EA Banning Origin Accounts for Forum Infractions?

[Oblarg]

And if it is, it shouldn't be. I can't see a legitimate justification for preventing a paying customer from using his product due to violations on community message boards - that's absurd.

 

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/11/14...ffecting-games/

[Hurlshort]

That's actually kind of awesome. But it was clearly a glitch that they worked on fixing.

[Nepenthe]

That's actually kind of awesome.

Agreed

Edited November 15, 2011 by Nepenthe

[Gorth]

Didn't we have that recently with some other developer? I can't remember if it was Bioware or Steam or whoever, but it wasn't that long ago.

[Nepenthe]

Didn't we have that recently with some other developer? I can't remember if it was Bioware or Steam or whoever, but it wasn't that long ago.

I suggest reading the article (as I should have done originally). That system is clearly messed up (again, assuming that the people complaining are telling the truth, which isn't necessarily so) and (in any case) it's something that should definitely be addressed. In general, I don't think a license requiring you to adhere to the forum CoC if you choose to post there has major legal issues - certainly when EULAs requiring you to submit to mandatory binding arbitration have been accepted (of course, they are illegal in Finland, but hey, there's a reason the companies don't operate from here:P). This of course would require that it's not enforced in a completely arbitrary and random way, when the repercussions are so severe.

Edited November 15, 2011 by Nepenthe

[Gorgon]

Just stay away from EA forums, problem solved.

[Malcador]

Just stay away from EA forums, problem solved.

 

Pretty much that. Funny to think a mere forum mod can have that kind of power, heh.

[Nepenthe]

Just stay away from EA forums, problem solved.

 

Pretty much that. Funny to think a mere forum mod can have that kind of power, heh.

AFAIK, all people with banning privileges are EA staff - certainly that is the way on the Bio boards.

[Walsingham]

On principle I have to object. In practice I've known some appalling racist griefers who shouldn't banned, only so they can be found and flung into a furnace.

[Zoraptor]

It's ironic that RPS has complained about not getting responses to its queries from EA when they've been big on the whole "Origin will upload your HD!!!" bandwagon. Due to EA's privacy policy- the one RPS apparently never bothered reading during the Origin EULA debacle- EA cannot comment on specific cases to 3rd parties like RPS, even if the complainers are actively lying about the reasons for their bans, because that would inevitably disclose personal information.

 

For all we actually know the accusers could have all been using hax or the no-Origin crack.

[Gorgon]

Sinister corporate silence and copious references to legal rammifications.... I suppose we don't really know if they gave him a satisfactory explanation, but it sounds like it got kicked up to a supervisor who sent a boiler plate email and closed his accouts, which apparenly are the same for both game and forum. If he was using a crack I don't think he would much care, the game would work with dummy user data.

[Zoraptor]

Battlelog hasn't been cracked, iirc- I presume if a key is banned Battlelog itself will block access to MP. If so he would be limited to the rather underwhelming SP experience by a ban even if using the crack.

 

Having forum and game accounts be the same is potentially pretty dumb and should be avoided for security reasons in any case. Even if EA takes very good precautions security wise lots of people are pretty blas

Edited November 16, 2011 by Zoraptor

[Deraldin]

Didn't we have that recently with some other developer? I can't remember if it was Bioware or Steam or whoever, but it wasn't that long ago.

 

EA has had the same thing come up before so I wouldn't be surprised.

[Walsingham]

These enormous firms have 'customer service' that is nothing more the a 'blame buffer'. Steam are pretty responsive, even when I send them emails and I'm drunk. EA, Bioware, Relic (weirdly)...

 

I should like to remind you chaps of my proposal that we form a union.

[Nepenthe]

These enormous firms have 'customer service' that is nothing more the a 'blame buffer'. Steam are pretty responsive, even when I send them emails and I'm drunk. EA, Bioware, Relic (weirdly)...

 

I should like to remind you chaps of my proposal that we form a union.

Or "competence buffer", when they actually are willing to sort out a problem. Not sure I've ever had a problem that hasn't gotten eventually forwarded (and then fixed) to "higher tier" support... After going through the motions with the first responders.

[Walsingham]

In theory they're a competence buffer to abosrb knock s and collect fail notices. But in reality there's almost no connect between CS and operational behaviour. Policy is almost always top down.

 

There's some good reasons for this. You only have to review customer complaints for a very short time before you get the impression that most customers are completely insane, or attempting fraud. But there's a lot of sane and sensible stuff that comes in, too. It gets mangled by rage occasionally, but not that often.

 

My current favourite for customer service has to be BE broadband. They treat you like an intelligent adult (even when I'm not behaving like one - router cable fell out, I thought the service was down), and are so not procedure bound that when I asked if my new router would get me adoring ladies they actually sent me an email explaining why it would! But more importantly they react in an agile fashion to every problem I send across, however miniscule. Althugh I don't have many ecause they've clearly thought tehir polciy and offerring through well, so they already do what I want without me asking.

 

Compare that to the behaviour seen here, where reasoning is kept hidden behind a wall of lawyers, and commitments to change procedure are not followed by action. That's a case of a customer service head who is either too feeble or too lazy. Time to make like Sun Tzu and the concubines...

[Gorgon]

These enormous firms have 'customer service' that is nothing more the a 'blame buffer'. Steam are pretty responsive, even when I send them emails and I'm drunk. EA, Bioware, Relic (weirdly)...

 

I should like to remind you chaps of my proposal that we form a union.

Or "competence buffer", when they actually are willing to sort out a problem. Not sure I've ever had a problem that hasn't gotten eventually forwarded (and then fixed) to "higher tier" support... After going through the motions with the first responders.

Steam tech support works pretty well in my one experience. I got an email the next day in Danish no less about how to make V the Masquarade work on PC, it was a clumsy workaround and the unofficial patch is a better idea. I was somewhat miffed at how they could propose to sell a game without bothering to fix serveral game stopping bugs including one that made it impossible to advance beyond the Society of Leopold, but at least they got back to me fast.

[Nightshape]

In theory they're a competence buffer to abosrb knock s and collect fail notices. But in reality there's almost no connect between CS and operational behaviour. Policy is almost always top down.

 

There's some good reasons for this. You only have to review customer complaints for a very short time before you get the impression that most customers are completely insane, or attempting fraud. But there's a lot of sane and sensible stuff that comes in, too. It gets mangled by rage occasionally, but not that often.

 

My current favourite for customer service has to be BE broadband. They treat you like an intelligent adult (even when I'm not behaving like one - router cable fell out, I thought the service was down), and are so not procedure bound that when I asked if my new router would get me adoring ladies they actually sent me an email explaining why it would! But more importantly they react in an agile fashion to every problem I send across, however miniscule. Althugh I don't have many ecause they've clearly thought tehir polciy and offerring through well, so they already do what I want without me asking.

 

Compare that to the behaviour seen here, where reasoning is kept hidden behind a wall of lawyers, and commitments to change procedure are not followed by action. That's a case of a customer service head who is either too feeble or too lazy. Time to make like Sun Tzu and the concubines...

 

Are you drunk?

[Walsingham]

In theory they're a competence buffer to abosrb knock s and collect fail notices. But in reality there's almost no connect between CS and operational behaviour. Policy is almost always top down.

 

There's some good reasons for this. You only have to review customer complaints for a very short time before you get the impression that most customers are completely insane, or attempting fraud. But there's a lot of sane and sensible stuff that comes in, too. It gets mangled by rage occasionally, but not that often.

 

My current favourite for customer service has to be BE broadband. They treat you like an intelligent adult (even when I'm not behaving like one - router cable fell out, I thought the service was down), and are so not procedure bound that when I asked if my new router would get me adoring ladies they actually sent me an email explaining why it would! But more importantly they react in an agile fashion to every problem I send across, however miniscule. Althugh I don't have many ecause they've clearly thought tehir polciy and offerring through well, so they already do what I want without me asking.

 

Compare that to the behaviour seen here, where reasoning is kept hidden behind a wall of lawyers, and commitments to change procedure are not followed by action. That's a case of a customer service head who is either too feeble or too lazy. Time to make like Sun Tzu and the concubines...

 

Are you drunk?

 

*sobs*

 

No.