EA Forcing Good Behavior: Get Banned on their Forum and You’re Banned from their Games

by Chad Lakkis on October 29, 2008 at 11:32 pm

A recent post by an EA Community Staff member on the company’s Command and Conquer message board outlines changes to their policy, stating their intent to link a gamer’s forum account to their EA gaming account. Why does this matter? Because EA is planning on banning those who get banned on their forum from their games as well.

The post by the EA Community Staff member can be seen below:

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 its 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 its what we have to do.

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 =)

While I am not a fan of fanboy or over the top argumentative banter, this still seems like it is a bit much. Is it just me, or is there a hint of corporate greed in this disciplinary action? Maybe it’s the smiley face after the “harder to get a new serial key” comment that is getting under my skin, but I am not agreeing with this move.

They are essentially saying that if you have the financial means to be an asshole (i.e. you’re rich bitch), you can be as nasty as you want as long as you keep feeding their corporate machine. I have a bad feeling about this.

Aterthought: What do you think of EA’s policy change? Are you happy to see them lay the smack down, or do you think they are going about this all wrong?

Source: forums.ea.com

UPDATE: The community staff member comment has apparently been contradicted by an anonymous EA rep. I’m not sure if I buy it though. Read More…

UPDATE 2: C&C Community Manager has issued an apology for his previous statement, stating that it was all just a misunderstanding. Read more…

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Tags: banning, Command And Conquer, EA, forum, game ban, playing God, Red Alert, spore

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Comments »

Phil O’Connor
on October 30, 2008 3:24 am

I think this is going to backfire in the long run. Forums are the heart of your game community, if you turn it into a squeaky clean corporate poster boy of free advertisement, people will stop posting there and reading them, and these forums will die (people will avoid them), and EAs only chance to put some soul in their games will go with them. EA is stupid though, its a giant monolythic corporate robot that reacts to any threats as brute. They are crushing bad press with this kind of “punish your customer” mentality that is sweeping through the industry.
Sjoeter
on October 30, 2008 4:35 am

i already hated EA so i am planning to only pirate there games if i absolutely have to but otherwise i don’t play them :D
xino
on October 30, 2008 8:33 am

“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 =)”

LOL..HAHHAHA

Cheeky:P

ever heard of torrent?=)
Jesus Christ
on October 30, 2008 9:01 am

Ya, okay EA. You guys keep on digging that hole and I’ll keep stealing your games.
Jim
on October 30, 2008 10:11 am

How can this be legal. This is a real dumb move. “I don’t like what you say, so i’m taking my ball and going home.”

I can hardly fathom this move.
David
on October 30, 2008 10:50 am

More like “I don’t like what you say so I’m going to take the Pokemon Card that I just traded you and go home.”

One would think that there will be a number of lawsuits surrounding this if the decision remains for any longer than a week.
Chad Lakkis
on October 30, 2008 12:08 pm

Well, I think the simple solution is to just not share your views on their official forums. Seek out fan forums for your favorite games.
Wyldcard
on October 30, 2008 12:31 pm

No Jim, it’s more like

“I don’t like what you say, so I’m taking my ball and going home. Oh, and I am taking your ball, your glove, your net, and all your other toys that you bought from the same store that I bought mine at. Oh, and I am going to full your yard with gravel and broken glass so you can’t play there again.”

;)
Chris Soze
on October 30, 2008 2:27 pm

This is disgusting from a company. After the rootkit ‘DRM’ installations by unaware paying customers, now they have what appears to be an immature teenager able to ban people from a product they’ve paid for. Disgusting.
David Macphail
on October 30, 2008 3:52 pm

EA could well be opening themselves up to a lawsuit with this one………
Chad Lakkis
on October 30, 2008 6:49 pm

UPDATE: The community staff member comment has apparently been contradicted by an anonymous EA rep. I’m not sure if I buy it though.

You can read about it at the link below:

http://www.ripten.com/2008/10/30/ea-rep-says-forum-ban-wont-automatically-get-you-banned-from-their-games/

Chad-
Chad Lakkis
on October 31, 2008 4:08 pm

UPDATE 2: C&C Community Manager has issued an apology for his previous statement, stating that it was all just a misunderstanding…

http://www.ripten.com/2008/10/31/ea-game-banning-forum-post-misunderstanding-cc-community-manager-issues-apology/
createmo
on November 2, 2008 8:19 am

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have a great day and thank you again!
yapspsad
on November 10, 2008 10:12 am

из пустого в порожнее…
Kimismeam
on December 17, 2008 12:01 pm

Hello folks, I just went akross this awesome forum through google and I like the especialy this form. I really like the design and the team does its job verry good.
I´m Andrew and I´m pleased to be here :)

Greetings
IrrenCymn
on January 3, 2009 2:26 pm

There are 5 houses in five different colors
In each house lives a different nationality.
These 5 owners drink a certain beverage, smoke a certain brand of cigar and keep a certain pet.
No owners have the same pet, smoke the same brand of cigar, or drink the same beverage.

The CLUES:

The Brit lives in the Red house.
The Swede keeps dogs as pets.
The Dane Drinks tea.
The Green House is on the left of the White House.
The Green House’s owner drinks coffee.
The person who smokes Pall Mall rears birds.
The owner of the yellow house smokes Dunhill.
The man in the center house drinks milk.
The Norwegian lives in the first house.
The man who smokes Blends lives next to the one who keeps cats
The man who keeps horses lives next to the man who smokes Dunhill.
The man who smokes Blue Master drinks beer.
The German smokes Prince.
The Norwegian lives next to the Blue House.
The man who smokes Blends has a neighbor who drinks water.
The QUESTION:

Who owns the fish?

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