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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."
http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/55656
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.
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.
Tag this article misunderstanding. The moderator to made the original post has since corrected himself.
"They don't care if you already paid for your meal, if you're abusing the wait staff, they can kick you out."
They *do* care if you paid for your meal. If you are abusing the wait staff because you aren't getting your meal, they are legally obligated to refung you your money. In this case, if you aren't getting the service you paid for, then they are legally obligated to refund you your money, regardless of how you act. However, they can kick you out, but not without your money.
Being a jerk, to a degree, is completely legal. Taken too far, being a jerk can be Disturbing the peace, which is illegal in a public place. In a private setting, it is completely legal, but you can be asked to leave. Taking money and not providing the service or product that was purchased, to any degree, is theft and fraud. Theft and fraud are far worse than disturbing the peace or being asked to leave.
Thankfully, being a dick is legal, and theft and fraud are not.
Regardless of what their TOS states, if they remove functionality from a game package that you paid for, they are legally obligated to refund you your purchase cost, regardless of what their TOS says.
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....