EA Forum Bans stop you from playing games?

ZehDon

Join Date 04/2009

+115

EA Forum Bans stop you from playing games?

Read this story over on Rockpapershotgun.com.

To summarise, EA can take away your access to your purchased games at their sole discretion, and not offer any refund. That’s what you agree to when you buy an EA game. And of course this is not unique to EA. We are very aware of other services with similarly draconian bans, and are actively investigating them.

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.

Seems like the hammer is starting to come down.

I've read through the user's posts, and while he wasn't very nice he wasn't as bad as some of the trolls that infest EA's forums. Bad Company 2's forums are filled will infinitely more degrading crap than what was posted on Bioware's forum. Posting on forums is not a right, and I agree that bans should be handed out for abuse.
I do not, however, agree with Single Player games, or games of any kind, being tied to that access. Buying my game doesn't grant me the right to post my every dark thought on the forum for that game, however I believe it does give me the right to at least play that game, regardless of what I say and where I say it.
Valve's Steam has a similar policy, however I don't believe it's actually enforced it for mere forum abuse, though I could be wrong. In any case, it seems these types of services are granting companies a little more power than they should have. Does this mean that Microsoft have the right to brick my Xbox 360 because they don't like what I post on the offical Xbox Forums? For me, that's literally some AU$3,000.00 worth of console and games.

This is part of what one of the Bioware Moderators had to say.

... Because the BioWare community now operates under the same umbrella as all EA Communities, community members here have all explicitly agreed to abide by and be governed by both sets of rules. Consider it an added incentive to follow the rules you say you're going to follow...

"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.

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Still a bad deal none the less.

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Quoting bonscott,

reply 11

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.

STFU !

Dont spread FUD. Steam accounts are not related to Steam forum accounts in any way. When your Steam forum account is bannned it doesnt have any other consequences.

Dont spread informations, which you canot back up by reliable sources.

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Quoting Rebell44,

reply 27

STFU idiot!

Stop spreading your stupid FUD. Steam accounts are not related to Steam forum accounts in any way. When your Steam forum account is bannned it doesnt have any other consequences.

Fine...so you say. I've read otherwise in many other places. But whatever (and I can't remember ever posting this before, so no sure why it's my FUD I keep spreading...LOL). The fact remains that Steam (and Impulse by the way) would remove all access to your games by banning you if they wanted...just like EA. My post wasn't a jab at Steam in particular but with all of the digital distribution methods and now even when you buy at retail if you must activate online (EA, Ubisoft).

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Quoting bonscott,

reply 28

Quoting Rebell44, reply 27
STFU idiot!

Stop spreading your stupid FUD. Steam accounts are not related to Steam forum accounts in any way. When your Steam forum account is bannned it doesnt have any other consequences.

Fine...so you say. I've read otherwise in many other places. But whatever (and I can't remember ever posting this before, so no sure why it's my FUD I keep spreading...LOL). The fact remains that Steam (and Impulse by the way) would remove all access to your games by banning you if they wanted...just like EA. My post wasn't a jab at Steam in particular but with all of the digital distribution methods and now even when you buy at retail if you must activate online (EA, Ubisoft).

You helped to derail one of my threads here some time ago

Yes, both Steam and Impulse can ban your account, but not for what you post on forum, because forum accounts arent linked to Steam/Impulse accounts.

People complain about disabled accounts, but those are disabled for for trying to scam other users, selling gifts (or entire accounts), chargebacks etc.

I dont know about any case when Steam account was banned based on forum post (which shouldnt be surprise, because forum account isnt linked to Steam account).

my OP is now slightly edited

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