Read this story over on Rockpapershotgun.com.
So be warned. There’s no legal recourse here. The EA terms are clearly laid out, and you are required to agree to them before you can install a game they provide. And their rules are ambiguous enough that they can choose to ban you at their own discretion.
"Consider it an added incentive to follow the rules you say you're going to follow."I really don't like where this type of control is going.
Except as always there's more to the story.
What happened was a guy bought DA2 from the EA store. Then he got temporarily banned from the forums. Because his account was banned, he was unable to log into the EA store to download the game. The ban would not have prevented him from playing the game had he already had it installed (DA:O and DA2 don't require you to log in to your EA account, though at least some of the DLC items seem to be tied to it).
How did he log in to the EA store to buy it then? Something aint right with that logic.
Also.. if you read his original post he says "This is the deal. I just got my Bioware Signature Edition from the store".. if he just got it from the store it seems to imply a boxed copy. He states he can't activate it because it requires you to log into an EA account. (of course he could create a hotmail email address or something and make a new account to by pass this)
To be honest i don't agree with EAs practices.. in general and in this instance in particular.. but if people would actually read EULAs and TOS issues like this may not crop up.(or atleast people wouldn't be suprised when they did)
“EA may also terminate your Account(s) (and access to all related Entitlements) for violation of this Terms of Service, illegal or improper use of your Account, or illegal or improper use of EA Services, Content, Entitlement, products, or EA’s Intellectual Property as determined by EA in its sole discretion. You may lose your user name and persona as a result of Account termination. If you have more than one (1) Account, EA may terminate all of your Accounts and all related Entitlements. In response to a violation of these Terms of Service or any other agreement applicable to EA Services accessed by you, EA may issue you a warning, suspend your Account, selectively remove, revoke or garnish Entitlements associated with your Account or immediately terminate any and all Accounts that you have established. You acknowledge that EA is not required to provide you notice before suspending or terminating your Account or selectively removing, revoking or garnishing Entitlements associated with your Account. If EA terminates your Account, you may not participate in an EA Service again without EA’s express permission. EA reserves the right to refuse to keep Accounts for, and provide EA Services to, any individual. You may not allow individuals whose Accounts have been terminated by EA to use your Account. If your Account, or a particular subscription for an EA Service associated with your Account, is terminated, suspended and/or if any Entitlements are selectively removed, revoked or garnished from your Account, no refund will be granted, no Entitlements will be credited to you or converted to cash or other forms of reimbursement, and you will have no further access to your Account or Entitlements associated with your Account or the particular EA Service. If you believe that any action has been taken against your Account in error, please contact Customer Support at support.ea.com.“
“EA may also terminate your Account(s) (and access to all related Entitlements) for violation of this Terms of Service, illegal or improper use of your Account, or illegal or improper use of EA Services, Content, Entitlement, products, or EA’s Intellectual Property as determined by EA in its sole discretion. You may lose your user name and persona as a result of Account termination. If you have more than one (1) Account, EA may terminate all of your Accounts and all related Entitlements. In response to a violation of these Terms of Service or any other agreement applicable to EA Services accessed by you, EA may issue you a warning, suspend your Account, selectively remove, revoke or garnish Entitlements associated with your Account or immediately terminate any and all Accounts that you have established. You acknowledge that EA is not required to provide you notice before suspending or terminating your Account or selectively removing, revoking or garnishing Entitlements associated with your Account. If EA terminates your Account, you may not participate in an EA Service again without EA’s express permission. EA reserves the right to refuse to keep Accounts for, and provide EA Services to, any individual. You may not allow individuals whose Accounts have been terminated by EA to use your Account.
If your Account, or a particular subscription for an EA Service associated with your Account, is terminated, suspended and/or if any Entitlements are selectively removed, revoked or garnished from your Account, no refund will be granted, no Entitlements will be credited to you or converted to cash or other forms of reimbursement, and you will have no further access to your Account or Entitlements associated with your Account or the particular EA Service. If you believe that any action has been taken against your Account in error, please contact Customer Support at support.ea.com.“
I'm getting dejavu from Spore's release. If you got banned at Spore's forums, you couldn't play the game at all (had to login to EA account to play).
Since DA2 only needs an initial authorization online and nothing after that...once it's installed and registered with EA and the DLC's downloaded and installed then you can be banned forever from the EA forums and it won't effect your ability to play DA2 at all other then you couldn't buy/install any more DLC's or expansions tied that account.
Of course, this is the sort of thing that will drive a paying customer to start downloading cracked .exes so they can play the game they bought. It is only a short step after that to not bothering to pay for the games to begin with.
Then again, don't be an arss on their forums and you won't have a problem. LOL
But I agree, it's a bad policy and will make me think twice about EA games in the future.
There were some screencaps on other forums of people being banned (with actually very little wrong in their posts.) Other pics showedmoderator's warning players that their bans will affect their ability to play. I'd look for them, but I'm lazy. They've been reposted on /v/ often enough though.
If you have everything installed already, then you're temporarily okay from the ban. But you can't ever reinstall the game. Or if you're the type that likes overpriced trinkets, install any more DLC that you would buy.
This isn't just EA though. This is every game that has an online activation tied to an account. EA may just be a bit butthurt over the backlash against DA2, but the groundwork is laid in everywhere.
EA has done it before.
Personally I rather like it when being an asshat is a punishable offense, but I'm sure there are occasions when it's not done right. And I'd definately prefer it if they decouple the forum accounts from the store.
Dunno, but that's what it says:
http://kotaku.com/#!5780876/how-saying-bad-things-can-keep-you-from-playing-a-video-game
There are also 2 levels of bans it looks like. One is done by BioWare forum mods and those don't link up to your account. The other is done by EA and that does.
If that is the case its even worse. EA takes his money knowing they don't intend to let him activate it...
It's getting more common these days with anything with online activation. Steam can do the same thing, if they ban you from their forums it's a full account ban and you lose access to all games you bought. Technically same thing could happen with Impulse in that your forum account is also your game account with Impulse. Stardock has posted though that if they ban anyone they won't ban them from their games. But they still could do it. Although Impulse isn't needed once you install your games, but it would prevent any future reinstalls if they did actually do an account level ban like Steam or EA do.
The perfect solution is to provide a troll/griefer sandbox where when you get banned you end up only being able to post on the banned players forums and allowed to play afterwards on dedicated servers where other rude and obnoxious banned people like yourself were exiled. I'd call it a near-perfect gamer's hell.
That's not really a gamer's hell. You're creating a private club for trolls, and they will thank you. Case in point: Eve Online's C&P (Crime and Punishment) forum. The trolls there feed off each other.
The difference, though, is that C&P is open to all, whereas you want to create a forum that you have to disrupt other, happier, forums to get into. You'd encourage trolling.
Openly banning people from your forum for critizing your company and/or products is terrible PR, but not outside of reason. Banning people from installing a game they legally purchased for the same reason is catastrophic PR, and heads into questionable legality territory. People who were on the fence about buying it will definitely walk away after seeing proof of nonsense like this.
The moderators who decided to handle the negative posts on their forum by flaming back and banning everyone really need to be sacked. Had they done nothing, the fanboys would have defended things for them. By trying to hammer everything they didn't like, it just looks like an admission of guilt. The only good that will come of this for anyone is that other companies will hopefully take this as a lesson of how NOT to do business.
This is nothing new. I've been subjected to this personally and, in a way, I still am.
I was banned from the Bioware forums back when the whole Bioware Bazaar debacle went down and lost everything I had bought on my EA/Bioware account and all associated DLCs and promotionals. I had everything; absolutely EVERYTHING for both Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age: Origins, legitimately.
All gone. Forever.
So yes.
Edit:
Just because you're banned on the Bioware forums doesn't mean that your EA account is locked and all in-game content is technically tied to the EA account, not the Bioware Social Site account.
But it can and does happen (which I can attest to).
Also, what he said was sort-of true. Read what Inon Zur has to say on the conditions surrounding DA2's development.
Look, an entire thread summarizing all the reasons not to buy from a digital distribution platform, but rather insist on physical media with no internetwork connection required.
These are the same people that bemoan piracy.
EA sucks in general, both for the gamer and often for developers. The gamer side has a long documented history; and they form an Axis of Evil with Activision. But for developers, they see their products rushed and released ridden with bugs and are then often times forced to follow a lame monetized DLC scheme that adds next to nothing to the game. EA is the sort that would absolutely love to introduce and enforce a pay-per-play model around the world akin to that used in different parts of Asia. If they were a cable company, they would be the ones that try suing the makers of DVRs to ensure that they maintain absolute control over the consumer.
If I really enjoy a particular developer's game, I'll sometimes put up with EA. But they are oftentimes a touch of death.
R.I.P. Pandemic Studios
DA2 seems like Bioware should be leery of being dragged along the path of Pandemic. I suspect they can survive DA2 being a relative flop, but if things continued for the game after that...
On a less depressing note, here's hoping Stardock and Ironclad don't follow EA's example. The Diplomacy v1.20 beta patch period shows that they are quite responsive to fans. My $30 will be ready to go when Rebellion nears its release.
Actually physical media is no help these days. In the case of DA2 or any EA game you still have to create and account with EA and register the game so buying digital or physical media is no different and thus even with your physical media getting banned by EA means you lost your game.
Same for buying a game that requires Steamworks (and thus Steam). Even if you buy the physical media for say Civ 5 or Fallout NV you still must install and register with Steam to play. Thus if Valve bans you, you can no longer play your game even with your physical media.
This is good, as it encourages more users to abandon this insane 'intellectual property' concept and just use cracked copy instead. Way to go for EA shooting themself in the foot.
It's not insane, just a doddering antiquarian from the mercantilist era. Creative people deserve good compensation for their work and meaningful rights of attribution. Modern (c) does a very poor job of that because its roots are firmly planted in the era of divine-right monarchs. The wost problem is that corporations can own copyrights currently. Fair use is also under pretty serious attack from the likes of the MPAA and RIAA.
We need reform focused on connecting 'intellectual property' rights to the people who create new art, not people who own organizations that employ people who manage people who supervise staff who work on brutal, artless things like monetization and 'branding.'
That's just not acceptable. Making them unable to post is one thing but TAKING AWAY ACCESS TO THEIR GAMES??? MADNESS!!!
No, not madness. This.is.EA!!!
This is something that I think the US congress, UN or the EU needs to look at since any separate, small country is too weak to decide in this matter.
This is one of the laundry list of numerous reasons why I don't like EA, between their suspected nefarious involvement in double dealing at Infinity Ward over Call of Duty (I so want to see how this plays out), their inablility to do a good job with The Battle for Middile-earth series (don't think they ever added the coming soon content to the BfME sites, and they didn't pay enough attention to the lore in general), and their destruction of Pandemic Studios with LotR Conquest when Star Wars: Battlefront II using the same engine was excellent (BF2 wasn't perfect but Conquest was terrible which is why I didn't buy it, and I love The Lord of the Rings).
Oh, now it seems it was all a big mistake.
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