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Gamer Banned From Dragon Age II Over Forum Post
RogueyWon writes "Kotaku is reporting that a Dragon Age II gamer banned from BioWare's forums for an allegedly inflammatory post has been locked out of the (singleplayer only) game for the duration of the ban. This is a consequence of EA's backend systems, which link forum accounts to the accounts that players use to access their games. This would appear to be a worrying new development; while trolling forums has led to bans from massively multiplayer games in the past (arguably with some justification), the extension of the principle to singleplayer games, where an abusive player cannot affect the enjoyment of others, must surely be a step too far."
Ah, in true slashdot spirit the summary "forgets" a few things from the story. First of all, he wasn't banned from playing the game. He bought the game from EA online store and because he was banned, the installer didn't work. And to be honest, for me that sounds more like a bug than EA trying to ban him from a single player game.
Actually, they also need to be sued for false advertising, or, scamming.
for, in effect, they had had ended up NOT having sold a product to someone, despite being paid for it.
Read radical news here
Violation of rights? What if Ford banned you from your car for inflammatory remarks? This is a product he paid for being remotely disabled... Someone needs to give the gaming industry a good dose of "Act Right". Taking away our right to resell games, horribly restrictive TOS, crap tons of DRM, now remote disabling if you annoy them...
If he paid for it, then they're telling him he can't USE it, he should be entitled to demand a refund. That simple. He didn't pay for the privilege of getting banned. Does anyone know if he sought a refund?
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
All of this crap was really writing on the wall the moment we started down the "$FOO is licensed, not sold" road. The rest is just technical implementation details of the measures needed to keep the remote systems, and their users, in line.
...and the reason why all you idiots keep on buying EA games and supporting those douchebags is...???????
From TFA:
Damn, all I have to do to ruin someone's day is report their posts? Harsh.
As will be parrotted and echoed a dozen times, they really should divorce the game from community connectivity when doing these punishments and not deprive you what you paid for.
If you're going to accuse a corporation of selling their souls to another corporation and imply that they are the devil... for god's sake don't do it on their own forum!
I would say this story takes the biscuit for most misleading summary ever, but then again there are just so many misleading summaries on Slashdot these days.
Why do people still buy from this company?
And bad things happened to him?
Well, good. Dicks need a solid pounding from time to time, to remind them that throwing down has consequences online as well as in meatspace.
If he's got a problem with it, he can sue them, which will just prove how much of a dick he really is.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
That was the inflammatory statement.
It was judged to be a prejudiced statement that maligned malevolent superbeings by unfairly associating them with EA.
I say that kind of statement should be banned and that Beelzebub is owed an apology.
This is going to sound like sour grapes and a bunch of BS, but I was seriously 100% going to buy DA2 today. Now I'm going to download it instead.
Let's make a bold assumption for the sake of argument. Assume that 10% of online gamers act like assholes if they are never punished, but will be nice gamers if they are briefly punished. .01% of gamers are plain old assholes.
We all know that asshole gamers ruin online games. In FPS, it is the Team-Killer, in RPGs it's the Ninja or the Leroy Jenkins, in any game on XBL it is the hate-filled bigot that yells at anyone. A simple 24 hour ban is good enough to convert the 10%. However, the .01% will just exist to destroy your experience.
Should the game company take the time to ban assholes, just like they approach modders and other cheaters? Should a publisher ban them from Every game, just for acting up in one game or an online forum? One could argue that banning the assholes greatly improves the online experience for everyone else. IMHO, I would pay extra for a game that didn't have a bunch of assholes ruining my experience.
..In a world where it is ok for a restaurant to refuse to serve any TSA agents and your employer can fire you for burning a koran on your own time, why *can't* a game company revoke service from a troll?
I think all three are really shitty, but chances are most people only disagree with 1 or 2 of the above and those are the people who make it all possible.
THL phish sticks
charge back time
Thanks for posting this story. This issue doesn't affect me, as I don't use EA forums, but it is still something that I find completely unacceptable. I've bought (yes, with money) every RPG Bioware ever released for the PC (and I think I also have a copy of Shattered Steel), but combined with the emphasis on DLC (which requires logging in) in recent titles, this means I will not be buying (or pirating) DA2.
(Apologies for all the parentheses. I'm in the middle of On Lisp.)
Turns out there are consequences to your speech. More so when you're using something you don't own. Arguably you don't really own anything. If the right person decides they want your stuff, they'll just take it. Technology is just increasing the pool of people who can.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
More justification for torrenting.
So another consumer will learn how piracy is done, and will not buy their next game. You just shot yourself in the foot, EA.
Hello, I have just woken from ten years in cryogenic slumber and I think my hearing must be a little out of whack. Can you please repeat what you said to me, it sounded like "some guy bought a single player game to play on his home computer and because his internet was out (or something else having the same effect - actually I thought you said a game company took his money then used the internet to stop him installing the game he just paid for, but that can't be right), he wasn't able to use his *single player* game that would run wholly on *his *own* home computer*"? I seem to remember hearing something about massively internetable rolypoly games (not sure if that's right either, the pre cyro drugs were pretty hardcore) not long before I snoozed off, but this isn't one of those is it?
If its a game he's paid for and wants to play on his own home computer, where's the beef? (Or WTF? (overheard that one in a conversation between a couple of the techs waking me up, did I get the context right?))
...never thought I'd see someone suffer actual consequences for being a jerk on the internet. Maybe a sign of changing times?
/* No Comment */
If he purchased the game from an online store he likely used a credit card to purchase it. I would call my credit card company and dispute the charge on the grounds that the merchant is not allowing you to use a product you purchased. Bioware had little issue taking money from them, and if they don't want him playing their game due to an "inflammatory" forum post they should refund him his money.
I'm curious what exactly was said.
I had a similar experience with Steam and Fallout: New Vegas. I posted on Steam forums complaining of the difficulties I was having with Steam not letting me play my game in single player mode. My internet connection was down at the time, and Steam locks you out of your game if you aren't connected to the internet. My post was deleted for "discussing piracy". I created a new post and removed all references to piracy, but this post was also deleted. I then discovered that I had been banned from the forums, and my license key had been invalidated. I could no longer play the game that I had paid for. After receiving no real response to numerous emails to Steam and Bethesda I gave up. These companies do not have easily discoverable customer support lines, so there was no one to call. Needless to say, I pirate all my games now.
I was also banned from my steam account because paypal choose a transaction I've made with Valve to check my identity. Their system was faulty and after confirmation(Phone calls to land line and CC verification), It took several phone calls & more than a week of back & forth to get everything in order.
Mean while, I lost access to all the games under my Steam account because Paypal stopped 1 payment & I had this account for 4 years. I had almost 20 games in my Library & couldn't play them until paypal released my money. Sure, I understand they wanted to be paid, but having total control over 20 of my games is really frightful.
It took me almost 2 years before I bought another steam games & honestly, if I can avoid using this kind of system, I will. I rather have a boxed DVD than letting someone have total control over something I paid for... I mean it's not like I don't know how to get the games for free...but I don't pirate because I feel it's wrong, and this is how they thank you... Anyhow
I don't have an intelligent phone, so I need to be.
I was considering buying Dragon Age 2... I guess I'll wait another year.
Dear Bioware,
Thank you for reminding me of your DLC centric business model. You have again shown that a pirated version of your software is superior than that of the product offered in your online store. I hope you enjoy alienating your paying customers.
Sincerely,
UC
It's long since been established if you get banned from the bad co 2 forums you get banned from the servers for the duration IF your EA account is linked to your gamertag or psn id. Dragonage was shit anyway and the demo for 2 was just prettier.
Wanna buy a shirt?
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Now while they maybe should look at separating forum bans from over all account bans, still this is a rather different situation than "They banned him from the game." No, they banned him from their site. Now he'd bought the game from their site, but not yet installed it. That did mean that he couldn't install the game. However that is not the same as taking away the game from him. Had he bought the game elsewhere, like Impulse, Steam, or a retail store, there would have been no effect.
I've got to back up EA on this. You need to have a right to ban people from your online services. Otherwise you have a situation where someone could pay for something, and then do abusive, or even disruptive (like hacking/DDoS) things and you couldn't ban them because they'd paid.
Only thing I would say is that had the ban been permanent they would have had a duty to either refund his money or send him a physical copy of the game or something.
Basically with services, you do have a duty to hold up your side of things and if you don't they have to be able to terminate the relationship. You cannot require that people provide you service, even if you are a problem.
And really, this is just a lesson in life: Actions have consequences. You cannot just be an asshole and expect that everyone has to keep being nice to you. Go in to a physical store and start screaming about how evil they are, they'll toss your ass out and ban you from coming back, they can do that.
How is some guy playing a single player game ruining your experience?
I can have complete control over a video game in 2011. I simply have to torrent it illegally from a plethora of sources and install a crack. I thought maybe the uproar (and subsequent spike in pirating) over the Assassin's Creed DRM would have shown developers that sometimes excessive control can backfire. Quoth the Princess Leia: "The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers."
Finally, ramifications for ones behavior in this internet world of anonymity.
Its just too bad. Maybe if he was not a jerk wad he would not have this problem!
So whats the real news here? Some guy (the jerk wad) can't act civil and his mommy isn't there to spank him so someone else (the game company) has to punish him...
I say good.
Forums have too many trolls (and jerk wads) its about time some consequences are put down.
If bars don't serve drunk people, then McDonald's shouldn't serve fat people...
Sure, go ahead, "ban a dick", but you have to give him his money back
Read the subject. That is word for word what he posted. There is no way to defend EA's actions and not sound like a worthless piece of shit. Pretty fitting the captcha is Bullied since that's all they are doing to this guy.
As long as you do so before taking the money. It's not nice to take the money and THEN refuse service.
It's more like the TV won't turn on because of something you said about the delivery company.
It's not like the promised delivery and then there was some unforeseen circumstance that delayed delivery.
No, you are being stubborn if yo can not see that the bottom line is:
He was banned from a forum and the result from that is that he can not play the game he bought.
And I highly doubt it's a bug since this was a stated 'feature' when BioWare introduced it.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
...but the only way it's going to matter is if it impacts the bottom line.
If you don't like it, don't buy it. Or take the game back.
If gamestop goes back to EA and says "yeah, we had 66% returns, many commenting that the ability to ban someone from playing what they bought for unconnected behavior" then EA might care.
But raging in an internet forum? Meaningless.
Personally, the repeated 'online validate' for a single player game long since drove me away.
-Styopa
nothing more.
Am I the only one who, upon reading the summary, immediately wished that we could apply that to other forums and comment areas as well? Think of how much better online interactions would be if trolling a forum had some actual consequences.
I run an online forum, and I've often wished I could deliver a large electric shock to asshats via their mouse.
And just think of how much better slashdot would be!
People who say "sheeple" have about as much sophistication as an AOL user, and in fact are probably actually AOL users.
"Give customers a better experience, then pirates".
There are no servers in this case... it's single player, totally different animal
First of all its not a service, its a product that is bought. If EA wants to deny that person the product then have to offer a refund otherwise we have a name for this kind of behavior and its called stealing...
I work for a games magazine that also happens to have a website and a forum on it. People (our readers, mostly) post nasty comments there all the time. Would it be OK for us to delay or suspend the subscription of our magazine to folks who are a bit too rude towards us in the forums?
By the standards some of the commenters here seem to espouse, it would.
There is only one way to be a PC gamer now days and maintain your sanity. 1. Download the DRM free game and play it. 2. At the time the Ultimate Edition of the game comes out and is on sale, purchase it as a courtesy if you enjoyed playing the game. This takes no effort and allows you to avoid all the DRM bull and release after release of little DLC content at $10 a pop. Oh, and it maintains a clear conscience.
Playstation devices get release dates http://bit.ly/gVn5T5
Seems like a really stupid move. Ban someone for some pretty tame criticism? Gee I'll bet that guy puts more of his money into that EA account.
This is like buying a digital game, being banned from their forums, and subsequently being unable to receive the purchased goods. Is it really necessary to create a fictional analogy to understand that this is absurd?
I find it frightening that anyone would agree with what happened. His comment was nowhere near ban-worthy. Quite frankly, it was customer feedback. If you walk into a store you buy from frequently, and make a comment like that, do you think they would kick you out? No. They'd probably actually discuss the matter with you, respectfully. But online entities seem to think customers do not deserve respect or fair treatment, as is clearly the case here.
I will not be purchasing any Bioware games in the future, unless they make a prompt and adequate apology for their absurd censorship and retaliation against that customer. As someone else said, preventing a person from using something they already paid for is wrong. EULAs be damned. You don't sell something to somebody, then lock it up because you don't like a comment they made.
I hate to jump right to litigiousness, but it seems like the only thing a company like this will respect...
Sure, they may listen to the users if there is a big enough outcry and it starts to affect their sales - but how long would that take?
in this thread, people defending their right to be asshats online with no repercussions. Also, if we're lucky we'll see how this somehow relates to an evil corporate conspiracy to scam said asshats out of their money.
There are two options here, it was deliberate or it was not. If it was deliberate, well I'm just going to say that some of you haven't been to other forums such as World of Warcraft where the flaming and douche-baggery can make the thing almost useless at times. If it was not deliberate, then this one whiny gamer needs to suck it up and wait out his ban. Had he not gotten himself banned in the first place he wouldn't have a problem. If you're going to behave in a way that might get you banned be prepared for unexpected consequences.
Forum trolls respond to very little. Banning from forums doesn't stop them from coming back for more when it's over. Maybe banning them from their games might actually work.
On a side note, I swear the constant use of EULA's, TOS's and other consumer contracts is contributing to the decline in personal accountability. "Well you didn't SAY I could be banned for XYZ so you can't ban me". It's never about right or wrong, it's always can I get away with it or not.
Sounds to me like if it is as reported and the user was banned from singleplayer, he may have grounds to sue. That would be like buying a new car and because you posted something about Ford, then them killing the engine and you not being able to use it again. So at any time my purchases from EA could be terminated? Will I get a refund if I'm not allowed to use the software I purchased a license to use? Hopefully it is like 1st poster stated and is just a random bug and not something EA has done. Given their history though, I wouldn't put it past them.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
I was already on the fence given the bug ridden, overpriced mess that was Awakenings. They never properly patched the most egregious bugs that took all the equipment from a character you'd been playing 70+ hours. In addition they never bothered to release an updated mod pack so that modders could at least fix their mistakes. Probably because they didn't want to reveal the utter crappiness of their rushed coding practices for the expansion.
Anyhoo, given all the following: the requirement for internet activation and recheck every few days; the SecuROM sneak in they pulled; the $60 price tag; and the steam demo already had frustrating game breaking bugs, I'll be putting my money elsewhere.
Poor bioware. I miss the days when the did sixty nine different patches for Neverwinter Nights. That was product support!
Guess I'll have to keep looking forward to the Witcher II and CD Projeckt that doesn't cripple their games with DRM.
Steam is less intrusive than other forms of DRM, so I hear people say that they don't mind it. Valve WILL fuck you with their DRM eventually, they just haven't gotten around to it yet. It make take 5 or ten years, but it is coming.
Repeat after me: There is NO such thing as good DRM.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
My coworker is a huge Bioware fan, since EA bought the company he has not paid for a single one of their games, opting to buy merchandise from the Bioware store instead. Not legitimate excuse for piracy, but it's the same reason people download mp3s and pay for concerts. These publishers need to go.
I've been reading about this on the Bioware forums, and another bombshell hit me: apparently SecuROM has been put on DA2, even though it was declared to be free of it by EA.
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2011/03/dragon-age-ii-features-hated-securom-despite-previous-ea-claims.ars
Personally, I'd say I'm boycotting EA over this, but really I'm merely continuing to boycott them over how I was punished by them in multiple ways for daring to buy the first Dragon Age, and this.
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