ID:110645
 
Link to forum thread.

To sum things up: A guy was banned for 3 days for the statement 'So you sold your soul to EA?', based on an auto-ban feature of the forums (Enough people clicking 'Report this post'). This prevents him from registering a store-bought game to his account, meaning he can't play the game.

3 things immediately spring to mind here:

1) Any company that ties forum accounts to verification of games together are just plain stupid. You could avoid situations like this by making sure game authentication is, at the very least, not tied to whether you're allowed to post on the forums. Seriously, who does that?? Hi EA.

2) Blocking a user's access to single-player games they've legally bought, due to almost any concievable occurance, is a no-gain situation for you as a company. So why do it?

3) (Insert long paragraphs about how large game companies are, for the most part, absolute (Insert censored words here))

The game industry as a whole is really taking a wrong turn, and has been for a while. Heres to hoping that the rising popularity and exposure of indie games will help alleviate the pain that is EA/Activision/etc.
Personally I think we should do this on BYOND.
There's a good reason EA's having financial problems...
Quote from BioWare mod: "[...]Consider it an added incentive to follow the rules you say you're going to follow."

I'm glad I don't play these games.
Official response from Bioware:

Please review the EA Community Terms of Service, particularly sections #9 and #11. There are two levels of enforcement here:

1. BioWare community bans are forum-only and can be for as little as 24 hours. These bans should have no effect on your game, only your ability to use all the features of this website/community. these bans are handed out by BioWare Moderators as the result of our travels around the forum and/or issues reported by fellow community members.

2. EA Community bans come down from a different department and are the result of someone hitting the REPORT POST button. These bans can affect access to your game and/or DLC.

Because the BioWare community now operates under the same umbrella as all EA Communities, community 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.

If there are further questions or concerns, please send them to me via private message. Thank you.

End of line.


TL;DR deal with it 8|
Lawsuit time, bet he would win millions.
A lot of companies are like that, not just gaming companies. A lot of companies will at least forum-ban you if you even question their service.

"Why can't I log in to my account? I think the system is flawed, I have my password right here, and am 100% positive I'm not typing it incorrectly."

And they get suspended for a day for making other users insecure about their product. Happened to me on cramster.com. -_-
I'm pretty sure Blizzard forum bans still let you play WoW.
Stephen001 wrote:
Personally I think we should do this on BYOND.

connect a community forum ban with access to BYOND games? o.O

Falacy wrote:
Lawsuit time, bet he would win millions.

^This.