 Comments
I think you may understate the issue a little. To say that they “ban people from any online component of their games because of getting banned from a forum” omits the fact that with their invasive DRM, ALL games that check with EA before starting up would break. It’s not just that you couldn’t play it online, you may not be able to play it at all.
This may be a small distinction in the shadow of such a draconian policy, but their invasive DRM makes it an even larger problem than it would otherwise be.
I agree it is dumb. There are a couple “devil’s advocate” arguments that while kind of weak (please note I am ADMITTING that before bringing them up) do have a level of validity.
1) TOS/EULA’s are *typically* available online before purchase. Not that anyone would read them before buying anyway, (or read them once they are bought) but that is the counter argument to the pre-purchase TOS/EULA woes.
2) I am supposing you would have to be a really, really big asshole to get banned off the forums in the first place. Being anonymous on the internet isn’t a free pass to treat minimum wage customer support personnel like they are pieces of skunk terd. If you treat them like a piece of shit, because you are mad at EA, then you deserved to get banned. If you break forum rules on purpose, then yes, you should get banned. It really isn’t that difficult to get a point accross without regressing to a complete jackass, and typically, if you try it being polite, logical, and intelligent, CHANCES are (big emphasis on ‘chances’) your issue will get resolved faster and by much happier people. Send your Steak Dinner back after yelling at the waitress and they will spit in your food. Politely explain the issue about the steak and it gets fixed right.
The blurred line here is consumer right to product VS service. We buy stuff, we want to be able to use that stuff - because, hell, we BOUGHT it. Seems as though video games aren’t commoddities any more, they are being treated as “services”, and since it isn’t a necessary service for survival it can be yanked at anytime.
Buyer beware, and you would think EA would have learned by now. I still think it is a vocal minority taking big issue with this (although it should be a vocal everybody) and obviously EA isn’t too worried about it.
Prediction: All games from EA in the future move to an account/authentication model as their only form of DRM.
I think a fair amount of your devil’s advocate points are pretty good… Except, I’ve heard of people being banned from the EA forums for even bringing up the DRM issue. So if they were to post about how much it sucks, they could get banned from every EA game they bought.
It’s not like EA is kind and understanding in any other area, so I can’t assume forum management would be any better.
I believe it Matt. I can definitely see a trigger happy CSR being unfair the OTHER way. The only way to make it “fair” would be to have the EA forums have a mini popup with the key rules each time you visit a forum. Not with the full TOS for the forums, but the main key points that will get you banned.
Because I know how much you love having to scroll and click when accessing things. *grin*
Strike the first comment, actually, because there will never really be “fair” on a company owned and moderated forums, which, back to your original article, sucks.
As an aside we both know that there are jerkoffs that will fly off the handle and deserve to be banned because they lack any sort of tact or social etiquette, but just like EA’s famous DRM, it is the legitimate users that tend to get screwed in EA’s “efforts”.
Yeah, I agree. Plus, I don’t know that people that can’t handle themselves on forum (i.e. - not act like assholes), should lose the right to play the game they purchased. EULA or not, they did pay money for that game. If EA wants to cut them off from playing it, they should at least reimburse them for it.