EA Once Again Denies Gamers Being Banned for Acting Like Jerks
By Stephany on Friday, October 31st, 2008 at 6:12 AM PST In Computer, Electronic Arts, Game Consoles, Gamer Life, Games, Games Industry
Call it a case of a rouge forum moderator getting power hungry, being misinformed, or just not understanding what is going on before they post. Either way you look at it, EA has once again denied that players who get banned from the community forums for acting like morons will also get banned from playing their EA games.
Yesterday, as you may recall, Shacknews and Kotaku were reporting on another case of mis-communication doled out by a forum moderator. In this case it was Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 community manager Aaron Kaufman a.k.a. “eaapoc” who told forum users that since their community log in was directly tied to their EA master account, that if they acted in a way that violated the Terms of Service agreement they would not only be banned from all EA forums but from playing any games they purchased as well.
Gamecyte received clarification yesterday afternoon directly from and EA representative who stated:
“Players who have been banned from EA Forums are not automatically banned from online access to their other EA games. Posting in EA Forums is enabled by an EA Nucleus account — but access to the forums and access to the games are separate.”
However, if you violate the ToS of your game or the Code of Conduct in a forum, you can be banned – although being banned from one does not mean you are banned from the other. “Players can be banned if they breach the Terms of Service or Code of Conduct in a forum, game or service. Each forum, game and service is managed independently by customer support representatives responsible for that specific forum, game or service.”
We are unsure if the Red Alert 3 forum moderator misinterpreted the new ToS or was just using scare tactics to get members to behave, but either way it got gamers in a an uproar, and hopefully this will persuade EA to educate their forum moderators a bit better.
I think the bigger picture is being missed by these reports. That is, that it has been or is somehow acceptable to be a complete ass online, and expect no repercussions. While, it may be bad practice to ban players accross the board for all transgressions, in a forum community. I believe, in the end there is the begining of a culture shift, whereas, it is no longer acceptable to be an asshole online.
These are priviate systems, (game worlds, forums, etc.) As such you are bound by their terms, you don’t agree with them and act like a fool, you should be banned, not necessatily from just the forums either. Act like a idiot in the EA Spore forums (hate speech, death threats, etc.) your playing ability SHOULD be yanked. (if for a short period of time). Keep doing it, I applaud them for saying. We don’t want you as a customer. The question is how many of their customers are assholes, and what happens if they ALL are?
There are too many occurrances of this online today, that is and will be changing in the future.
I agree that you should not act like a jerk constantly. We see that quite a bit here in the comments section of Gaming Today, and we try to be fair and let people do and say what they like. There are some who misuse this laissez-faire approach of ours to the extreme, but if they are a habitual line crosser, then their IP gets banned.
However, hacking, hate speech and general vulgarity should not be tolerated by anyone or any gaming company. My main concern, and I think that it was the concern of the gamers in the EA forums, is that if a forum manager takes offense to something you have said, then they have the power to ban you from all your games not just the forums. What they were afraid of, and I can agree, is a power hungry moderator, and if you have ever visited online forums, you know that they exist in large numbers.
Have you guys actually ever banned anyone’s IP on this site before Stephany? Just curious.
Go Marlins!!!!
Yes, we have actually done it once.
You need to ban more people
Like Norbit. Not because he’s an ass. He’s just wrong.