EA blocks user from game after alleged forum outburst
No, you may not play Dragon Age II
An unfortunate gamer was left unable to install a copy of Dragon Age II after being booted off developer BioWare's community forums.
According to user 'vware', the temporary ban was imposed after (s)he questioned whether BioWare had "sold their souls to the EA devil". The 72-hour expulsion locked him out of the Bioware Social Network, membership of which is seemingly required to install copies of games purchased in the EA store.
As this was vware's first ever ban, the user was not unreasonably annoyed at spending €50 (£44) on a game he couldn't install for three days.
What did you say?
Vware voiced his iritation on the BioWare forums, under a different account.
In response, BioWare representative Stanley Woo said the ban arose from an alleged breach of EA community rules and was in response to another user hitting the 'Report Post' button. Under the EA Ts&Cs, being booted off a forum may affect access to games and/or downloadable content.
Woo added "Because the BioWare community now operates under the same umbrella as all EA Communities… members here have all explicitly agreed to abide by and be governed by both sets of rules. Consider it an added incentive to follow the rules you say you're going to follow."
While Woo has a point that users must follow the agreements they sign up for, you can't help but feel sorry for vware. Denying a user the right to play a game - and a single-player game, at that - they've just paid good money for seems an inappropriate response, whatever they may have written in a forum. ®
COMMENTS
Can't wait for Apple to follow
Hi,
I expect Apple to follow... bricking your iPhone for 3 days if you vent out that after 2 years they still haven't grasped the concept of daylight saving time...
On a serious note, this is incredible, you buy something, you are unhappy, you criticize, you are punished.... 1984 any one?
What they did
is deny a paying customer the right to play the game they'd just bought.
That's unacceptable, regardless of the circumstances.
Yet another reason to...
Just download a pirated copy of a game if you only want to play the single player part!
Vice versa
"Woo added "Because the BioWare community now operates under the same umbrella as all EA Communities… members here have all explicitly agreed to abide by and be governed by both sets of rules. Consider it an added incentive to follow the rules you say you're going to follow.""
Yes. And consider the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts regulations an "added incentive" to follow the rules that you said you were going to follow when you sold goods and services in the UK?
Purchase
So purchase is now an agreement to follow forum rules also ?
Good luck with making that stand up in court..
It's getting really silly now that you have to 'agree' to 32 contracts just to play a game you already paid for..
Down with this sort of thing!
