Okay, presuming that this is only true for multiplayer on EA servers, I have no problem with this. Consider the fact that EA is paying for the servers and they presumably want people to have a good experience on their servers, they have every right to ban people from their servers due to bad behavior. The same is true for their forums. If you do something on their forums that negatively affects other customers, again, they have every right to ban you. EA is paying for the servers and presumably want to provide a good atmosphere to all of their customers.
It also wouldn't surprise me if EA has data showing a strong correlation between those who are banned from their forums and those who are banned from their servers. Likewise, that people who are banned online from EA Game A also tend to get banned from EA Game B.
Also, while there is the worry that forum moderators may be a little heavy-handed, I'm sure you'd be able to escalate the issue and have a second or third person review the case. I'm sure they have records of everything that is posted on the forums.
I'd certainly hope that a) this is a tiered banning (banned for 24 hours, then 72, then a week, then a month, etc), and b) this is made clear when signing up for EA accounts. And if it does affect single-player gaming, then yes, I'd be extremely pissed off. But I can't imagine that would be the case.
EA is paying for their servers in part with the money that consumers give them in return for their games. When I buy game X i expect EA to put up a damn server so I can play game X. They have a right to the consumer and outright banning someone because they said a bad word or made a mistake on a public fucking venue that is in no way related to the product and services purchased with the game is morally, ethically, and logically wrong and injust.
There is no god damn way around it.
I would say official forums from the game's developers is exactly related to the product.
I would challenge definitively that it is entirely unrelated to the product because you do not need to purchase the product to use or browse the forums. So if anything it is a tangentially related service.
I will concede the point that purchase of said product is not required to peruse the specific forums, but to believe that it is no way related to the product is naive.
You have a very funny understanding of business and logic. So let's say you drive a fun and expensive car. At some point your car breaks down and on a public forum about said car type/manufacture you express your outrage with profanity or do something that offends at least one or two individuals or violates a rule of that forum.
In turn the car manufacture now has the right to completely invalidate the vehicle you purchased by enabling failsafes and other blocking mechanisms.
This is an elaboration of your idea but it is entirely analogous.
Your hilariously blown out of proportion analogy neglects to mention that said public forum is run by the car's manufacturer.
Someone in this thread has said he was banned for having the words "fuck you" in a Spore creation. Granted, that's not "nice" behavior
As evidenced by the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory, people are assholes on the internet. In Spore, your creatures are available to the public at large, including children. If the host of said content wishes to ban you because you cannot act like a decent human being without concern of the consequences, too bad for you.
Exactly. They post the rules very clearly whenever you install a game. If you can't follow the rules, prepare to have your shit ruined. I wish Blizzard would implement this rule on their forums. I can't even venture over there without wanting to claw my eyes out and stomp on them.
A crucial thing here is that they might be banning you from single player. Waiting for this to be cleared up, as FyreWulff's caps lock post does not confirm anything and the original EA post sounds like single player is affected.
Also, that poster didn't break the rules in Dead Space, he made an offensive creation in Spore, which albeit stupid, is a minor slip. I don't see why he should be banned from the x number of EA games he has.
His hands tripped over the FUCK YOU keys. It's ok now.
Potentially costing him hundreds of dollars in single player experience, and being penalized tenfold in multiplayer, all based on the judgment of EA which has had a lot of bad press for unjustly banning people by the way. What about the ban on the guy who typed badass?
What's the big deal? Valve and Bungie have been doing this for ages.
Valve has not. Accounts for using Steam itself and the Steam forums are completely seperate.
Are you sure? There's no link between your forum account and your steam account? I could have sworn they were one and the same.
I'm really fucking sure, as I use both regularly. Forum accounts have to be created seperately and any link to your Steam account is entirely optional.
see reply #187
DasUberEdward, that's not analogous to being a dick on the official EA forums at all.
edit: for the record, if this "global ban" includes single player content then it's completely ridiculous and we should all sharpen our pitchforks and light our torches.
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EvilBadmanDO NOT TRUST THIS MANRegistered Userregular
Potentially costing him hundreds of dollars in single player experience, and being penalized tenfold in multiplayer, all based on the judgment of EA which has had a lot of bad press for unjustly banning people by the way. What about the ban on the guy who typed badass?
You'll excuse my concern.
You can't accidentally be a repeat offender troll to the tune of this ban.
Y'know, all these people taking the attitude of "it doesn't matter to me, therefore I don't care" are exactly the kind of people that disgrace the human race. It doesn't fucking matter if it will ever happen to you, it matters if it's wrong on principle. This is wrong ON PRINCIPLE, so you should fight it instead of being lazy, self-interested apathetic dicks.
Dem vidjya games is serious business.
Losing online access to about $100 worth of games because you wanted to ask about the DRM could pretty easily be construed as "serious business".
Did you see the threads that caused those bans? They were pretty offensive. They weren't just "asking about DRM", they were full of profanity and death threats.
Perhaps you missed what I was referring to. This one was on the Spore forums around its release.
I and many others here have got some serious questions about the forums, the lack of professionalism, and the need for information that is not being communicated to the users.
Are we not allowed to discuss SecuROM or DRM at all in the forums anymore?
What is the situation with the silent locking and deletion of topics going on? Shouldn't there be a standard?
Is there somewhere in particular this topic should be discussed?
Can we get moderating team leads that communicate with their users?
SecuROM as been discussed and discussed so much and it causes arguments in threads. If you want to talk about DRM SecuROM then please use another fansite forum. If there is any change you will be able to read it on the official Spore site.
Please do not continue to post theses thread or you account may be at risk of banning which in some cases would mean you would need to buy a new copy to play Spore.
To post on the forum, you need your Spore account tied to the game, and only one account per purchase. This was a while before the recent stuff. It's only when the post hit Kotaku and other sites that someone from Maxis had to go online and retract this mods statement, and of course they wouldn't be doing something crazy like banning people from the game for forum posts.
Of course, now it appears that's been adopted as an actual measure.
What's the big deal? Valve and Bungie have been doing this for ages.
Valve has not. Accounts for using Steam itself and the Steam forums are completely seperate.
Are you sure? There's no link between your forum account and your steam account? I could have sworn they were one and the same.
I'm really fucking sure, as I use both regularly. Forum accounts have to be created seperately and any link to your Steam account is entirely optional.
see reply #187
DasUberEdward, that's not analogous to being a dick on the official EA forums at all.
edit: for the record, if this "global ban" includes single player content then it's completely ridiculous and we should all sharpen our pitchforks and light our torches.
It does not. Only online multiplayer and update functionality.
Potentially costing him hundreds of dollars in single player experience, and being penalized tenfold in multiplayer, all based on the judgment of EA which has had a lot of bad press for unjustly banning people by the way. What about the ban on the guy who typed badass?
You'll excuse my concern.
You can't accidentally be a repeat offender troll to the tune of this ban.
Just because you can't envision it happening doesn't mitigate that the penalty is way too big compared to the offense.
Besides, if saying badass is a bannable offense then, yes, you can accidentally get banned after all.
Okay, presuming that this is only true for multiplayer on EA servers, I have no problem with this. Consider the fact that EA is paying for the servers and they presumably want people to have a good experience on their servers, they have every right to ban people from their servers due to bad behavior. The same is true for their forums. If you do something on their forums that negatively affects other customers, again, they have every right to ban you. EA is paying for the servers and presumably want to provide a good atmosphere to all of their customers.
It also wouldn't surprise me if EA has data showing a strong correlation between those who are banned from their forums and those who are banned from their servers. Likewise, that people who are banned online from EA Game A also tend to get banned from EA Game B.
Also, while there is the worry that forum moderators may be a little heavy-handed, I'm sure you'd be able to escalate the issue and have a second or third person review the case. I'm sure they have records of everything that is posted on the forums.
I'd certainly hope that a) this is a tiered banning (banned for 24 hours, then 72, then a week, then a month, etc), and b) this is made clear when signing up for EA accounts. And if it does affect single-player gaming, then yes, I'd be extremely pissed off. But I can't imagine that would be the case.
EA is paying for their servers in part with the money that consumers give them in return for their games. When I buy game X i expect EA to put up a damn server so I can play game X. They have a right to the consumer and outright banning someone because they said a bad word or made a mistake on a public fucking venue that is in no way related to the product and services purchased with the game is morally, ethically, and logically wrong and injust.
There is no god damn way around it.
I would say official forums from the game's developers is exactly related to the product.
I would challenge definitively that it is entirely unrelated to the product because you do not need to purchase the product to use or browse the forums. So if anything it is a tangentially related service.
I will concede the point that purchase of said product is not required to peruse the specific forums, but to believe that it is no way related to the product is naive.
You have a very funny understanding of business and logic. So let's say you drive a fun and expensive car. At some point your car breaks down and on a public forum about said car type/manufacture you express your outrage with profanity or do something that offends at least one or two individuals or violates a rule of that forum.
In turn the car manufacture now has the right to completely invalidate the vehicle you purchased by enabling failsafes and other blocking mechanisms.
This is an elaboration of your idea but it is entirely analogous.
No, that analogy is the equivalent of, say, EA banning you from all of their games multi and single if you complained with profanity here.
Y'know, all these people taking the attitude of "it doesn't matter to me, therefore I don't care" are exactly the kind of people that disgrace the human race. It doesn't fucking matter if it will ever happen to you, it matters if it's wrong on principle. This is wrong ON PRINCIPLE, so you should fight it instead of being lazy, self-interested apathetic dicks.
Dem vidjya games is serious business.
Losing online access to about $100 worth of games because you wanted to ask about the DRM could pretty easily be construed as "serious business".
Did you see the threads that caused those bans? They were pretty offensive. They weren't just "asking about DRM", they were full of profanity and death threats.
Perhaps you missed what I was referring to. This one was on the Spore forums around its release.
I and many others here have got some serious questions about the forums, the lack of professionalism, and the need for information that is not being communicated to the users.
Are we not allowed to discuss SecuROM or DRM at all in the forums anymore?
What is the situation with the silent locking and deletion of topics going on? Shouldn't there be a standard?
Is there somewhere in particular this topic should be discussed?
Can we get moderating team leads that communicate with their users?
SecuROM as been discussed and discussed so much and it causes arguments in threads. If you want to talk about DRM SecuROM then please use another fansite forum. If there is any change you will be able to read it on the official Spore site.
Please do not continue to post theses thread or you account may be at risk of banning which in some cases would mean you would need to buy a new copy to play Spore.
This was a while before the recent stuff. It's only when the post hit Kotaku and other sites that someone from Maxis had to go online and retract this mods statement, and of course they wouldn't be doing something crazy like banning people from the game for forum posts.
Of course, now it appears that's been adopted as an actual measure.
edit: and to be clear, getting banned for talking about DRM on official forums is UBER BAD and very different from getting banned from online play as a consequence of getting banned on official forums. This is in response to the bolded part above.
Potentially costing him hundreds of dollars in single player experience, and being penalized tenfold in multiplayer, all based on the judgment of EA which has had a lot of bad press for unjustly banning people by the way. What about the ban on the guy who typed badass?
You'll excuse my concern.
You can't accidentally be a repeat offender troll to the tune of this ban.
Just because you can't envision it happening doesn't mitigate that the penalty is way too big compared to the offense.
Besides, if saying badass is a bannable offense then, yes, you can accidentally get banned after all.
badass was banned for a week. Not permanently. If he, after having been explained the rules and given a very, very strong warning even for something he thought was fine, does it again, it is not an accident, it's him being stupid.
Okay, presuming that this is only true for multiplayer on EA servers, I have no problem with this. Consider the fact that EA is paying for the servers and they presumably want people to have a good experience on their servers, they have every right to ban people from their servers due to bad behavior. The same is true for their forums. If you do something on their forums that negatively affects other customers, again, they have every right to ban you. EA is paying for the servers and presumably want to provide a good atmosphere to all of their customers.
It also wouldn't surprise me if EA has data showing a strong correlation between those who are banned from their forums and those who are banned from their servers. Likewise, that people who are banned online from EA Game A also tend to get banned from EA Game B.
Also, while there is the worry that forum moderators may be a little heavy-handed, I'm sure you'd be able to escalate the issue and have a second or third person review the case. I'm sure they have records of everything that is posted on the forums.
I'd certainly hope that a) this is a tiered banning (banned for 24 hours, then 72, then a week, then a month, etc), and b) this is made clear when signing up for EA accounts. And if it does affect single-player gaming, then yes, I'd be extremely pissed off. But I can't imagine that would be the case.
EA is paying for their servers in part with the money that consumers give them in return for their games. When I buy game X i expect EA to put up a damn server so I can play game X. They have a right to the consumer and outright banning someone because they said a bad word or made a mistake on a public fucking venue that is in no way related to the product and services purchased with the game is morally, ethically, and logically wrong and injust.
There is no god damn way around it.
I would say official forums from the game's developers is exactly related to the product.
I would challenge definitively that it is entirely unrelated to the product because you do not need to purchase the product to use or browse the forums. So if anything it is a tangentially related service.
I will concede the point that purchase of said product is not required to peruse the specific forums, but to believe that it is no way related to the product is naive.
You have a very funny understanding of business and logic. So let's say you drive a fun and expensive car. At some point your car breaks down and on a public forum about said car type/manufacture you express your outrage with profanity or do something that offends at least one or two individuals or violates a rule of that forum.
In turn the car manufacture now has the right to completely invalidate the vehicle you purchased by enabling failsafes and other blocking mechanisms.
This is an elaboration of your idea but it is entirely analogous.
Your hilariously blown out of proportion analogy neglects to mention that said public forum is run by the car's manufacturer.
Okay. It's on the car manufactuers forum. I was making the point that the EA forums are again public and no way inclusive. You do not purchase a license to use the forums with your game.
Y'know, all these people taking the attitude of "it doesn't matter to me, therefore I don't care" are exactly the kind of people that disgrace the human race. It doesn't fucking matter if it will ever happen to you, it matters if it's wrong on principle. This is wrong ON PRINCIPLE, so you should fight it instead of being lazy, self-interested apathetic dicks.
Dem vidjya games is serious business.
Losing online access to about $100 worth of games because you wanted to ask about the DRM could pretty easily be construed as "serious business".
Did you see the threads that caused those bans? They were pretty offensive. They weren't just "asking about DRM", they were full of profanity and death threats.
Perhaps you missed what I was referring to. This one was on the Spore forums around its release.
I and many others here have got some serious questions about the forums, the lack of professionalism, and the need for information that is not being communicated to the users.
Are we not allowed to discuss SecuROM or DRM at all in the forums anymore?
What is the situation with the silent locking and deletion of topics going on? Shouldn't there be a standard?
Is there somewhere in particular this topic should be discussed?
Can we get moderating team leads that communicate with their users?
SecuROM as been discussed and discussed so much and it causes arguments in threads. If you want to talk about DRM SecuROM then please use another fansite forum. If there is any change you will be able to read it on the official Spore site.
Please do not continue to post theses thread or you account may be at risk of banning which in some cases would mean you would need to buy a new copy to play Spore.
This was a while before the recent stuff. It's only when the post hit Kotaku and other sites that someone from Maxis had to go online and retract this mods statement, and of course they wouldn't be doing something crazy like banning people from the game for forum posts.
Of course, now it appears that's been adopted as an actual measure.
And now it's not something to get fired over because he wouldn't be lying, it's now procedure. The point I'm making is that if it's legitimate to make these kinds of threats simply for discussing DRM, then you've effectively stifled negative comments, or heck even controversial discussions on your board under threat of removing online access to their games. And not just the game in question, but all of them?
And now it's not something to get fired over, it's procedure.
What? No. How do you figure? Getting banned from official forums for talking about DRM is very different from getting banned from online play as a consequence of a forum ban.
It's absolutely not legitimate to ban for discussing DRM.
So to save this quote tree. Let's see you're on the car manufactures forum bitching and trolling and doing god knows what else. Do they have a right to just shut you down outright? Remember it's a forum that they provide for free. You never purchased any sort of license to use the forums. But there you are a paying consumer with a problem (be it real or a syndrome of your inability to communicate with people) and next thing you know you lose access to all of the shit you purchased.
And again I already admitted that the scenario I mentioned was an exacerbation but it is still absolutely analogous. The only difference is that a car manufacture would have to do some work to disable their product whereas EA can just invalidate a key instantly.
If you did something wrong on nintendo forums (and your account is linked) would it be proper for them disable your access to online play and downloadable content for the Wii?
And now it's not something to get fired over, it's procedure.
What? No. How do you figure? Getting banned from official forums for talking about DRM is very different from getting banned from online play as a consequence of a forum ban.
It's absolutely not legitimate to ban for discussing DRM.
I don't see why not. According to the mod he was trolling the forums by discussing DRM. Hence, legitimate to ban.
Because I didn't finish reading the thread before writing my reply, I had already typed a reply when I noticed that your post had already been replied to. I thought "Whatever" and hit reply anyway.
Okay. It's on the car manufactuers forum. I was making the point that the EA forums are again public and no way inclusive. You do not purchase a license to use the forums with your game.
Ah, but no you're own their playing field, and playing by their rules. They reserve the right to uphold justice as they see fit.
Oh, and in case you missed it: How on earth would they ban you from their games unless they required you to use an EA Master Account to post on said forums? That seems linked to the product.
And now it's not something to get fired over, it's procedure.
What? No. How do you figure? Getting banned from official forums for talking about DRM is very different from getting banned from online play as a consequence of a forum ban.
It's absolutely not legitimate to ban for discussing DRM.
I don't see why not. According to the mod he was trolling the forums by discussing DRM. Hence, legitimate to ban.
But that mod was fired for saying that. It was some community volunteer who was making shit up.
Because I didn't finish reading the thread before writing my reply, I had already typed a reply when I noticed that your post had already been replied to. I thought "Whatever" and hit reply anyway.
Okay. It's on the car manufactuers forum. I was making the point that the EA forums are again public and no way inclusive. You do not purchase a license to use the forums with your game.
Ah, but no you're own their playing field, and playing by their rules. They reserve the right to uphold justice as they see fit.
Oh, and in case you missed it: How on earth would they ban you from their games unless they required you to use an EA Master Account to post on said forums?
1. Justice doesn't work like that. Seriously. It just doesn't. Contracts can only go so far and most courts have never made a definitve ruling in regard to EULAs so the idea that any company could derive so much power from a document that is shaky at best is legally unsound and a detriment to the consumer.
2. Are you certain about that? The forums seem to be down I tried to go there to look at the TOS but I do recall having posted there without ever using a serial number or anything like that.
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EvilBadmanDO NOT TRUST THIS MANRegistered Userregular
Okay. It's on the car manufactuers forum. I was making the point that the EA forums are again public and no way inclusive. You do not purchase a license to use the forums with your game.
Ah, but no you're own their playing field, and playing by their rules. They reserve the right to uphold justice as they see fit.
Oh, and in case you missed it: How on earth would they ban you from their games unless they required you to use an EA Master Account to post on said forums?
1. Justice doesn't work like that. Seriously. It just doesn't. Contracts can only go so far and most courts have never made a definitive ruling in regard to EULAs so the idea that any company could derive so much power from a document that is shaky at best is legally unsound and a detriment to the consumer.
2. Are you certain about that? The forums seem to be down I tried to go there to look at the TOS but I do recall having posted there without ever using a serial number or anything like that.
2. These are on the new forums, which would presumably have such a requirement for registering. From the linked post in op "You are allowed one Forumname per Ea Master Account linked Email Address." I wouldn't be surprised if this new requirement was in direct response to anonymous DRM debacle posts they got earlier in the year.
And now it's not something to get fired over, it's procedure.
What? No. How do you figure? Getting banned from official forums for talking about DRM is very different from getting banned from online play as a consequence of a forum ban.
It's absolutely not legitimate to ban for discussing DRM.
I don't see why not. According to the mod he was trolling the forums by discussing DRM. Hence, legitimate to ban.
But that mod was fired for saying that. It was some community volunteer who was making shit up.
And the problem is if he said it now, he wouldn't be making it up.
The problem I have is that what counts for banning is pretty freaking subjective. By that stage on the Spore forums they had had a lot of forum topics on the DRM. So at what stage does it become trolling? The mod obviously thought so. If he had simply banned the guy from the forums and locked the thread there would have literally been no story, just a mod "keeping the peace". Closing down a thread the 100th thread for wanting to discuss DRM, nobody would even blink about it, no matter how civil you were, like this guy was.
Now add in to banning the guy from the forums that you also gets banned from the game? Now add in that you don't just get banned from that game, but all your EA games?
Okay. It's on the car manufactuers forum. I was making the point that the EA forums are again public and no way inclusive. You do not purchase a license to use the forums with your game.
Ah, but no you're own their playing field, and playing by their rules. They reserve the right to uphold justice as they see fit.
Oh, and in case you missed it: How on earth would they ban you from their games unless they required you to use an EA Master Account to post on said forums?
1. Justice doesn't work like that. Seriously. It just doesn't. Contracts can only go so far and most courts have never made a definitive ruling in regard to EULAs so the idea that any company could derive so much power from a document that is shaky at best is legally unsound and a detriment to the consumer.
2. Are you certain about that? The forums seem to be down I tried to go there to look at the TOS but I do recall having posted there without ever using a serial number or anything like that.
2. These are on the new forums, which would presumably have such a requirement for registering. From the linked post in op "You are allowed one Forumname per Ea Master Account linked Email Address."
Contracts can only go so far and most courts have never made a definitive ruling in regard to EULAs so the idea that any company could derive so much power from a document that is shaky at best is legally unsound and a detriment to the consumer.
Seriously, EULAs are pretty much big wordy pieces of paper that don't mean that much as far as the justice system is concerned. Opinions aside by any standard definition of justice what they are doing just doesn't stand up and it sure as hell wouldn't stand up legally if they seriously disable even single player.
Do you know something I don't about the EA forums, subedii? Do you get banned now for talking about DRM? I thought the resolution to that fiasco was someone from EA stopping by and saying "No, this guy was wrong to say that you can get banned for talking about SecuROM."
edit: and what gets you banned from forums is no more subjective than what gets you banned from online games (cheating aside).
edit2 to respond to DasUberEdward below: I concur. Both are highly subjective.
Do you know something I don't about the EA forums, subedii? Do you get banned now for talking about DRM? I thought the resolution to that fiasco was someone from EA stopping by and saying "No, this guy was wrong to say that you can get banned for talking about SecuROM."
edit: and what gets you banned from forums is no more subjective than what gets you banned from online games (cheating aside).
Banning is subjective because what constitutes a bannable offense is never black and white. You can't just say "cheating" or "offensive language" because there are so many things to be considered in both cases.
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EvilBadmanDO NOT TRUST THIS MANRegistered Userregular
Seriously, EULAs are pretty much big wordy pieces of paper that don't mean that much as far as the justice system is concerned. Opinions aside by any standard definition of justice what they are doing just doesn't stand up and it sure as hell wouldn't stand up legally if they seriously disable even single player.
I'm not trying to deride this argument further, but I will enjoy the day when I hear the court case of John Q. Public vs EA, who disabled his ability to play their games online because he posted "jewfaggot" seventy times the Red Alert boards.
Do you know something I don't about the EA forums, subedii? Do you get banned now for talking about DRM? I thought the resolution to that fiasco was someone from EA stopping by and saying "No, this guy was wrong to say that you can get banned for talking about SecuROM."
edit: and what gets you banned from forums is no more subjective than what gets you banned from online games (cheating aside).
Banning is subjective because what constitutes a bannable offense is never black and white. You can't just say "cheating" or "offensive language" because there are so many things to be considered in both cases.
No, they're pretty cut and dry, because you're playing on EA's servers. So EA's idea of cheating or offensive language is the law.
Or you could try to demonstrate what could be construed as maybe cheating or maybe offensive.
You know, even before I clicked on this topic, I could tell Scarab would be the one defending EA in here :P
Anyway, speaking as a law graduate, EULAs and associated things like this have very, very questionable legal standing. It'd be nice to see one actually tested in court for once.
Do you know something I don't about the EA forums, subedii? Do you get banned now for talking about DRM? I thought the resolution to that fiasco was someone from EA stopping by and saying "No, this guy was wrong to say that you can get banned for talking about SecuROM."
edit: and what gets you banned from forums is no more subjective than what gets you banned from online games (cheating aside).
We'll have to agree to disagree on that then I'm afraid. I've seen people get insta-banned from official forums simply for raising bugs on a game and asking when they'd be fixed (politely too). Heck, on boards for more indie developers, I've seen the devs themselves do this. The guy threatening to ban for making another in a long line of DRM threads doesn't even warrant in the top 10 most pedantic mod idiocies I've seen, and the thing is, even I'd understand that response if things had truly progressed that far, if not necessarily agree.
Seriously, EULAs are pretty much big wordy pieces of paper that don't mean that much as far as the justice system is concerned. Opinions aside by any standard definition of justice what they are doing just doesn't stand up and it sure as hell wouldn't stand up legally if they seriously disable even single player.
I'm not trying to deride this argument further, but I will enjoy the day when I hear the court case of John Q. Public vs EA, who disabled his ability to play their games online because he posted "jewfaggot" seventy times the Red Alert boards.
You don't have to. Just look at the few cases where EULAs have been brought to court. It's always inconclusive.
Edit: I'm sorry but history, the legal system, and every concept of justice I can think of goes against what EA is doing.
And my god this will be quite the fiasco when people from countries that customers end up getting a banning like this.
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EvilBadmanDO NOT TRUST THIS MANRegistered Userregular
edited October 2008
None of those contained the hilarity quotient of my proposed legal battle. I feel cheated.
My lasting comment is thus: They host the servers for free, they're not legally bound to allow you access to it, and they can refuse service at will.
My own initial legal analysis is that EA would lose a case if brought under European law, as this is exactly the kind of thing the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations tend to stop.
None of those contained the hilarity quotient of my proposed legal battle. I feel cheated.
My lasting comment is thus: They host the servers for free, they're not legally bound to allow you access to it, and they can refuse service at will.
EULAs must be accepted before online play is allowed for almost every game, and I'm sure EA has instituted it for every game they have which features online play. These "click through" agreements are binding, unless there are illegal terms (which I doubt there are). If consumer protection agencies were to file a class action lawsuit with say 1,000 people who were banned (and who want refunds of their purchases), they would likely be appealing to the courts sense of equity, since in federal courts the law would likely not be on their side. And you're right, it's hard to appeal to the sense of equity of the court when the defendants could just show why each one of them were banned.
I'm not a fan of EA, but I doubt they will be banning people for nothing.
None of those contained the hilarity quotient of my proposed legal battle. I feel cheated.
My lasting comment is thus: They host the servers for free, they're not legally bound to allow you access to it, and they can refuse service at will.
EULAs must be accepted before online play is allowed for almost every game, and I'm sure EA has instituted it for every game they have which features online play. These "click through" agreements are binding, unless there are illegal terms (which I doubt there are). If consumer protection agencies were to file a class action lawsuit with say 1,000 people who were banned (and who want refunds of their purchases), they would likely be appealing to the courts sense of equity, since in federal courts the law would likely not be on their side. And you're right, it's hard to appeal to the sense of equity of the court when the defendants could just show why each one of them were banned.
I'm not a fan of EA, but I doubt they will be banning people for nothing.
They really don't actually hold up very well legally.
Do you know something I don't about the EA forums, subedii? Do you get banned now for talking about DRM? I thought the resolution to that fiasco was someone from EA stopping by and saying "No, this guy was wrong to say that you can get banned for talking about SecuROM."
edit: and what gets you banned from forums is no more subjective than what gets you banned from online games (cheating aside).
We'll have to agree to disagree on that then I'm afraid. I've seen people get insta-banned from official forums simply for raising bugs on a game and asking when they'd be fixed (politely too). Heck, on boards for more indie developers, I've seen the devs themselves do this. The guy threatening to ban for making another in a long line of DRM threads doesn't even warrant in the top 10 most pedantic mod idiocies I've seen, and the thing is, even I'd understand that response if things had truly progressed that far, if not necessarily agree.
Yeah, just because I've never seen it happen on EA's boards doesn't mean it never happens, or never has happened. The Red Alert 3 boards are full of DRM threads and obvious trolls though, so wherever the bar is set in that case it'd be pretty difficult to jump over it accidentally. In those cases I'm okay with leaving it up to arbitration when the benefit is order on the forums and a less abusive online playerbase.
None of those contained the hilarity quotient of my proposed legal battle. I feel cheated.
My lasting comment is thus: They host the servers for free, they're not legally bound to allow you access to it, and they can refuse service at will.
EULAs must be accepted before online play is allowed for almost every game, and I'm sure EA has instituted it for every game they have which features online play. These "click through" agreements are binding, unless there are illegal terms (which I doubt there are).
I can only speak for UK law, but as far as that goes, you're pretty wrong. It is still uncertain whether these kinds of agreements are binding at all, and they would almost certainly contain illegal terms under the various unfair contract terms legislation.
Posts
Your hilariously blown out of proportion analogy neglects to mention that said public forum is run by the car's manufacturer.
Potentially costing him hundreds of dollars in single player experience, and being penalized tenfold in multiplayer, all based on the judgment of EA which has had a lot of bad press for unjustly banning people by the way. What about the ban on the guy who typed badass?
You'll excuse my concern.
see reply #187
DasUberEdward, that's not analogous to being a dick on the official EA forums at all.
edit: for the record, if this "global ban" includes single player content then it's completely ridiculous and we should all sharpen our pitchforks and light our torches.
You can't accidentally be a repeat offender troll to the tune of this ban.
Perhaps you missed what I was referring to. This one was on the Spore forums around its release.
To post on the forum, you need your Spore account tied to the game, and only one account per purchase. This was a while before the recent stuff. It's only when the post hit Kotaku and other sites that someone from Maxis had to go online and retract this mods statement, and of course they wouldn't be doing something crazy like banning people from the game for forum posts.
Of course, now it appears that's been adopted as an actual measure.
It does not. Only online multiplayer and update functionality.
Just because you can't envision it happening doesn't mitigate that the penalty is way too big compared to the offense.
Besides, if saying badass is a bannable offense then, yes, you can accidentally get banned after all.
No, that analogy is the equivalent of, say, EA banning you from all of their games multi and single if you complained with profanity here.
Didn't the mod who posted that get fired?
After some googling, yep.
edit: and to be clear, getting banned for talking about DRM on official forums is UBER BAD and very different from getting banned from online play as a consequence of getting banned on official forums. This is in response to the bolded part above.
badass was banned for a week. Not permanently. If he, after having been explained the rules and given a very, very strong warning even for something he thought was fine, does it again, it is not an accident, it's him being stupid.
Okay. It's on the car manufactuers forum. I was making the point that the EA forums are again public and no way inclusive. You do not purchase a license to use the forums with your game.
And now it's not something to get fired over because he wouldn't be lying, it's now procedure. The point I'm making is that if it's legitimate to make these kinds of threats simply for discussing DRM, then you've effectively stifled negative comments, or heck even controversial discussions on your board under threat of removing online access to their games. And not just the game in question, but all of them?
Yeah, I still consider that loony tunes.
What? No. How do you figure? Getting banned from official forums for talking about DRM is very different from getting banned from online play as a consequence of a forum ban.
It's absolutely not legitimate to ban for discussing DRM.
And again I already admitted that the scenario I mentioned was an exacerbation but it is still absolutely analogous. The only difference is that a car manufacture would have to do some work to disable their product whereas EA can just invalidate a key instantly.
If you did something wrong on nintendo forums (and your account is linked) would it be proper for them disable your access to online play and downloadable content for the Wii?
I don't see why not. According to the mod he was trolling the forums by discussing DRM. Hence, legitimate to ban.
Because I didn't finish reading the thread before writing my reply, I had already typed a reply when I noticed that your post had already been replied to. I thought "Whatever" and hit reply anyway.
Ah, but no you're own their playing field, and playing by their rules. They reserve the right to uphold justice as they see fit.
Oh, and in case you missed it: How on earth would they ban you from their games unless they required you to use an EA Master Account to post on said forums? That seems linked to the product.
But that mod was fired for saying that. It was some community volunteer who was making shit up.
It's cool.
1. Justice doesn't work like that. Seriously. It just doesn't. Contracts can only go so far and most courts have never made a definitve ruling in regard to EULAs so the idea that any company could derive so much power from a document that is shaky at best is legally unsound and a detriment to the consumer.
2. Are you certain about that? The forums seem to be down I tried to go there to look at the TOS but I do recall having posted there without ever using a serial number or anything like that.
2. These are on the new forums, which would presumably have such a requirement for registering. From the linked post in op "You are allowed one Forumname per Ea Master Account linked Email Address." I wouldn't be surprised if this new requirement was in direct response to anonymous DRM debacle posts they got earlier in the year.
And the problem is if he said it now, he wouldn't be making it up.
The problem I have is that what counts for banning is pretty freaking subjective. By that stage on the Spore forums they had had a lot of forum topics on the DRM. So at what stage does it become trolling? The mod obviously thought so. If he had simply banned the guy from the forums and locked the thread there would have literally been no story, just a mod "keeping the peace". Closing down a thread the 100th thread for wanting to discuss DRM, nobody would even blink about it, no matter how civil you were, like this guy was.
Now add in to banning the guy from the forums that you also gets banned from the game? Now add in that you don't just get banned from that game, but all your EA games?
Yeah, I still think it's ridiculous.
Contracts can only go so far and most courts have never made a definitive ruling in regard to EULAs so the idea that any company could derive so much power from a document that is shaky at best is legally unsound and a detriment to the consumer.
Seriously, EULAs are pretty much big wordy pieces of paper that don't mean that much as far as the justice system is concerned. Opinions aside by any standard definition of justice what they are doing just doesn't stand up and it sure as hell wouldn't stand up legally if they seriously disable even single player.
edit: and what gets you banned from forums is no more subjective than what gets you banned from online games (cheating aside).
edit2 to respond to DasUberEdward below: I concur. Both are highly subjective.
Banning is subjective because what constitutes a bannable offense is never black and white. You can't just say "cheating" or "offensive language" because there are so many things to be considered in both cases.
I'm not trying to deride this argument further, but I will enjoy the day when I hear the court case of John Q. Public vs EA, who disabled his ability to play their games online because he posted "jewfaggot" seventy times the Red Alert boards.
No, they're pretty cut and dry, because you're playing on EA's servers. So EA's idea of cheating or offensive language is the law.
Or you could try to demonstrate what could be construed as maybe cheating or maybe offensive.
Anyway, speaking as a law graduate, EULAs and associated things like this have very, very questionable legal standing. It'd be nice to see one actually tested in court for once.
We'll have to agree to disagree on that then I'm afraid. I've seen people get insta-banned from official forums simply for raising bugs on a game and asking when they'd be fixed (politely too). Heck, on boards for more indie developers, I've seen the devs themselves do this. The guy threatening to ban for making another in a long line of DRM threads doesn't even warrant in the top 10 most pedantic mod idiocies I've seen, and the thing is, even I'd understand that response if things had truly progressed that far, if not necessarily agree.
You don't have to. Just look at the few cases where EULAs have been brought to court. It's always inconclusive.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adhesion_contract
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconscionable
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Step-Saver_Data_Systems,_Inc._v._Wyse_Technology
;(
Edit: I'm sorry but history, the legal system, and every concept of justice I can think of goes against what EA is doing.
And my god this will be quite the fiasco when people from countries that
My lasting comment is thus: They host the servers for free, they're not legally bound to allow you access to it, and they can refuse service at will.
Except you are granted access to the server by purchasing the game since doing so makes you a customer. The forum is not the game.
Nope. Technically I can send stuff to their server without owning the game. And their server is under no obligation to respond to me.
EULAs must be accepted before online play is allowed for almost every game, and I'm sure EA has instituted it for every game they have which features online play. These "click through" agreements are binding, unless there are illegal terms (which I doubt there are). If consumer protection agencies were to file a class action lawsuit with say 1,000 people who were banned (and who want refunds of their purchases), they would likely be appealing to the courts sense of equity, since in federal courts the law would likely not be on their side. And you're right, it's hard to appeal to the sense of equity of the court when the defendants could just show why each one of them were banned.
I'm not a fan of EA, but I doubt they will be banning people for nothing.
They really don't actually hold up very well legally.
Yeah, just because I've never seen it happen on EA's boards doesn't mean it never happens, or never has happened. The Red Alert 3 boards are full of DRM threads and obvious trolls though, so wherever the bar is set in that case it'd be pretty difficult to jump over it accidentally. In those cases I'm okay with leaving it up to arbitration when the benefit is order on the forums and a less abusive online playerbase.
What is this even in reference to? My point is that by purchasing the game EA does inherit an obligation.
If EA had a subscription service for certain games you would then have a point but they don't.
They shut a game down without the 30 day notice.
Somebody pointed it out to them and they apologized and reinstated the game for another 30-40 days before shutting it off forever.
EA's held up their end of the deal before.
The line is blurred if they require your serial keys tied to your forum account.