Dragon Age 2 - EA permanently terminated user's account

aries100 · March 20, 2011

If you remember about a week ago, we did a story about a gamer who got his account banned. Apparently, it has happened again, this time a member of the Bioware forum did get his entire EA account terminated. The original thread has now been moved away from the public eye, this thread is (still) open.
Last time, this happened, EA responded, via Blues News, with this statement:

Re: the account issue from one player at Social.BioWare.com:
EA strictly enforces the code of conduct at Social.BioWare.com. If a player violates the rules by using profanity, they will be temporarily banned. Unfortunately, there was an error in the system that accidentally suspended a user's entire account. Immediately upon learning of the glitch, EA took steps to restore the user's macro account and apologized for the inconvenience.

More information.

jhwisner · March 20, 2011

Something not immediately clear from the story is that Tez19 - the banned player- was not accking Bioware or EA. He was banned for repeatedly making incindiary and offensive comments directed towards people who he felt were too critical of the game. In particular he seemed to be angered by the assertion that Baldur's Gate II was better.

Of course that realization might just make this seem all the more ham-fisted of a response to a forum troll. While he might have been worthy of perma-banning from posting in the forums, this has served to turn one of their more zealous supporters into a vocal critic. IT also will create more unfriendly headlines for them about their draconian forum rules enforcement. Trolls should get banned - but as EA seems to have stated very recently, they should not be denied access to features or components of content they have purchased and registered.

Nerevarine · March 20, 2011

While the whole "banning a person from playing a game through their account and no longer having access to crappy DLC" is an overstep and should be replaced with a simple forum ban, they deserve credit for not simply targeting critics of their game. At least they are also going after trolling fanboys who cross the line, which shows that they are being "fair" with their overlord ban-hammer powers. If anything, Bioware's own forum users are really showing the anonymity-induced immaturity that makes some internet forums the cesspools that they are. I'd say that a severe trolling crackdown is necessary, but only through forum related penalties that are not tied to the actual game account in any way.

Captain Buzzkill · March 20, 2011

Nerevarine said:
While the whole "banning a person from playing a game through their account and no longer having access to crappy DLC" is an overstep and should be replaced with a simple forum ban, they deserve credit for not simply targeting critics of their game. At least they are also going after trolling fanboys who cross the line, which shows that they are being "fair" with their overlord ban-hammer powers. If anything, Bioware's own forum users are really showing the anonymity-induced immaturity that makes some internet forums the cesspools that they are. I'd say that a severe trolling crackdown is necessary, but only through forum related penalties that are not tied to the actual game account in any way.

They deserve no credit whatsoever. There is absolutely no reason at all that this person should not be able to play the game and DLC that he purchased, and the fact that there have been no substantial changes to the forum ban process, namely the continued access to purchased content even after a forum ban, means that EA and Bioware are either too stupid to learn from bad press, or don't give a shit.

Whatever it is, this is ludicrous. I personally hope that EA and Bioware are raked over the coals for this. I understand and agree with forum rules, and I will be the first person to say that there's no free speech when you're not paying the bills, but this poor bastard forked over $60+ dollars for a mediocre game, and now can't play it because he hurt someone's feelings on teh intewebz.

Nerevarine · March 20, 2011

Captain Buzzkill said:
They deserve no credit whatsoever. There is absolutely no reason at all that this person should not be able to play the game and DLC that he purchased, and the fact that there have been no substantial changes to the forum ban process, namely the continued access to purchased content even after a forum ban, means that EA and Bioware are either too stupid to learn from bad press, or don't give a shit.

Whatever it is, this is ludicrous. I personally hope that EA and Bioware are raked over the coals for this. I understand and agree with forum rules, and I will be the first person to say that there's no free speech when you're not paying the bills, but this poor bastard forked over $60+ dollars for a mediocre game, and now can't play it because he hurt someone's feelings on teh intewebz.

Oh I agree completely, but in terms of banning people from the forum, I don't mind them taking actions there and only there. I don't think I explained myself well enough if my post made it seem like I agree with banning someone from their game account. Having control over the user's game account is absurd and crosses the line, but banning idiots from the forum is ok by me.

SAGO · March 20, 2011

allegedly, this was one of the posts that led the guy to being banned

http://img64.imageshack.us/i/1300641812377.png/

they haet their own fans.

Zloth · March 20, 2011

Sad. I can understand screwing up the first time and over-banning but doing it a SECOND time??

Well, maybe it will annoy BioWare enough for them to go shopping for a new publisher. (Looks at Star Wars: TOR, out in just a few months) Errr, or maybe not.

jhwisner · March 20, 2011

Zloth said:
Well, maybe it will annoy BioWare enough for them to go shopping for a new publisher. (Looks at Star Wars: TOR, out in just a few months) Errr, or maybe not.

Unfortunately they are now a subsidiary of Electronic Arts as EA purchased combined partnership of BioWare and Pandemic Studios (known as VG Holding Corp) from the investment group Elevation Partners. You can shop for a different publisher if you want but its a lot harder to shop for a different owner of your company.

KapitanUnterhosen · March 20, 2011

Zloth said:
Sad. I can understand screwing up the first time and over-banning but doing it a SECOND time??

Well, maybe it will annoy BioWare enough for them to go shopping for a new publisher. (Looks at Star Wars: TOR, out in just a few months) Errr, or maybe not.

Shopping for a new publisher? Bioware is part of EA corp.

Lucky Day · March 21, 2011

SAGO said:
allegedly, this was one of the posts that led the guy to being banned

http://img64.imageshack.us/i/1300641812377.png/

they haet their own fans.

it may be ironic but it shows that EA weildsan equal opportunity hammer. tez19 apparently was a troll and a troublemaker on top of being a fanboy. this in no way justifies EA's actions but it does show they don't play favourites in whom they take their ball back from and go home.

Corwin · March 21, 2011

Did I ever mention just how much I dislike EA ever since they ruined Ultima 9 and closed Origin?!!

rune_74 · March 21, 2011

Corwin said:
Did I ever mention just how much I dislike EA ever since they ruined Ultima 9 and closed Origin?!!

I was pretty upset about that too...Wing commander and Ultima lost to the ages...

To be fair, for the last few years it seemed they cared about games again....but lately I'm not so sure, meaning some of the forums crap not so much what games we are getting. Then again, it's easy to point at a poor poster who was abused by a mod, when in reality there is a lot we don't know about, just ask the MOD's here.

DoctorNarrative · March 21, 2011

We'll see how this one turns out... if true then of course it is terrible. I honestly think EA has a system in place with the Bioware Social Network that causes forum bans to result in losing access to your entitlements and what-not. They need to separate the systems.

txa1265 · March 21, 2011

Corwin said:
Did I ever mention just how much I dislike EA ever since they ruined Ultima 9 and closed Origin?!!

I vaguely remember you mentioning that in passing ...

Could you imagine someone getting their cell phone service terminated due to talking crap on the AT&T forum? There would be politicians all over it, folks lawyering up and so on ...

This seems like a pretty serious violation - blocking access to a paid-in-full stand-alone program based on a unrelated free service? No way that is acceptable legally - we already know EULA is only marginally legal ...

Captain Buzzkill · March 21, 2011

I don't actually expect it to fly for very long. I expect another short pseudo-apology statement from EA, and a reinstatement of the customer's access to his game. I'm just boggled and beyond irritated that, with all the other negative crap surrounding this game, they haven't rectified this particular PR clusterfuck.

rune_74 · March 21, 2011

So....why can't he play it offline? You don't have to be logged in to play.

txa1265 · March 21, 2011

rune_74 said:
So….why can't he play it offline? You don't have to be logged in to play.

If you built a game around everything you paid for as part of the 'signature edition' chances are you have loads of DLC ... and you can't get to that stuff.

Captain Buzzkill · March 21, 2011

rune_74 said:
So….why can't he play it offline? You don't have to be logged in to play.

According to this you're able to play the game, but unable to utilize the DLC - at least on the Xbox - unless you have an internet connection. If he's got DLC that he can't play, then he's not getting what he paid for.

Couchpotato · March 21, 2011

Wow I cant stop laughing at all the bad press surrounding bioware and EA lately. Puts a smile on my face since I hate the mods at bioware.

hishadow · March 21, 2011

It'll be interesting to hear what EA support manager Boyd Beasley has to say about this one. Last time it was due to a mistake and software malfunction. I'm pretty sure he has more important things to attend to now with SW:TOR release approaching, so I don't understand why they bother creating trouble for themselves with these draconian policies for single-player games. It'll be interesting to see how they handle the banhammer on the horde of mmo-players that'll take on the forums of SW:TOR.

Dragon Age 2 - EA permanently terminated user's account

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