In a controversial move, EA have announced that they have tied together their forum and in-game accounts, meaning that if anybody misbehaves on their forums and gets themselves banned, they'll be instantly banned from any games they have registered with the same name.While we're all for banning nuisance members, banning people from games that they have coughed up a fair amount of money for is a bit far (especially when those richer gamers can simply repurchase the game). Therefore, unless you can afford to repurchase every game linked to your EA account - be on your best behavior at all times.
What do you think? Should EA be able to ban people from games that they've legally purchased?
Update: EA have now stated that the whole thing was a misunderstanding - and have now stated that being banned on the forum will not prevent you from playing games that you've purchased.
Link: Forum Discussion
In my eyes this amounts to theft. If you get banned for posts in one forum then you lose access to all your online games. It's designed to hide negative comments and is purely a marketing move. Behaviour in a forum should NOT affect your access to any game you've paid for, especially those completely unrelated.
1. They WILL get sued
2. There will be even MORE piracy of EU products.
3. People will stop buying EA's garbage
You can create a new separate account with another free email account for trolling and flame wars.
Whats the problem? Its like a mini version of life, ya know like sims. In the real world you act like out of control you get punished.
I mean since parents these days wont step up, I'm glad someone is.
The only place I can see a issue is if a Moderator is having a bad day, I hope to ban an account it requires a very step-by-step process. Not just 2 clicks and you're screwed setup. But it is EA... so who knows.
+1
qft.
QTF.
from bad to worse , EA !
If not complying with dictatorship, means you act like a badass idiot, EA is doing the best thing.
Last edited by ZombieFly on 30 Oct 2008 - 14:24
I think you're over reacting a bit. They probably would only do this if you attach your cd key to your forum account. Also, I think they only can lock you out of online play, not solo? Maybe I'm misunderstanding that part.
Misbehaving on forums is not good indeed, but banning people from games is really crazy! Some games costs a lot of money! You can't ban someone from a game if the've paid for that!
You mean like Dead Space? It's punishment, but in a good way.
If you don't agree with any of that, then don't buy the game.
You did not pay for the game itself, only the rights to use it. It's a totally crappy system, I know, but ultimately it's all them.
If you don't agree with any of that, then don't buy the game.
You did not pay for the game itself, only the rights to use it. It's a totally crappy system, I know, but ultimately it's all them.
And people don't understand why kids decide to take the right to pirate games
Seriously i'm a mid 30 guy and grew up in a world where things you bought was your own property.
That system is totally ****ed up if you ask me. While everything in my house is legal i really understand more and more teens who pirate games.
I just wonder if this is a response to people complaining about DRM on EA forum ? You know it's a good way to make people stop. Complain about DRM, get a ban from the forum and the games you bought.
Great job EA.
Online Gaming at it's best, you don't follow the rules, consider yourself gone. It's that simple.
Obviously your forum account email/name would be tied to your games cd key somehow. Otherwise this system would be impossible to control.
Being on the Companies forums is generally speaking not necessary to play the game so if you act like a douche and get banned I agree that it should be ingame too, this is especially important in MMOs more than any other game.
Being on the Companies forums is generally speaking not necessary to play the game so if you act like a douche and get banned I agree that it should be ingame too, this is especially important in MMOs more than any other game.
Some people are just douche bags. The game provides a way to /ignore or if you need to /report them in-and-of-itself.
Being on the Companies forums is generally speaking not necessary to play the game so if you act like a douche and get banned I agree that it should be ingame too, this is especially important in MMOs more than any other game.
Some people are just douche bags. The game provides a way to /ignore or if you need to /report them in-and-of-itself.
The problem with blizzard doing that is that WoW is subscription based. They instantly lose all the money they would have potentially gained. Whereareas with just your random FPS game, they already have your money, they could care less about you playing again in the future.
Every blue moon they release a mediocre game but not worth buying, maybe a rent.
Not really.
This, coupled with the few last DRM freakshows EA have put out on games, Shows they absolutely don't give a flying frak about what their customers want.
Personally this seems like a bad move for EA's part. You don't punish the people that purchase your product - ever.
The difference is to lose your driver's license you need to break driving laws. If you tell someone he is an idiot then you wont lose your driver's license. This idiot might sue you if he wants but it wont go farther than that. You wont go in jail either.
The thing is you did not break any laws in the game itself but the forum. The forum has absolutely nothing to do with the game.
There's plenty of way to get banned from a forum. You know like complaining about DRM issues with words that are often used by people who are angry.
I've seen often people getting banned from forums for things that were honestly nothing to write home about.
Looks like EA really values its customers.
It also increases the chance of abuse, as people can access other people's accounts to cause trouble and get them banned from dozens of games. Plus forums are no representation of how people behave in games.
What do I think? S**** EA, that is what I think. Don't expect money from me.
a) ask for a update :ban.
b) critic :ban.
c) overhyping or astroturfing an EA products :not ban.
d) say you game will not run fine in your pc :ban.
e) Talk about a non-EA product :ban.
f) The moderator is a real assh*ole :ban.
g) To be a kid and act as a kid :ban.
Ban the trollers and flamers out of their forums, but they shouldn't do it from the games.
1. You're obviously against freedom of speech.
2. If you don't like it, don't read it. Just like watching TV. You don't like what's on, CHANGE the CHANNEL!
C. Stop crying about what people type on the Internet. Do you have anything better to do than bitch and moan about what people post in forums? Heaven forbid you find 4chan or Fark. They might give you a heart attack.
1. You're obviously against freedom of speech.
2. If you don't like it, don't read it. Just like watching TV. You don't like what's on, CHANGE the CHANNEL!
C. Stop crying about what people type on the Internet. Do you have anything better to do than bitch and moan about what people post in forums? Heaven forbid you find 4chan or Fark. They might give you a heart attack.
There is no freedom of speech on a private forum on the internet. You register for their forum with their rules, for their game. Freedom of speech has nothing to do with it.
Also people are saying the forum and the games shouldn't be connected. But what about just being banned from the forums? Everyone says they'll just create another forum account, so where does the punishment come into play? People will keep on being stupid and being banned and so on. This way it might get through their thick skulls that there are consequences for their actions.
The bad people will jsut sign up with accounts like easuxbawls123 with no link to games and they lose nothing.
Mr. A comes to EA forum, about a real issue with a game, the moderator doesn't like how he asked for help with to many uses of the F word, and other trivial issues. Mr. A has a game linked with his account, and poof loses the ability to play it because of this stupid ****.
HOW CAN YOU AGREE WITH THIS AT ALL PEOPLE!?
The bad people will jsut sign up with accounts like easuxbawls123 with no link to games and they lose nothing.
Mr. A comes to EA forum, about a real issue with a game, the moderator doesn't like how he asked for help with to many uses of the F word, and other trivial issues. Mr. A has a game linked with his account, and poof loses the ability to play it because of this stupid ****.
HOW CAN YOU AGREE WITH THIS AT ALL PEOPLE!?
Erm. The "honest" people have nothing to worry about if they are honest. : /
They won't be the ones acting like @ssholes on the forums. Unless we have different ideas of what it means to be honest. If they post their issues whatever it may be in a civil manner on the forum and EA still bans them for it, then that's a problem.
Yes, yet another reason why piracy does exist.
Wow, EA really are a bunch of Nazis!
i doubt that the case
i think it will be if you have EA Acc + serial num tied with the same email then you will be fully banned
anyway they sated in the update that not the case
Oddly enough it's reminiscent of gun control. The evil-doers will still be packing while the honest folks having a bad day get screwed. Meh, glad I stopped playing games a year ago.
While I don't play any EA games, I can only imagine what the forums are like based on my experience on other gaming forums.
It seems the gaming demographic is often filled with immature people who relish the chance to troll, be insulting, or otherwise unjust in light of their anonymity on the boards. This move will help towards a more productive forum environment, even if a bit more "fake" (much like real life; everyone puts on a face at some level due to the lack of anonymity).
Unfortunately some game companies still get away with this because they figure the person won't sue them over it. Sony/Verant has a history of doing this, banning people from the game for comments made on their message board. I've had it happen to me.
There are plenty of ban happy power monger moderators out there, whether you want to believe it or not.
Commenting has either been disabled on this article or you are not logged in. Click here to login or register, its free!
Note: Anonymous commenting is disabled in order to keep the quality of responses to a high standard.