Gamer Can't Activate DA2 Due To Forum Ban

News by Jesse Dolman on Mar 11, 2011

We've all been there: We get carried away on a forum and say something that may not be in accordance with the rules of the website in question, leading to our account being suspended or even banned indefinitely. This is not such a big deal: After all, it's just an online message board. But how would you react when account suspension on a message board prevents you from being able to activate a video game you just coughed up €50 for?

That is what allegedly happened to a poster by the name of vware, who got his account suspended on the Bioware forums. As a result of his suspension, vware was not able to activate his newly purchased copy of Dragon Age 2, a game developed by Bioware and published by EA. €50 of (presumably) hard-earned money spent on a game you can't even play because you've infuriated the staff of a forum you post at.

So what was it that vware said that caused him to be hit with the ban hammer? According to himself, he merely criticised Bioware's new game. Apparently, the line "Have you sold your souls to the EA devil?" was enough to warrant a cooling-off period.

Naturally, Bioware and EA have their butts covered in the juridical gibber-gabber nobody ever reads, as is confirmed by BioWare Stanley Woo. In response to the issue, he cites from the EA Community ToS: "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."

But, juridically justified or not, these cases also have an ethical aspect: Should companies have the right to deny us access to products we have paid them good money for, only because we excercise our right to criticism?

Apart from this being very questionable morally, why do huge companies such as EA and Bioware even care what someone says on their forums? Do they fear such fiendish revelations might expose their grand scheme of things?

Who knows, maybe they DID sell their soul to the devil and they didn't want anyone to find out about it.

Jesse Dolman, NoobFeed.

Jesse Dolman

Subscriber, NoobFeed

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