Slashdot Mirror
EA Forum Ban Will Now Mean EA Game Ban
An anonymous reader writes "A post on the EA Support Forums from APOC, online community manager for Electronic Arts, outlines a new policy for their new forums, saying users who earn a ban based on their behavior in the forums will be locked out of all of the EA games tied to that account: '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 it's 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 recommend 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 it's what we have to do.'" Update: 10/31 12:36 GMT by T : Not so! Pandanapper writes "After a flood of complaints the EA community moderator APOC corrects his statement about how banning you from the forums bans you from your game access as well:"That said, the previous statement I made recently (that's being quoted on the blogs) was inaccurate and a mistake on my part. I had a misunderstanding with regards to our new upcoming forums and website and never meant to infer that if we ban or suspend you on the forums, you would be banned in-game as well. This is not correct, my mistake, my bad."
Fo'shure I'm looking forward to shelling out my hard-earned money (especially in this wonderful economy) for EA titles in the future after seeing this.
I enjoyed EA games in the past. Being a military buff I especially enjoyed their flight simulators. They were mostly stable and fun to play. I cringed when they bought out Westwood because I thought they were going to screw up the C&C franchise, but (mostly) they didn't.
But being banned from online play because I let out a "fuck" on their forums? Or for any reason whatsoever unrelated to behavior within the game? Never mind the insane DRM on their latest output.
Fuck that. No more EA games for me. I'm getting old anyway. Time to switch to online Scrabble or something. Flash DigDug and Galaga FTW.
FIRST the DRM, now this? They really hate players
EA just doesn't want any money, now do they?
Now heel boy!
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
It's all one in the same .... seriously? C'mon.
William of Ockham had no beard. The most likely explanation is that it was chewed off by squirrels every morning.
Lookie! Another reason why I don't buy EA products.
So, they take away something I paid for - will they refund? Probably not. I wonder how that would play out in a court of law.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
EA is not gonna get any of my business with their shoddy transgaming Cedega-wrapped junk that they deploy on the Mac platform.
They need to stop burning their users, which EA has done for years. Kinda sounds like a consumer case of abuse where the victims keep coming back time after time. A shame, really.
Didn't we already have an article on this already?
Now I will have ZERO problem pirating SPORE or any other EA title. In fact I wasn't going to bother with SPORE given the lackluster reviews, but I'm firing up Azurus as we speak to grab it just to spite the arrogant f'ers.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
"We hate banning people, it makes our lives a lot tougher, but it's what we have to do.'"
Yeah, must be depressing. Selling games and making a profit, and then simply making the game nonfunctional. Why not just mute the account? People don't NEED to talk to play a game.
Are they TRYING to start a class action lawsuit???
Judge: "What did you do?"
Me: "Called him an asshat."
Judge: "What did they do?"
Me: "Locked me out of $500 worth of software"
Judge: "I rule in favor of the plantif for 1 ass-ton of money"
Remind me again. What's the advantage of being a paying EA customer? Because I'm not going to give them any money.
EA bought Bioware, so a ban on their forums would also ban you from playing the upcoming Star Wars MMO as well.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
So who owns the game the gamers purchased?
EA Guy 1: You see what Bungie, Valve, and many other game developers are doing? Linking games to gamer's internet forum accounts? Letting you see your stats, other peoples stats, game avatars, recently played games, and other cool stuff like that?
EA Guy 2: Um, yeah.
Guy 1: Well, we need to do something to top that. We need something that will really draw in our players and make them part of our community.
Guy 2: How about, participate in our forums, and earn the chance to be banned from your favorite game forever by a power-starved, 17 year-old forum mod.
Guy 1: Brilliant! Next issue, blood sample toolkits packaged with all our games.
Guy 2: ??????
Guy 1: No, it's not what you think. It's only for the initial install... and three times a month after that.
The amount of effort it takes to get things reversed when you feel you have been inappropriately banned. I recently spent a lot of time on web and phone to get my son's account re-enabled for an online game (not EA). Once a manager looked at his remarks in context it was clear that he was not in violation of their ToS. If they are going to do this, they better be damned sure of the training and ability of the people who will be issuing the death penalty to the gamers.
LETS DECOMPOSE & ENJOY ASSEMBLING
...get people's EA accounts banned for stupid posts to Slashdot.
http://apnews.excite.com/article/20081030/D94522VO0.html Wonder why a business like this would lose money. Ever try a LAN party with Battlefield 2142 with everyone at the same physical location? People randomly get kicked out. Doesn't matter if the server is on XP, Vista or OS X. Good magic. $310 million dollar quarterly loss and layoff of 6 percent of their workforce indeed.
Oh wait, I don't own any EA games anyway. Seriously though, this surely an effort by corporate assholes to regulate what people say. Oops I said asshole. Oops I criticized EA. Is that going to get me banned? What a bunch of tools.
Why did BioWare have to get swallowed up by these jackals? I was looking forward to trying out SW:TOR, but fuck this.
No sig for you!!
Can't someone just register again under another email address?
"Was it a millionaire who said 'Imagine No Posessions?'" -- Elvis Costello
Further proof that EA is the Microsoft of the video game industry: a policy that says "Fuck you, we're EA."
(...) so if we ban you on the forums, you would be banned from the game as well since the login process is the same. (...) We hate banning people, it makes our lives a lot tougher, but it's what we have to do.
It sounds like somebody needs to hire a web programmer to create a working forum-ban mechanism. Other than "turn off login privileges". That works as a ban mechanism when your login only provides access to one thing (the thing you're being banned from). But here, where it's providing access to multiple things, you need some mechanism to allow disabling particular accesses from a login without disabling the login entirely.
It's not like this is a new problem, or is particularly difficult to solve by someone competent. The odor of "we're too lazy to do this right" is strong on this one. Good luck with that, EA!
http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/55656
Which leads to people pirating the very games they've already paid for... Nice move EA.
I wouldn't have a problem with this if we could be assured of fair, impartial, and reasonable moderation. But we know exactly how likely that is.
Aside from the grinding and taking over your life parts of MMO's, the other thing that really bugs me about them is you are now at the mercy of the publisher. Nobody can revoke my right to play a single-player game and the only way to lose my progress is if my save game files get corrupted. But with an MMO, one bad mod interaction can ruin your entire game. "Hey, I've played X for Y years and I've never even talked to a mod." True, but I've seen several instances of people getting burned by bad calls, up to and including the loss of accounts. Certainly when there's a serious argument with management about game policies like the devs cheating in EVE Online, the people who first raised the accusations were the first to lose their accounts. And even more a less serious infraction, someone I knew misunderstood the distinction between being able to trade game cards for in-game currency versus simply paying money for currency which is a no-no. He almost lost an account he had a year on with that one because that's a one-strike-and-your-out TOS violation.
I doubt this is going to bite EA in the ass, even though by rights it should. It'll certainly bite some gamers in the ass, that's for sure.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Thats because you only have crack heads playing your games anyway.
http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/55656
Posting in EA Forums is enabled by an EA Nucleus account -- but access to the forums and access to the games are separate. Players who have been banned from EA Forums are not automatically banned from online access to their other EA games. Players can be banned if they breach the Terms of Service or Code of Conduct in a forum, game or service. Each forum, game and service is managed independently by customer support representatives responsible for that specific forum, game or service.
It really is just a matter of time before posting something they don't like in the forums will make it to where you can no longer play the game at all, as it refuses the authentication. If the forum is tied to the particular game's cd key I can kind of understand. However, someone buying a brand new game and being locked out of online play sounds like selling a defective product to me.
Since EA has the power to dictate whether or not you can even PLAY the game, why are they still allowed to sell games to people who's master accounts have been banned?
I recall hearing about a court case in which a large corporation bought out a bunch of smaller gyms and branded them. Well, one guy gets banned from one for something stupid (can't remember what it was, but I assure you it was petty and made both people look like assholes), so the guy goes and applies for a gym membership at another gym. Different name, different side of town, everything. They give him his membership and he pays all the fees and such, then they tell him he's banned from the gym, sorry, no refunds, go home.
He takes them to court and wins his money back and $1,000 or so for his trouble, because they knowingly and willingly sold him a defective product.
Licenses can be defective, too.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
Even Blizzard doesn't do this. Of course, if Blizzard did this, it would be just me and like two other people on World of Warcraft. My god, the stuff that goes on in those forums.
No portion of this post may be rebroadcast without the express, written consent of Major League Baseball.
I haven't bought spore, but I have played through much of it. It really isn't even a multiplayer game aside from downloading content from other users to be added to your own single-player game. What purpose would banning a player from Spore serve? Are they trying to tell us that they would ban people from a single-player game?
http://www.penny-arcade.com/images/2008/20080509.jpg
I applaud EA. Well played, good sirs. I could not have come up with a more effective business model to put myself out on the street. They're getting inventive.
Seriously though, EA is going to go bankrupt in like... a month if they keep up this bull..
Although this extreme warrant might be justifiable for incredibly extreme behavior (people who post goatse on the forums have no business complaining about being banned from anything), EA is incredibly ambiguous about what bannable behavior. Neither the Forum Help or EA's Terms Of Use page list criteria for behavior that may get you banned.
Again. The criteria for banning are not listed. This means that any post you make in the forums could potentially mean loss of your ability to play the game.
...because when an independent game developer bans you from his forum, not only does he shut down your account, but he writes you into the game as a boss character. >:-)
I like it. Seriously. It's a big "asshats are unwelcome" sign, meaning rational gaming adults that hate the immature antics are going to have an entire company with an "adult swim" gaming experience.
And I'll bet that overall, the modding of forums *will* improve, when the first small claims or civil cases come to trial, or the first class-action suit happens. I think mods will get clued in very quickly that they'd better be able to completely justify a ban under the new system, because suddenly their decisions have financial impact.
Sorry mate, tried modding you +1 Insightful, yet somehow it got passed to /. as -1 Redudandant. This post will take away the -1 though, if all is well :)
I mean really
1) Sell games
2) Ban players
3) !!!!!
4) PROFIT?????
I can't think of any company that has openly worked this hard to piss off it's customers.
I for one won't be supporting their crap any longer, and I certainly will make sure to inform as many of my friends and relatives as possible of what EA are doing to their _paying_ customers.
it always seems kinda odd when major corporations that don't mind being unethical themselves when they can make a profit then turn around and try to force their sense of morality on others (e.g. censorship policies). i think companies like Sony, EA, Gamespot, etc. should focus more on correcting their own bad behaviors rather than trying to control the behavior of others. trampling on the rights of consumers, extorting your customers, and selling out your journalistic integrity to advertisers are not exactly shining examples of corporate responsibility.
it's especially annoying when major gaming sites have incompetently implemented profanity filters that prevent you from using ordinary words that happen to contain the same letter sequence as an "inappropriate word or phrase." i don't even bother posting reviews on Gamespot anymore because it's such a pain in the ass trying to figure out what word i used that triggered their profanity filter.
and then there are sites like IGN that have imbeciles for moderators, who think that homebrew/emulation/ripping CDs is illegal. if i want to rip one of my PSX games onto my hard drive and convert it into an eboot that i can play on my PSP that's my own prerogative. censoring posts that talk about homebrew/CFW/etc. is blatant posturing by the gaming industry to condition the public into thinking that only industry sanctioned uses of games/consoles are legal, and that using homebrew, CFW, etc. is illegal/unethical/taboo.
This sounds like the best way to unsubscribe from their services!
so, you pay $50 for a game, you get banned, with or without cause, and now your game doesn't work? I'm playing deadspace now. It's a really fun game, not scary, but fun, so i'm actually kind of sad to see EA shoot itself in the face like this. If the game i paid for ever stops working due to an EA killswitch, I will have absolutely no problem giving EA a big middle finger by downloading that, and every other ea game, from the torrent sites, just for spite. It seems to me that the only reason the killswitch actually works is because I paid ea in the first place. So let me get this straight, if i download the game for free, you can't turn it off? really? and I, as joe honorable consumer, and supposed to look past that as a selling point? I love games, and i want games to continue to be made, and seriously, with stuff like this, that is the only reason a game company ever gets a cent out of me, because you know what EA? right now, i could play every game ever for the rest of my life without giving the developers or publishers a dime, and though for now I continue to be a paying customer, stuff like this reminds me about the crowd on the other side of the fence, who are having just as much fun with these games as me, without the financial responsibility I chose to bare. They are having more fun actually, because they don't have to put up with any of this bullshit.
ea.. you can officially go fuck yourselves now. this was the last straw. i can put up with unfinished games and non-sensical gameplay. but this is just stupid. i was looking forward to a few titles.. now i'll look forward to a few others not associated with your shit-turd of a company. thanks for playing!
My other sig is a knife wound.
Just another reason to avoid EA. I went to pre-order SPORE and stopped the moment I read about EA Online "download guarantee" for $6 additional fee when buying the game. The download guarantee meant you could download SPORE again for 2 years if you paid $6 now. I decided right there I would not buy EA games online and canceled. I later found out about the registration issues. I'll spend my money at STEAM where Valve can have more of my money. Buy a game there and download again any time I reformat my Windows machine which is at least once a year and I've never heard of a time limit on STEAM. I prefer to buy my games over STEAM and not mess with optical discs or packaging.
still has no idea what the fuck he's doing. Mr. Potato is rich because of this.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
EA makes great games, most of which I have played through and through.
I'll always buy their games, if it interests me, as most of their titles have.
Most of you are silver spoon fed arrogant bastards who think EA owes you something.
They don't. They owe you NOTHING.
They make a game, it gets bought and it gets played regardless of your worthless self righteous point of view of the corporate dealings.
Theres a reason why the EA hate isn't mainstream. You people are a minority and no one gives a shit about your opinions. Theres a reason why DRM protected games aren't criticized on a mainstream level. No one gives a shit. The amount of people who were unable to play the game and had LEGALLY purchased it is so small, NO ONE GIVES A SHIT. The majority of outrage at DRM protected games comes from people who intended to download it illegally anyways.
It's hilarious seeing shit like "I'm done with them, their shoddy products, their DRM, and their bad attitude". No one gives a shit. Let me stress it again, NO ONE GIVES A SHIT.
EA games are typically best sellers BECAUSE THEY ARE GOOD GAMES. There is also a good reason why every single one of the opinions here aren't shared in the mainstream, NO ONE GIVES A SHIT ABOUT YOU.
EA sells games. People buy them or they don't. They raise to the best sellers list due to DEMAND for such good games. All the while, your complaints of their DRM protected products go unheard because, again, NO ONE GIVES A SHIT ABOUT YOU OR YOUR STUPID MINORITY OPINIONS.
It's really the BIGGER PICTURE that every one of you pseudo-intellectuals seem to ignore. Buy a game, play it, post on their forums constructively, criticize the quality of their product (GAMEPLAY), and move on. None of which will get you banned. What will get you banned is being a retard. Which most of you are very well seasoned at.
..more of the following would occur: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20081030/ennew_afp/ussoftwaregamecompanyearningscutsea ..and the people who work in there will wake up from it. Though of course, they could be stupid enough to blame it only on piracy..
im glad EA is doing this. now more mainstream gamers will catch on to what a shitty-ass company EA is. if it's not paying their employees little and lots of overtime, or editing wikipedia to leave out trip hawkins efforts in founding company, or terminating online game servers to get you to buy the newer sequels when the games aren't even that old, or destroying good game franchises, it's something else! thank you EA for doing this, now watch your shares drop.
I applaud EA for taking this step. Anyone who dislikes this policy is just one of the jerks who will get banned.
Our dictatorship kills any rebels, radicals, or people who disagree with our policies including killing rebels, radicals, or people who disagree. How do you control the masses in your country?
Uh...we don't have that problem for some reason...
btw vote Obama.
As much as everyone is whining that this is very authoritarian and it is, you know what it's going to mean in reality? 14yr old cocksmacks will have to think before they randomly abuse people because of some perceived transgression against gamer wankdom.
No don't you get it? If you get banned in the forums you get banned in real li^H^H^H^H the online game!
I can understand banning a user from a forum for exhibiting poor judgment... I can understand banning a user from an on-line game where they've been caught cheating...
However, banning someone from all of their games for exhibiting poor judgment in a forum might be a bit much...
The obvious solution is to not participate in their forums... However what if someone doesn't care for your comments about bugs/errors in a game? (no, this never happens does it...)
It doesn't sound as though sane minds have truly thought out the possible ramifications of this sort of policy.
Should spawn an interesting court case... or possibly a user boycott...
What ever happened to the customer is always right?
How is this any different than the signs in restaurants that say "We reserve the right to refuse to serve someone." They don't care if you already paid for your meal, if you're abusing the wait staff, they can kick you out. It's a private establishment, just like the forums/servers/realms/whatever, just because you paid for the game does not give you the right to infringe on the rights of others.
Just because you bought the game does not entitle you to act like an a$$hole in the forums, chatrooms or in the game. I'm all for forums in which if someone is spouting off garbage, the moderator has the right to delete the post/thread and ban the user. I've seen this in many non-game related forums. Most people abide by the rules, and when some nut comes along and spouts junk, it just attracts more people like them.
They're not going to ban someone that uses the occasional off colored language, or and if they're smart they'll warn you that you're on thin ice. Unless it's obvious that the poster is spamming posts etc..
Many games were ruined by a$$holes, take Diablo2 for example. Cheating was so rampant that you could only play multiplayer with people you already knew. If only they could have banned all the cheaters.
banner fucking start of 2009...
More power to them... Maybe someone else will have a banner year in the opposite ere... umm, DIRection...
Seriously I didn't even fucking know EA had forums, nor did I care to post in them. How many of you fuckers fucking posted in their fucking forums anytime in the last fucking year? What.the.fuck. I guess I'm banned from Slashdot.org and World of Slashdot now. :*(
This is why the internet is such a horrible place to exchanging information. All you have are immature ignorant fools posting what ever they feel like. All they do is complain-complain-complain, bitch-bitch-bitch, whine-whine-whine. It's fucking ridiculous. It's so hard to find any thing good anymore. You know, good intellectual conversations, hello?!!?. Even Slashdot has it problems. And surely, you can't keep these people from posting on anything, they'll just fucking lie and make a new account.
I really do think the internet, the forums, blogs, whatever...really suck!
It's left blank because I have nothing to say to you punks!
This is yet another proof that 99.9% of consumers are sheep.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
I doubt it
Comment removed based on user account deletion
remember the 'bitch slap' script?
If this means that the forums cut out the people who spam the EA servers with "teh DRM is bad!" messages, then I'm all for GETTING RID OF THE FUCKWADS........... user "ANONYMOUS COWARD" deleted due to innapropriate language, using excessive caps, blatant flaming and existing as EA's love child... RESTRICTING ACCESS TO SOURCEFORGE IN 5, 4, 3...
Considering you just posted a Q2 loss of $300 million and over 500 job cuts...alienate your user base and encourage them to go elsewhere.
Slashdot, a good read for intelligent people, and a good laugh reading the pseudo-intellectuals pretend they have an education.
I am ripping my hair out trying to get Farcry 2 to even RUN ! At the same time I'm playing Crysis (EA) and Dead Space (EA) on Maximum quality. Both games are absolutely excellent. I can't wait for Mirror's Edge. Seems to me EA is helping keep PC games alive right now.
Judge: What did he do?
EA: Made a monster that looks like a dick!
Me: Objection! It looks nothing like a dick!
EA: Its clearly phallic!
Me: Thats a long neck, evolved for reaching high...
EA: Its sitting on a pair of balls!
Me: Theyre legs! It walks on them!
EA: HAIRY BALLS
Its worth it just to see a gaggle of lawyers on $400+ p/h trying to argue the phallic appearance of my one-eyed trouser monster.
3laws: No freebies, no backsies, GTFO.
"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 =)"
Seems like it's pretty easy to get a new serial key, guy. Easier than dealing with the default spyware installation procedure, really. What a dumb thing to say.
Er . . . can someone explain why this is tagged "banana"? I don't get it.
If Spore and Red Alert 3 players heed the warning and start acting mature, they'll stop playing Spore and Red Alert 3.
FAQs are evil.
banner fucking start of 2009...
More power to them... Maybe someone else will have a banner year in the opposite ere... umm, DIRection...
DAMN "Post Anonymously" check box....!!!
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
This isn't very good because now anyone who says anything not very nice about EA in any way, their customer service or online disconnects or how most of their games suck, they can get banned and now, sorry, no online play.
I never buy another EA game. I was going to buy Dead Space, but since it's apparently no longer possible to actually buy an EA game, I guess I'll just pirate it. Sad they lost someone who was actually going to pay money for their games and sadder still that they don't care.
Fear the penguin.
I don't have an EA account, so I can't post this on the EA forum.
It doesn't matter even if the forum accounts are linked to the game accounts.
After all, just because you can play Game A in your EA account doesn't automatically mean you can play Game B.
Just because you can't play Game C, doesn't mean you can't play ALL other games.
So it should technically be possible for EA to stop people from using the forums without stopping people from playing their games, even if the accounts are the "same".
Just make the forum a "game" and fix the access/authorization crap accordingly.
You could even treat different forum areas as different games.
"Forum banning" could be done more intelligently. Use a Bayesian filter and user feedback to measure "cluelessness". The higher the cluelessness score, the longer the delay before the posting appears. Flaming will be discouraged when it takes days for a posting to appear. But errors by the filtering system won't have drastic consequences.
(This doesn't help with spam; it's a jerk filter, not a spam filter.)
Shit, I think they're really asking for a damn shutdown. The things the way they are now, I really think they don't like making games anymore.
I say we just destroy that shithead company: post amazing fucks, screws, damns and shits in their forums, get banned, then download/enjoy all their games from thepiratebay.org
If this won't make them bend, nothing else will.
And right now, I think I might as well say goodbye to my positive karma...
Can I register in EA forums just to start some cuss shelling?
How about nobody buy EA-- anything.
Show them that freedom of speech is not given to us by them, but by the constitution.
EA Kiss Ass
I know the kind of trolls that lurk on forums. They usually piss everyone off.
That being said, rendering someone's $50 purchase useless because they complained in a forum is way over the fucking line.
EA will potentially get sued into submission.
Was this policy outlined in the game's literature at purchase time?
If not, this isn't going to fly. Even a half-brained judge will side with the troll on this one.
They're using their grammar skills there.
Microsoft? No thanks, I don't do Windows or Xbox.
Sony? No thanks I don't want a Blu-Ray player nor DRM in my games.
EA? Transgaming/Cedega, DRM and now this? No thanks.
Companies I still trust enough to buy their games:
- Nintendo (for Zelda, Metroid, etc)
- Blizzard (still waiting on Starcraft II and Diablo III)
In fact, almost any Zelda, Metroid, Starcraft or Diablo game is already pre-sold because I trust them enough to sell me good quality games that don't make me feel like a thief or a beta-tester.
but anyhow, i don't care, but *please* EA, please die already. you will never be the #1 publisher you always wanted to be, and you know it. you can say what you want about vivendi/ blizzard, they milk for cash as the next guy, but at least they say so and do it with some decency. and in the end their games are just better than yours. but if you got any money left to burn, i'm selling some common sense, as usual.
On second thought, let's not go to Camelot. It is a silly place.
"the previous statement I made recently (that's being quoted on the blogs) was inaccurate and a mistake on my part. I had a misunderstanding with regards to our new upcoming forums and website and never meant to infer that if we ban or suspend you on the forums, you would be banned in-game as well. This is not correct, my mistake, my bad." http://forums.ea.com/mboards/thread.jspa?threadID=457006&tstart=15
http://www.tstg.org
Tag this article misunderstanding. The moderator to made the original post has since corrected himself.
Whoda thunkit?
Man... Electronic Arts has sure been digging some big holes for itself lately!
I rather suspect it's the opposite - 99.9% of consumers aren't in the Slashdot demographic that goes out of it's way to find reasons to hate and denigrate. I'm surprised the every buy and/or play any games at all frankly.
I do wonder what behavior they consider bannable. However, one of the major issues I've had playing games these days, including both C&C and Warcraft, are all the immature little shitheads that have nothing better to do than talking shit when they lose, or sit around calling other players ni**ers and talking shit about their moms.
Personally, if saying fuck gets you banned, then I'd say it's a pretty stupid idea. If there's a decent strikes system and/or it helps filter the useless gametrolls, then I'm actually for it.
Last month, I almost looked past the horrible DRM to buy Spore. Now, I'm even more glad I haven't handed EA a single penny out of my pocket since the original Sims.
The Christians say, "by their fruits you will know them". And boy, do I know EA now.
Just another "DOJ fascist authoritarian totalitarian bootlicker" -- Zeio
Actually, I just thought of perhaps a better way to play. How about giving games the option for players to flag themselves as "mature" and choose whether to allow games with other players that are not marked as "mature."
If you start acting like an immature dickhead, you can still play online and post in the forums, but you have to play in the little kid's sandbox while the others can happily ignore you from the "adults" table...
This poor attitude of an announcement, after THEY reported a quarterly loss, and THEIR stock went in the dumper today. Very smart move EA. I was so in to Warhammer On-Line. So, should I be worried that I will lose my investment and time for a perceived slight, or are you just gonna turn off the servers for financial reasons. Seems you have cut off your nose to spite your..... we all know the rest NVM
If you're abusing others verbally through spiteful online forums you deserve to be banned! And it's not that they're going to ban you after saying fuck once... or complaining about their games or something. Don't you understand? The banning is for severe cases of when someone is trolling for fights, and constantly berating people none stop for no real reason. It's their Forum, therefore they should be able to control it as they see fit. Are people allowed to run around in the streets picking fights and trash talking everyone they feel like trash talking? No that would be ridiculous. we're just lucky they gave us a heads up first. Honestly I could care less I've never harassed anyone on a forum. I'm mature I guess. Note that it's always about rights oh it's my right blah blah, I guess you can't exercise your right to be a jerk on the EA forums lol. shucks
EA already came back with a statement that this is incorrect and was created by an over zealous community volunteer (mod). Please oh please slashdot come back with worthwhile news that is not days old.
If they ban accounts for obnoxious behavior and inane posts they're out of line. The choice to ban forum accounts better be vetted the same way in-game behavior is judged. A forum admin shouldn't have the power to disable features or the ability to play a game. I'd be pissed if my kid posted an immature message to a forum and had hundreds of dollars in software rendered useless.
Sure, you could tell the kid he screwed up and deserves to lose his right to play online. But this quote from the post makes me think your whole family is screwed:
I'd suggest anyone that plays EA games stays the hell off those forums, or at least register an account using an old copy of Madden 2004.
he says that if your white bitches won't take his cock willingly he'll send your white men to iraq. when asked about the troop withdrawal he laughed and said 'you dumb crackers will believe anything'.
There are so many awesome games out now and coming out soon - I thought I was going to go broke before Christmas, but EA has solved that problem for me by cutting the number of games I want in half. Thanks EA! keep up the good work!
Check out the full TOS for the "code of conduct." I wouldn't share that No CD utility with the EA forums :)
Rule 8: There are no real rules about posting
Rule 9: There are no real rules about moderation either -- enjoy your ban
The Admin and the Engineer
Getting yourself banned in a forum is a tough task even for a normal troll.
The procedure is like deportation procedures of DHS: warnings, appeals, temporary bans and then the final permanent ban.
In the forums i lurk, i have fiery trolls flame going nuclear with some idiotic comment, insulting everyone, etc., but the administrator will barely notice.
The moment the insults turn personal, the Admin jumps in and warns the offender. If the offender continues his rampage he is given a time-out as a temporary ban.
if the timeout didn't cool him and he comes back again bashing people, he is permanently banned.
In my opinion, this is very good.
I use forums for tips, or cheat codes or advice on a couple of hardware. Like the time my PC was unable to read Spore DVD, and an admin of EA came and told me to copy off the install files from someone else's dvd or download it, and then use my own keys to install the same.
I did that and iam now a proud player!
Sometimes i was flamed for asking if SLI-ing 2 8600 GT cards equals one 9800 GT... The flame was good-natured, but i have seen innocent questions come back and bite the questioner in their as$ (like installing Spore on 1 Mac iBook G4 and 1 PC and not able to install).
The insults were personal and referred to anatomies.
People can do without those insults.
I support EA in this regard.
I have karma to burn, but i stand by my conviction: I support EA in banning trolls in forums and banning them from the Game itself.
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
All aboard the Torrent train!
Next stop Pirated Software express!
Hmm, Why have EA Games decided to send themselves out of business?
I would have thought in the current economic climate over there they'd be shoring their pennies and trying to attract customers.
Not guaranteeing they will never have a sale again and probably lose all their existing clients?
Strange, strange..... maybe its a tax dodge?
we have altered the policy. Pray we do not alter it any further.
Lets see them argue goatse then...
More power to them. It's about time somebody decided to step up and hold people accountable. I, for one, rarely frequent any of these boards since they all seem so full of hate and vitriol. I don't need that.
If EA thinks they can police their games in this manner, then by all means, please do. Me and all of the other adult gamers will have a blast. ...well hell. I just stood up for EA. What's this world coming to?
There is simply too much glass..
This is a disaster waiting to happen for EA. $10 says this policy won't last a year, even if it does get implemented.
Since you've removed the "being a dick" feature from the games, where is my discount to compensate for the game's diminished play value?
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
I read either here or elsewhere EA will ban people for even talking about the DRM features of Spore 3. So where's the line here? I think there used to be a government established that supported such practices of bitter censorship, but the United States effectively annihilated them. Remember the Taliban and Hussein?
Chewbacon
The Bible is like Wikipedia: written by a bunch of people and verifiable by questionable sources.
It's not us. It's your kids. EA decided to babysit their unruly asses, something you should have been doing all along.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
These rules are all a scam to reduce the resale value of their games. They are trying to crush the used PC game market, and never allow it to grow to the enormous size of the used console market. If games are tied to accounts, and accounts are banned. Then there really is not a way to reliably sell a used game.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
I don't mean to sound disingenuous, but really, if you don't agree with their policy don't spend money on their games. It's that simple.
It's true no man is an island, but if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie 'em together, they make a good raft.
Beta News reporting this. EA is going downhill with all thee problems. :(
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Talk about shooting yourselves in the foot; the only purpose the forums serve, from EA's point-of-view, is to build a sense of community which will convince their current users to buy their next game - and expose them to advertising for said game at the same time. With one stroke they destroy any existing sense of community (ok, admittedly the EA forums may not have much community to lose) and effectively tell any and all future customers that they should under no circumstances use the official forums, ever. Well done. Customers hurt:0; EA shoes with smoking holes: 1.
maybe people with ea games should all just start using private (cracked) servers. ea doesn't have any control over private servers that don't check cd keys against a master key server. If people simply used private server communities like epcgaming no one would have to bother with ea deciding to blacklist keys.
Problem:
If you paid for the game, then you paid for access. Simple as that. When you pay for a game, you don't pay for access to the forums. When you pay for the game, as bought in the store, you are entiled to all of the functionality that you paid for, which includes internet gaming. Nowhere it is posted on the box that EA may revoke your internet gaming priveliges for bad beavior on EA forums.
Simply put: You are entitled to what you paid for. You paid for all of the functionality that was contained in the game package that you bought. EA can definitely ban you from the forums, since the forums were online, and not included in the game package you paid for.
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
we all know sometimes you can get modded bad for some frivolous reason, usually the moderator just disagree's and they mod you badly calling you a troll. This has the potential to be a disaster depending on how its managed...if its done badly and most likely it will be, countless people will find themselves banned from all EA games and if your a big EA fan, you could have easily spent a lot of money on games.....can you smell class action lawsuit?
...am glad I don't bother buying EA's games!
In other news, EA is slashing 6% of its workforce because of low October game sales!
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122539935362185471.html
This should be a boon for the warez groups (mostly in the legitimacy department) and will be yet another thing for the anti-DRM guys to latch onto to try to get more of the public on their side. If EA's going to go DRM-crazy let them, it'll only be another step toward (hopefully) the reform of the industry. Disenfranchises legitimate buyers, but EA doesn't really deserve legitimate buyers at this point.
One poster on the SA forums got banned for 37 days from Spore for saying someone's creature was "badass". Want your MP fix? Start downloading Hamachi, gentlemen.
Would that fly, especially for games that you did not do anything wrong?
I doubt it.
Of course you need a high priced lawyer to make these arguments in court so why bother with that expense, just don't buy EA games.
"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"
Banned to what/where/who/when/how?
.
APOC sounds like another idiot forum troll who cannot differentiate (between) to/too.
After I've bought Spore, I am now pirating C&C: Red Alert 3. They owe me that. I've given them money for something they didn't deliver. Now it's payback-time, bitches!
And the best of it all? It feels gooood! ;)
All I can say is wow. I pirated Spore, then bought it because I thought it was a worthy purchase. Then, it mysteriously kept crashing at start up. Well, I didn't want to use up one of my reinstalls, so I put in a ticket and after about a week, I was able to reinstall and play again. And it still didn't work. Haven't bothered even trying since then, as the game is pretty mediocre anyway.
I am gonna troll the shit out of those forums, get myself banned, fire up my pirated copy and never buy and EA game again.
GG EA.
You're removing the service unilaterally and so give the money back.
Not buying anymore of their rubbish anyway.
EA's been all down hill since Archon 2. I'm not going to miss them.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
and there needs to be a dispute resolution method available.
From the people making comments about not buying EA products and such because of this policy I can tell very few if any have visited official forums of any game maker, let alone play the games online.
Basically you end up with the idiots who think the anonymity they enjoy by using some clever name somehow extends mystical powers of immunity to responsibility for their actions. I do so love all the twits who claim that either they type so fast a few cuss words slip out or "we are all adults whats your problem" or "there is a language filter so use it" or better yet "its their right to offend"
Sorry, its their house. They make the rules. If your too impatient to read the rules; tell me what percentage of these people who get banned just click past warning/terms of sale/terms of usage; only to claim they were blindsided.
Fine, don't buy their games. But realize that in many cases its practically required to be draconian in your actions when it comes to having a civil discussion. Too many people feel empowered by their internet connection let alone the fact that most places they go they can act like total jack asses on the net and get away with it.
Yet I know dozens of respected sites that will ban you forever and any alias they can find associated with you based on the isp connection data. Why is this any less offensive to people bitching about EA? After all some of those sites are businesses just on a different scale.
Comes down to, participation in the community on the internet needs to follow the same rules as participation in your local community. Its not the wild west and you are not above the law.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Exactly what I was thinking. Spore was the most pirated game in history for a reason.
"At first, we thought it was just another snake cult."
Apoc has posted an update, it appears he was mistaken: http://forums.ea.com/mboards/message.jspa?messageID=4409947
Suffice to say, when we take action on someone on our C&C forums here, for any number of ToS breaking reasons, it does not impact your C&C game account or any other EA Game Account connected to your forum name.
Can you no longer talk about how you fucked that gorgous bitch last night because that might upset someone? Censoring is NEVER ever done to create a mature enviroment, especially game companies and even more especially AMERICAN companies.
Look forward to a future where the only chat allowed is that which would make even Disney puke for its cuteness.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
If you paid in advance like say a self-service place, you get your food OR a refund. If they do not, you can take them to court and win easily.
No, it is clear what EA wants to achieve here and its made very plain by the fact they already back-pedalled on it.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Actually, if you've looked at enough game forums, you'll see lots of bans which are for stuff that has nothing whatsoever to do with being uncivilized.
There are whole companies where they delete posts, and even ban accounts for stuff like reporting or discussing bugs. And I don't mean the "you gay motherfuckers get off your lazy arses and fix my pet peeve right now" kind of "discussion", but even mentioning that some exploits exist at all, or that some DRM bug has prevented someone from starting the game. Especially if someone from Marketing got ideas like, "omg, if people find out we have bugs or multiplayer exploits, our sales will drop, and we can't have that before Christmas." But whatever the reason, trying to prevent people from posting bugs, especially if a bug has showed up already too often on the forum, _is_ a pretty popular way to avoid fixing them.
Heck, Sony even had a sandbox for new forum users (which included veterans finally activating their forum account), just so they can't complain about the NGE in SWG. Apparently enough people activated their forum account just to say a final "good bye, but this is no longer fun" when unsubscribing, and we can't have that, can we?
I also remember forum bans and account bans for as little as distasteful fanfic about someone's game. But it wasn't in the game, and it wasn't even on the game's forums. Just, you know, if you dare post something we dislike about our games, we'll kick you out.
So I'm really not looking forward for more of that dictatorial accounts. If someone actually cheated in a multiplayer game or anything, fine, ban them. But not for offending an already arbitrary forum moderation system.
And how does a Spore ban (since they used that particular example) even fit that picture? Even EA marketed Spore as a "massively single-player game". Let's say I was a forum troll. So exactly how's my temper going to affect someone else's game? Can I even get into anyone's game to spew obscenities at them? Or what?
Plus, here's another idea: it seems to me like if you have a player rebellion on your hands, on the forums or in game or otherwise, the best policy is to be open and fair. People don't run amok about a bug when they know it'll get put in the queue and looked at later. You might get one, though, if it becomes obvious that you use PR bullshit and deleting bug reports, instead of fixing very real problems and exploits. They don't run amok about some griefer being banned, especially if again you're open as to why and what the rules are. You get a virtual rebellion when you're acting like an ass to the customers in the first place.
Adding a game ban there just adds injury to the already existing insult.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
This would be a good move if EA could be trusted to not abuse this power. Personally, I do believe more should be done to filter the retards out of online communities.
This isnt true... people that write these things should confirm its validity, before posting over and over.... http://forums.ea.com/mboards/thread.jspa?threadID=457006&tstart=0
"so I strongly recommend people play nice and act mature"
It's been my experience that people who use the word mature/immature as an insult are rarely older than 21.
Unless you know them personally, never ever interact with game company representatives. There are no criteria for banning people only impressions and opinions. Avoid game operators and customer service like the plague or suffer the consequences when you complain about poor service. There will be poor service. Oh yes, there will be poor service. EA is laying off another 800 people.
Thanks to eating disorders most chicks are reasonably good looking these days.
Don't buy any more EA games. I'm fine with bans, but when you stop letting me play games that I pay for becuase I posted something on a message board that you didn't like then its time to find something else to spend money on.
Maybe the forums will be useful for once? Their anonymous nature brings out the jerks every time. Holding people accountable for their words and actions isn't a bad thing.
Oh wait...
I don't understand what the uproar is all about? OK, I see that EA has backed away from this one, but you all have to understand that EA, like any company, has a fiduciary responsibility to maximize the profit for their owners.
Given that newly released games go for $50-$70, and then drop a bit, it only makes business sense for EA to alienate their customers to the point they pirate instead of buy, since that allows EA to instead get $750 and up for their games when they take their non-customers to court (or a bit less in settlements).
And best of all, they can do this without squandering their money on advertisements or, indeed, development of good, bug-free games. They'd be fools to pass up on this bonanza.
The game companies in the UK have clearly already caught on to this one: http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/31/0029211, and are raking in $800 just for sending out the letters, never mind the $26000 they got from the guy who got nailed in court.
Few people would intentionally mean to infer incorrectly.
"I had a misunderstanding with regards to our new upcoming forums and website and never meant to infer that if we ban or suspend you on the forums, you would be banned in-game as well."
The actual number on the top 10 list isn't that relevant if the #1 only sold 5000 copies.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
... ea had released a game that was worth more than its weight in shit, in the past 9-10 years...
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
I'm just curious...
I come here for the love
Wally: I'm in charge of the office relocation. Where do you want your cubicle?
Dilbert: What's this huge structure?
Wally: Wallyville. It's two floors of luxury housing, shopping, and gambling.
Dilbert: Do you think you might be abusing your power?
Wally: What would be the other reasons to have power?
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Fuck EA.
We missed you Mr Thompson!
You are FIRED!
Next career, make sure your brain is engaged BEFORE you open your mouth.
That goes for the the rest of the trolls, both on and off /.
First rule of holes; When in one, stop digging.
Leave the crappy games from EA & play Blizzard Games! Go for WOW!
Damn... And I was sooo looking forward to RA3.
But, I cannot in good consience support a company like this. The whole DRM thing was bad enough, I hate being told something I PURCHASED installed spyware that is phoning home to the mothership, AND I can only install it so may times before it becomes deactivated... But to now say that if I say or do something they don't like, they will cut me off?!?
Bullshit!
I don't care that they retracted their latest blunder, it's the sheer audacity that they would even consider it in the first place that pisses me off! There are plenty of other companies making games without these ridiculous rules and regulations, and I for one intend to support them, and I urge you to do the same! Fight back against tyranny with the only weapon you have - Your CASH!!
It seems that Blizzard has a clue:
http://kotaku.com/5064195/blizzard-drm-for-diablo-iii-no-thanks-we-have-battlenet
As do these guys:
http://www.gog.com/
So who are the bad guys?
EA Games for obvious reasons
UbiSoft for their use of SecuROM
BioWare for the Mass Effect Fiasco
Who else would you put on the naughty and nice list?
Heh he was always kind of a spaz on things like this, he wouldn't really get the technical details of things so he'd jump the gun and then later have to go back on it.
All EA games suck.
Ban me. Oops, wrong forum.
I got banned from myspace forums only because I talked about blowing up the moon. I saw others get banned for no reason as well.
Time to switch to online Scrabble or something.
While scrabble is fun game, I'll chime in with a few recommendations:
Nexuiz, a free (as in beer-talk) first-person shooter with neat graphics [if your card can carry it], awesome weapons (some sci-fi'ish) and an online noob server where even I don't get my ass kicked within two seconds ;)
Battle for Wesnoth, a turn-based strategy game in a fantasy setting, with a story revolving around the ironfisted queen, princes and princesses and gandalfian mages (aren't they all?). Simple rules with complex strategies arising from them. Your units have names and level up in per-type advancement trees as you progress during the campaign.
Or Tremulous, an Aliens vs. Marines team FPS where you level up as you evolve or buy equipment and can build gun/slime turrets around your base (intelligent design of your perimeter is required :p).
You won't ever be kicked out of those, and they all have better graphics and sound than scrabble :) If you're an ass, the individual server might kick you off, and if you're a complete ass they might do so the next few times again.
Or play some of the great single-player console games [zelda, mario, gh3 for the wii]. You don't have the code, so you can't fix it, but no one can ban you.
I've patched Wesnoth such that a horizontal scroll wheel lets you move around the map more intuitively, and Nexuiz to include a simple handicap mode. Software freedom for the win :)
Is fixing the proprietary games necessary? Yep!
In zelda, the implicit state machine can reach several states from where you can't reach the endgame. When Eldin bridge becomes uncrossable, you are north of it, you have entered the region from the south, and you must reach the north exit. If you save and reload, you will respawn where you entered, unable to reach the north side.
When you find the big cannon, you do something to it and then a guy enters. If you save and reload before doing it, the guy is there when you load, and then you can't do what you need to do due to his presence.
Guitar Hero definitely needs a Jukebox mode, where you can listen to the songs being performed with the guitar part but without playing. You can enable performance mode and no-fail to get all instruments except your part, but that's not good enough. The menu structure is too deep and narrow. The menu items should be selectable by one-or-two fret combinations (i.e. "click") rather than "down-down-down-green". The "are you sure" popups should be killed.
Mario needs better auto-camera, and the freedom to look around in more than half-spaces. I'd like to read the controls code to find out how they really work. Reverse engineering the mapping from [facing, velocity, camera and joystick vectors] to [facing, velocity and camera vectors] is not trivial enough.
But they're still great games despite the flaws I can't fix :)
[noticed how the wii firmware update fixes saved games in deadlocked positions in zelda? Me neither...]
Mod me OT now ;)
dominantforce (unknown),
The email address richie311@hotmail.com , and all EA personas associated with it (including personas/accounts used for multiplayer games), have been suspended from our services for 72 hours. This action was taken due the severity and number of violations of our Terms of Service committed with the personas associated with this email address.
Please note that although only this account has been suspended, it is against our terms of service to use another account that is named in reference or is otherwise similar to the banned persona to continue posting. You should also avoid committing further violations after your suspension is lifted or risk further action including a permanent ban (which may permanently prevent access to online/multiplayer games and services).
You can reference the Terms of Service at any time via the link at the bottom of every EA.com page or through the following direct URL: http://www.ea.com/global/legal/tos.jsp
Thank you for your attention.
EA Forums Administrator
Customer Support
EA.com Customer Relations
dominantforce (unknown),
The email address richie311@hotmail.com , and all EA personas associated with it (including personas/accounts used for multiplayer games), have been suspended from our services for 72 hours. This action was taken due the severity and number of violations of our Terms of Service committed with the personas associated with this email address.
Please note that although only this account has been suspended, it is against our terms of service to use another account that is named in reference or is otherwise similar to the banned persona to continue posting. You should also avoid committing further violations after your suspension is lifted or risk further action including a permanent ban (which may permanently prevent access to online/multiplayer games and services).
You can reference the Terms of Service at any time via the link at the bottom of every EA.com page or through the following direct URL: http://www.ea.com/global/legal/tos.jsp
Thank you for your attention.
EA Forums Administrator
Customer Support
EA.com Customer Relations
i was mouthing off on the ea cnc forums and i got a 72 hour ban and i cant login to cnc ra3 it says im banned and i cant even login to their site to talk to customer support! its freakin horrible! I cant play a game i spent almost 60$ because im banned from a forum what a crock of shit!
Since EA now sucks, as sucks all their latest games with their stupid DRM on it, then I'm banning EA crap from all my systems.
Eat that EA. Continue to be stupid, loose your customers and close your doors. I'll give you 2 years in the business.
I can't, in good conscience, purchase an EA game which has DRM. They can ban or not ban, and it doesn't matter since I won't be playing the game to begin with. I realize that they are trying to backpedal, but it's a moot point.
I used to buy EA games for my Commodore 64. I've bought a lot of EA games in the past. But no longer. All the EA games I've paid for I can still run, even the ones from 20 years ago. The new DRM-laden titles are worse than useless.
-B
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.
Just sprinkle some religion on it, and your wildest dreams will come true. Take a look! It's in a book! A reading rainnnnnbooooowwww!
It's All Saints Day (Halloween), and Saint Eric-Steven "ramrod" Raymond has yet to produce any Slashdot main article on Microsoft FUD. Slowest. News. Evar.
They should tie it to slashdot too. That way, once your an asshole I never had to see you again!
OOPS I meant to say RELATED news :)
You aren't paying for "the game", you're paying for a license to play their game. The code is still their property - you never truly "own" it. Its the basis of DRM, and why that subtopic always seems to surface during these threads.
Yet that's neither here nor there, really.
Personally speaking (as a longtime gamer), I'd actually welcome a policy of banning the tardlings who cause problems, en masse.
I'd love to see a lot of the current immaturity & angst disappear from online gaming - along with much less epeen, thanks. Someone above made a wonderful (if colorful) comment regarding keeping kids of the internet - there's some merit to that, I think. Particularly if they are the source of the problematic behavior.
Supervised play is one thing, unsupervised rampant disruption is another.
My wife can't play the Sims (bought through the EA store) without logging in... so it is at least unclear if this would have applied to offline/single player content.
I tried to buy a game for my father at the Apple store. It seems the best action games don 't support the basic MacBook due to non-support of the video hardware. I wanted to communicate with EA and let them know how disappointed I was, but you have to get an account to communicate with them. For some reason my account never activated and I was never allowed allowed to express myself in any way. These arrogant people don't deserve my business. None of this surprises me. They have responded to success by getting a big head. I was glad to read this thread as it places to rest any chance I will give them any of my money.
Children *are* immature(such as the one modding me down) - and I would be in favor of banning anyone under 25 as a general rule.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
as i read this I also had a strong negative reaction to eas gistapo tactic,, it would directly effect my buying using or recomending any of EAs products. thats like setting someone on fire for breaking your window.