Yesterday a post appeared on the official BioWare forums containing a complaint from a gamer who says he was unable to play his recently purchased copy of the Signature Edition of Dragon Age II (from the EA Store) because his main forum account (which is tied to his EA account) was suspended for 72 hours.
“My other account got suspended yesterday for 72 hours,” says ‘vware‘. “My suspended v_ware account has all my Bioware games registered to it. My other games are Mass Effect 2, Dragon Age: Origins and Awakening. I have played every game off Bioware since KOTOR, which is my favourite game of all time. Since I have these other games and off course have played the DA2 demo, my previously unlocked DA2 content is assigned to this account.”
He then goes on to say that because his account is linked, and suspended, he couldn’t activate his copy of Dragon Age II.
Apparently ‘vware’ was suspended for asking the developers “have you sold your souls to the EA devil?” in a post.
The response from the BioWare moderator? “EA Community bans come down from a different department and are the result of someone hitting the REPORT POST button,” says the moderator. “These bans can affect access to your game and/or DLC.”
Obviously we can’t confirm any of the allegations above, but if this is true it’s an odd state of affairs. Being banned or suspended is one thing, but should that affect your ability to play the games you’ve purchased?
Via GAF.
Sympozium
Wow that really puts me off ever buying from the EA store
Kamokazi-UK
In no way should it affect games that you have bought…infact its robbery, even if its for only a few days.
MadBoJangles
I think so too.
Fair enough to be banned from any respective forum if you overstep the preset boundaries, but to stop you playing ur game is taking the piss.
hazelam
i’ve said time and again that drm is wrong.
this is theft just as much as when a pirate copies the game, maybe even more so, because like notch said, with piracy the original isn’t taken away, here it is.
they’ve effectively taken away this guy’s game, that he paid for.
this is one occasion where i don’t think i’d say a bad word against anybody who pirated this game.
seriously, locking any thread on their forum that is critical using the excuse of spam is one thing, but this, this is something else.
oh yeah, also the game uses securom without telling anybody.
http://n4g.com/news/718297/ea-fails-to-disclose-securom-in-dragon-age-ii
ea, working to reclaim their corporate douchebag award from activision it seems.
the ps3 version just dropped to my only buy preowned list.
plutoniumdragon
And the most stupid thing about this? A crack for removing the DRM and activation was available before the game was even released.
This sort of thing does nothing but annoy paying customers.
paxpacis
the same with DVD’s I have to watch the stupid anti piracy video’s while the pirated version do not contain these anymore..
Charmed_Fanatic
It should not effect playing the game on the PS3 and 360 as you can play without the internet, although i have never played it on PC
hazelam
yeah they shouldn’t be able to stop console owners playing the game.
i still refuse to buy it new on principal though.
Kovacs
I, for one, welcome our new EA Devils.
scavenga
lol
Mr-Flame-Head
he can still play the game he just can’t use the dlc that comes with the signature edition or the promo dlc that has been unlocked due to the pc version being reliant on the bioware social site, the fact is you can play it without signing in but where would be the point if you have all the day 1 dlc, the first thing i did was install the dlc so as to ensure I didn’t miss anything chronologically since if you advance a year in the story you can miss quests etc
hazelam
no he can’t, you need to activate the game online on pc, his account is locked so he can’t activate it, so he can’t play it.
Bilbo_bobbins
I think thats a bit out of order, it shouldn’t be linked, I don’t like doing it as it feels like they are watching everything you do, but I guess Battlefield is the only EA game I have so its not too bad.
BIGAL-1992
O…k….. Note to self:don’t piss off EA.
rht992
yeah…i’m just gunna make sure i don’t voice any problems with battlefield or my dissapointment of mirrors edge 2 not being in my hands
Skyfire
IS it really such a bad thing though, may finally help curve the constant trolling and fanboyism seen across the internet, though their punishment ranking system needs a bit of tweaking , say 3 strikes and you lose access to the game for a day for trolling on the forum etc.
hazelam
yes it absolutely is.
or maybe your system should go ahead, but it has to work both ways.
the developer and publisher treats the customers like crap and the customer should be able to download a pirate copy?
gotta be fair right?
if they can steal from us if they feel we’re treating them unfairly, we should be able to steal from them when they treat us unfairly.
actually, when you put it that way it sounds like a fantastic system.
i could finally get to play loads of games i wouldn’t otherwise touch with a fifty foot pole.
Skyfire
but on the principal there not stealing the game merely restricting access for a certain number of days. by law i doubt there allowed to cut off a player completely.Does this mean you approve of hacking servers on mw2 and the like , activision releases a buggy game so were allowed ot ruin other peoples game time by changing the rules.Nothings ever black and white but game community’s having the ability to restrict players access based on their behaviour that as long as its not abused and strict guidelines set up cant be a bad thing . Im sure tsa have banned the odd advertiser or spammer on this site and the community benefits from it.
hazelam
even if i agreed that this action was justified, and i absolutely don’t, it’s only valid if they’re going to be objective about it, banning those who insult users who don’t share their views about how great the game or developer is, as well as those who troll negative opinions, and they’ve proven they’re about a million miles from being objective.
and that it’s based on user reports as well?
i’ve seen how these fanboy trolls gang up on anybody on the forums who is critical of the game/developer/whatever, the genuine hater trolls are rarely that organised.
and the mods will usually side with the fanboy trolls.
and anyway, this level of punishment for warranted or unwarranted crimes on the forum is totally unjustified in my opinion.
and while this may be a few day suspension, they could make it permenant, and this is either wrong or it’s right, not right at this level and wrong on another.
and i think it’s wrong.
mcduff1979
Seems perfectly fine to me. I’m sick of going on forums for information or news and having to read through 10 pages of fan boy trolling or people slagging off EA when to be perfectly honest they have released many better games in recent months than many others. And if you are stupid enough to flame a company openly in a forum run by said company then you deserve what you get.. as for the ban get over it its 72 hours… play something else.
bunimomike
Yeh, but ban them from the forum, don’t ban them from playing games that you’ve bought! Piss-poor form, EA. Piss-poor.
hazelam
yeah, but they’re leaving the fanboy trolling alone, only going after anybody who criticises them or the game, whether the criticism is justified or not.
i saw the same thing on the scee forums with that halfwit mb.
people were allowed to get away with anything if they were praising them, but make any kind of criticism and they come down on you like a ton of bricks.
in fact there was one case where one user got away with all kinds of insults and flaming, only getting banned when he revealed how two faced mb was, and by god he was, all i can say is thank god that weasel of a so called man isn’t in a job where anything he does actually matters, let him keep his little tinpot kingdom.
anyway.
i just can’t understand how anybody can defend this.
bioware and/or ea’s actions were disgusting.
if they want the right to take away our purchases if they feel we have wronged them then we should be able to take their games when we feel they’ve wronged us, like say putting the virus in disguise securom in their title without telling anybody despite a number of lawsuits for doing just that.
just because they made the game doesn’t mean they don’t owe the people who buy the game anything, because they do, we should be the most important part of this industry, but it seems most publishers seem to see us as little more than an annoyance they have to put up with the to make their millions.
the sooner people realise that they hold the power the better and then we can show these publishers their proper place.