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Feedback On Simcity Gets User Banned From EA Forums
An anonymous reader writes "EA's latest SimCity game requires users to log on online even for single player. After being unable to log on for three hours, one of its users chimed in with his very polite $0.02 opinion, only to get himself banned by EA admins. Another great victory for DRM."
Update: 01/29 18:00 GMT by S : The player's ban has been lifted, and it seems to have happened for an unrelated issue anyway.
Was it EA that had their forum and DRM systems linked in such a way that getting banned could also lock you out of content you had purchased, or was that another company? I vaguely recall it being a thing a while back.
It isn't EA's latest game - it's a beta test with rules and restrictions typical of beta tests.
The game doesn't come out until March. Being 'unable to log on' for three hours might be a worthy complaint after that.
And I have no reason to think the gameplay of this latest iteration is bad. But I'm never going to buy it. Ever. I don't care if that doesn't influence EA to stop being terrible, but all I can ever do is not buy their stuff.
If you must play this game(and you don't) please pirate it. Please.
STOP buying EA games.
I was an avid Diablo and Diablo II player. Same with Starcraft. These games gave me endless hours of enjoyment in some cases decades after release. I have not and will not purchase either Starcraft II or Diablo III. I am a 'lost sale' because of the WAR on gamers by the studios. Any game I purchase, in a store or otherwise, that I can't play at my leisure now or at any time in the future because the creator or owner of the license shuts down a server, or stops supporting the game will not be in my inventory.
If I sound stupid, it's not me talking....
This setup is the stupidest thing to come down the pike in a long time. I can understand having the DRM to be able to play online. What I don't understand is why there is not an offline mode that does not allow you to take advantage of all the online only features and who's gameplay doesn't affect the online version. And the article shows just how far they have gone into looney land - no constructive feedback allowed. This will be literally the first Sim City I will not own. I have bought literally every version of it over the years including the original Sim City.
More like beta user submits valid beta feedback and is banned for their trouble.
That smells the same way asking for someone's opinion then punching them when they give it to you does.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Unfortunately for folks, this means fans of the game have to give EA the middle finger and pirate it, or simply not buy the game, but at least they've finally released a new version of the game after years.
There, FTFY.
Coffee-driven development.
Feedback is feedback.. the feedback I read, did not warrant getting banned. Worse, it was constructive in many ways. Finally, this is a paying customer. If this is how EA will now do business, consider me warned, I'm not buying their wares. I think it should be illegal to stop a paying customer from being able to provide feedback, especially since this customer is trying to have access to a product which he paid to used in the first place.
If you want a pizza-and-drinks game... Munchkin. Doesn't take up as much space as a board game, as it's nothing but cards and dice, and it's a lot of fun.
About mid-day yesterday, I was banned from EA's Answer HQ[2] for, what I thought, was constructive criticism.
It turns out however, that EA is having really bad technical issues and managed to accidentally ban several users[3] . The cause, they credit, is something to do with the email opt-out. (Which explains why I did not receive information regarding the ban)
EA's representative did, however, issue an apology to me and I felt it only fair I set things right. (And give him credit for being an awesome guy in a place where he would normally be considered a dick)
I received a message earlier today (here on reddit) from Chris Deum[4] , the guy who heads up EA's Answer HQ, apologizing for the glitch. The message is below.
Hi Puppier,
I made a post in reply on both imgur and your reddit post, but I just wanted you to know that we've lifted your ban on AHQ. As you know, the system is sending out a lot of emails and it looks like you opted out of receiving mails from us, which for some reason is banning users. There's a few posts on it, for example here http://answers.ea.com/t5/Technical-Problems/Problem-with-Answer-HQ-banned-because-I-tried-to-stop-getting/m-p/419214/highlight/true#M1430[5] . It's not the biggest thread, but it's the first I could get to.
The team is working to fix the bug, but in the interim I actually have one member sitting scanning our logs for anyone that opts out, so we can unban them as quickly as possible.
Apologies again - as you mentioned. There's a lot of similar feedback to yours that hasn't been removed from the forums and the authors banned.
Feel free to give me a shout with any other feedback you have. I'll personally make sure it gets to the right people to make up for the annoyance.
Cheers,
Chris.
I finally did get SimCity to play and IMO it looks as if it will be a fun game. Although they still need to consider their always online policy, I believe that this game is looking out to be good. Thanks for all the support though and bringing this to the attention of EA!
TL; DR EA fixes false ban, EA sucks less.
http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/17e1ap/result_of_my_previous_ea_ahq_ban_post/
Steam will play in offline mode. Diablo III will not. Nor will Simshitty.
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