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Chibi Bodge-Battle wrote:Thanks Kanners. I understood that
Though tbh surely criticising a company that size will have zip effect. It appears unduly censorious to me. (Assuming any alledged criticism was not using offensive language.)

But am I correct in thinking this game was not a MMORPG?
I don't quite get how it should affect a solo player game bought for private use.

They didn't criticize the company.

Their post was aimed at the players who bought the game.

Chibi Bodge-Battle wrote:Hmmm
If everyone got banned because they said something stupid, it would be the end of civilisation as we know it!

We don't know what was said and in what context.
He may have been intending malice or he may have been making an ironic statement.

Cripes and lawks a lummee I have just thought of all the negative things I have said online about GW!!!
The Inquisition man cometh and the Inquistion man taketh away!

i know exactly what you mean.

*door creaks as it slowly opens* hey who are you *sounds of scuffling and a muffled crump*
heretic is secure sir

They didn't criticize the company.

Their post was aimed at the players who bought the game.

He said, "Have you sold your souls to the EA Devils." apparently.
I could see that may be regarded as a dig at the customers as well as the company. Fair point.
He also bought the game himself? Which means it could be taken as an ironic and self deprecating statement.

Chibi Bodge-Battle wrote:

They didn't criticize the company.

Their post was aimed at the players who bought the game.

He said, "Have you sold your souls to the EA Devils." apparently.
I could see that may be regarded as a dig at the customers as well as the company. Fair point.
He also bought the game himself? Which means it could be taken as an ironic and self deprecating statement.

To be exact, the quote was
"Have you f**king morons sold your souls to the EA devils?!"

hmm the plot thickens

Not really.

The guy was a tool to other people. He broke the EA community rules, was punished.

Just goes to show:
Read the End User License Agreement before playing games.

Ah

silly boy.
Still not sure about not being able to use something privately for which he paid.

He can still play it single-player though.

What he can't do is access the downloadable content/online features of the game--because he violated the rules that are in place for using said online features and downloadable content.

Thanks Kanners

This explains it more clearly now.

Kanluwen wrote:

Requia wrote:Not quite, dragon age is a single player game. There is not one single legitimate reason for EA to have the ability to shut the game off.

They don't. They shut off the DLC.

If your saved game features DLC, well tough crap. You should have thought of that before you broke the EULA

DLC is a fundamental part of an EA game (which there is also not one single legitimate reason for).

I actually think it'd be a nice feature.

"Got banned from Dakka, got banned from Warhammer".

Wives everywhere rejoicing.

If he was being a prick then he damn well deserved it.

As stated before, DLC is a crucial component for any game now. The Lost and the Damned DLC for Grand Theft Auto, Shivering Isles for Oblivion, Map Packs for Call of Duty, and the list goes on.

My favorite thing EA did was put a card for online multiplayer access in their sports games. Then Activision actually made fun of that in Black Ops, during the first week or so of release they rolled 'free multiplayer with every copy of Black Ops' across the bottom where the stats are now posted.

They messed over Gamestop and I for one support that. Most of the developers I enjoyed are gone; Westwood, Pandemic, and Red Storm Entertainment. The only one developer that I love is Volition now.

Kanluwen wrote:
But again: it's not like it's rocket science to realize that if you get banned from the EA Community sites and you attempt to install a game where one of the first things they do is ask you to connect to the EA Community and register your game--you're going to have issues

The point is that this is a gaming company that is effectively censoring unsolicited criticism.

It is the equivalent of Kevin Smith refusing to submit films to critics.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Kanluwen wrote:You should have thought of that before you broke the EULA

You're confusing an argument from should, with an argument from did.

No one is claiming the guy didn't break the EULA, they're claiming that the EULA is crap, which it is.

i do not agree with their whole approach to Dead Space 2's multiplayer. I wanted to rent and try it out before buying it and so if you rent the game they screw you on the multiplayer part. so you get 2 free days of multi so what. that's total crap making someone purchase to play online what they claim is one of the highlights of the game. kinda screws every rental store out there

Requia wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:

Requia wrote:Not quite, dragon age is a single player game. There is not one single legitimate reason for EA to have the ability to shut the game off.

They don't. They shut off the DLC.

If your saved game features DLC, well tough crap. You should have thought of that before you broke the EULA

DLC is a fundamental part of an EA game (which there is also not one single legitimate reason for).

No, it's really not. I can play any EA game without DLC.

Will my experience be as lengthy as people playing with DLC? No. But it's by no means "fundamental".

And frankly: the only 'DLC' components right now for Dragon Age II have very little to do with the game itself. The DLC weapons that you get from preorders/the signature edition, the Blood Dragon armor, the Black Emporium, and Sebastian are all things you can do without.

Dogma wrote:The point is that this is a gaming company that is effectively censoring unsolicited criticism.

It is the equivalent of Kevin Smith refusing to submit films to critics.

No, it's really not. The guy posted something that was aimed at other members of the community. Not at the company. Not at the game. There was no criticism beyond haranguing other players for buying the game.

Dogma wrote:You're confusing an argument from should, with an argument from did.

No one is claiming the guy didn't break the EULA, they're claiming that the EULA is crap, which it is.

You know what's even funnier? EA reinstated this twit's account before the story even broke.
It wasn't intentional, it was an "unintended side effect" of them migrating BioWare's community to be merged with the EA Community.

I think they just whimped out and gave in to fan whining. The guy clearly was being a knob, let him stew for awhile without being able to play his game.

Asherian Command wrote:"Have you sold your soul to the EA devils?"

Right, they shouldn't have to ask that question. EA has owned them since 2007, it's hardly news by now.

Requia wrote:that stuff doesn't bug me nearly as much as the 'free' DLC that's meant to screw people over if they deal in the used game market.

To be fair, if you're buying used, you're giving exactly zero dollars to either the publisher or the developer. Why should you have the same features as someone who's actually a customer?

If you buy the game used you shouldn't be surprised when you aren't supported by the developers who get nothing out of your purchase of the game.

They have no obligation to you, you're not a customer.

Well, he got banned for 3 days for being an idiot. Good. The bad thing about DA2 is this

EA sucked the life from tons of good games.
I never liked the fact of how much DLC there is nowadays. I remember buying a game and actually having everything for it. Bah.

Dude sounds like he was being an idiot but dude was taking a stand. Gotta give him that.

Never liked EA anyway.

Yeah..."dude was taking a stand"...by buying the game

Kanluwen wrote:Yeah..."dude was taking a stand"...by buying the game

LoL, exactly.. Taking a stand on the internets 101.
1) Criticize developer of the game openly on forum and badmouth everyone that bought it.
2) Buy the game.
3) ???
4) Profit.

wonder how that idea went. I hate you and i will take a stand against you by buying your enjoyable game and playing it

Going to admit, I'm having trouble seeing how this is poor form on EAs part.

You sign up for an EA Account, you agree to use their services by their rules. You break those rules on their public forums, of course you should be penalised. If you didn't realise exactly how tough that penalty was, well, that's not their fault, you were the one who went against their written agreement.

Is the penalty a bit tough? Blizzard bans people from their forums all the time for posts with a similar mindset, it just doesn't prohibit one from accessing their content (Although, you may be in a different sort if you manage to get your account banned in-game, I don't know), so they're certainly not the only one that takes a dim view of this. Perhaps if there were more penalties along this line, the frequency of issues like this would decrease. I'd be pissed even more so if I got banned from the game for something I said on an online forum, but I can still see why one could justify it.

Yes, it's a single-player game. But it's still a game you're agreeing to live by EAs rules while playing, regardless of how many players play with you. If you don't think you can use the forum service without posting like this? Don't use it. Quite easy, and far too much of the time far more entertaining, to play a game without getting involved in the online community.

As for not owning the game 100%, that's rather a given. You can't hand copies out as you like, whether digital or on disc, crack the game in fashion that EA/Bioware doesn't like, etc already. This is just something more to add to the list.

(No, I am not an EA fan. I am a Bioware fan, but it doesn't factor into the way I see this.)

VenerableBrotherPelinore wrote:Yes, it's a single-player game. But it's still a game you're agreeing to live by EAs rules while playing, regardless of how many players play with you.

To be fair, that's like saying you can't watch a movie nekkid at home because you can't watch a movie nekkid at the theater; The Theater (and probably the Movie Devs) don't approve of it, and what you do at your own house is siriz Other people's buzniz. While not the same thing, it's the same basic principle; once you pay for something it should be yours to do whatever the hell you want with it, and EA can't do anything about it. That does not include copying movies/games and stuff, which is recognized as Illegal.


The fact that EA forces people to sign a contract that says "we can make you unable to use content you already payed for" is ludicrous, and we should not tolerate this as gamers. Do movie watchers have to go through this sort of thing when they buy movies? Or books, or anything else, for that matter.

Not ranting at you, Pelinore.

They don't "force" you to sign a contract without reading it though.

Just because you skip through it, doesn't mean you can't be held accountable.

Kanluwen wrote:They don't "force" you to sign a contract without reading it though.

Just because you skip through it, doesn't mean you can't be held accountable.

Do you have to sign a contract to watch a movie at home?

Slarg232 wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:They don't "force" you to sign a contract without reading it though.

Just because you skip through it, doesn't mean you can't be held accountable.

Do you have to sign a contract to watch a movie at home?

There's a movie licensing agreement that tells you you're only allowed to
view the movie in the privacy of a home.

malfred wrote:

Slarg232 wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:They don't "force" you to sign a contract without reading it though.

Just because you skip through it, doesn't mean you can't be held accountable.

Do you have to sign a contract to watch a movie at home?

There's a movie licensing agreement that tells you you're only allowed to
view the movie in the privacy of a home.

True, but it doesn't say that if you talk bad about the movie (or little downloaded deleted scenes or whatnot) that you get cut off from the movie or little downloaded deleted scenes or what not. When you Pay for it, it is yours, and they can't take it away from you. There is NO reason EA shouldn't have to follow suit with that.

Kanluwen wrote:They don't "force" you to sign a contract without reading it though.

Just because you skip through it, doesn't mean you can't be held accountable.

A) You don't see the contract until after you give them their money and open the game (which makes in unrefundable)
B) A contract is not (usually) valid if it violates the law. Many EULAs do just that by requiring the consumer to sign away their rights under US copyright law.
C) In order to be a valid contract, both parties must recieve some sort of consideration, a EULA requires that the consumer give the company something, but not recieve anything in return (except what they already own).

EULAs actually are unenforcable in about half the country because of this (lacking a SCOTUS ruling, each district has its own precedent).