EA Says Shut Up Or Else

[Telefrog]

Twentysided has the scoop on an enlightening post from an EA Official Forum Moderator. In it, the mod threatens that a ban from the EA forums will result in your EA games possibly being rendered inoperative.

Well, its actually going to be a bit nastier for those who get banned.

Your forum account will be directly tied to your Master EA Account, so if we ban you on the forums, you would be banned from the game as well since the login process is the same. And you’d actually be banned from your other EA games as well since its all tied to your account. So if you have SPORE and Red Alert 3 and you get yourself banned on our forums or in-game, well, your SPORE account would be banned to. It’s all one in the same, so I strongly reccommend people play nice and act mature.

All in all, we expect people to come on here and abide by our ToS. We hate banning people, it makes our lives a lot tougher, but its what we have to do.

Those banned will stay banned, but like most other internet services, its not that hard to create a new fake e-mail account. However, its a lot harder to get a new serial key =)

Avatars should be back within 2 weeks of the launch.

-APOC

It should be noted that posting complaints about DRM, as well as generally bad behavior, can result in a ban. Essentially, EA is telling customers to shut up or they'll take your toys away.

[LongStepMantis]

So much for the "New EA" we've been hearing so much about.

Back to being the pricks I love to hate, and it feels right.

[DangerousDaze]

It could just be an over-zealous moderator; forum moderators generally have no control over game access. Does it explicitly state in the ToS that a forum ban can lead to a game ban?

[biosc1]

I bet they are wishing they didn't tie everything together like that. It sounds like a neat idea to have only one account to cover everything...but...

[DoctorFinger]

I think this is more a case of a mod trying to be a big man than any nefarious scheme by EA. In fact I bet the mod himself is banned for saying this. Remember: not everything EA does is evil.

[LongStepMantis]

Originally Posted by DoctorFinger

I think this is more a case of a mod trying to be a big man than any nefarious scheme by EA. In fact I bet the mod himself is banned for saying this. Remember: not everything EA does is evil.

But...but...Damn, I was really hoping I could openly loathe them again.
I can wait, it's only a matter of time.

[J Arcane]

1) This story is old.

2) It's also been debunked already, in exactly the fashion that DoctorFinger described.

[Telefrog]

Originally Posted by J Arcane

1) This story is old.

2) It's also been debunked already, in exactly the fashion that DoctorFinger described.

Links to debunking?

As far as I know, many (not all) of my old EA games are tied to the same Master EA account for online play. From what I know, Spore is directly tied to that account, so getting a Spore forum ban should make it very difficult to utilize the online Sporepedia features.

[itchyeyes]

Originally Posted by Telefrog

Links to debunking?

http://kotaku.com/5054372/ea-respond...nning-concerns

[KingGorilla]

Originally Posted by DoctorFinger

I think this is more a case of a mod trying to be a big man than any nefarious scheme by EA. In fact I bet the mod himself is banned for saying this. Remember: not everything EA does is evil.

How dare you bring your barbaric "critical thinking" into the internet.

[itchyeyes]

Why do I keep seeing these stories about forum moderators? Mods do not speak for companies, and often aren't even employees. If this is someone who actually has the ability to ban people from the game, then their position at EA most certainly isn't "forum moderator" and the article needs to refer to them by their real title. If they are just a mod then they're simply full of it and people need to stop getting their panties in a wad. "douchebag posts inflamatory message on Internet forum, news at 11"

[TrackZero]

Sounds like "APOC" is about to get his ass fired. You don't threaten the customers over petty shit, that are completely unrelated to the product they purchased from you.

Edit: And yeah, all signs point to the fake.

[DangerousDaze]

The blame obviously partly resides with the mod in question but it also lies with the community manager who allows his moderators to make statements like this in the first place. Speaking personally, our rules explicitly forbid moderators from making any kind of community statement on pain of dismisal. Even the devs aren't allowed to post willy nilly.

If everyone understands the boundaries from the outset then problems like this (which paint EA in an extremely bad light) can't occur.

[itchyeyes]

Originally Posted by DangerousDaze

The blame obviously partly resides with the mod in question but it also lies with the community manager who allows his moderators to make statements like this in the first place. Speaking personally, our rules explicitly forbid moderators from making any kind of community statement on pain of dismisal. Even the devs aren't allowed to post willy nilly.

If everyone understands the boundaries from the outset then problems like this (which paint EA in an extremely bad light) can't occur.

Sure they can occur. You can't actually dismiss the mod until after they post the inflamatory message, by which point the entire Internet has already linked to the message and interpreted it as representative of your company. And since this is the Internet, nobody ever bothers to actually check the source or updates on the story before passing judgment. As J Arcane pointed, the mod has already been dismissed, yet here we are a month after it happened, people still blaming EA for... for what? Not being able to predict with 100% certainty what their unpaid volunteers will post on their boards?

[DangerousDaze]

Originally Posted by itchyeyes

for what? Not being able to predict with 100% certainty what their unpaid volunteers will post on their boards?

I'm not sure whether EA use unpaid volunteers on their forums. The mod in question obviously thought it was acceptable to post a message like that in order to try and clamp down on a situation on his or her forum. What I'm saying is that if she knew that any kind of statement would result in her dismissal then she would in all likelihood not have posted.

I accept your point though, saying it "can't happen" is too strong. Let's say it's far less likely to happen.

/edit - EA's statement says they do use volunteer mods.

[itchyeyes]

Originally Posted by DangerousDaze

I'm not sure whether EA use unpaid volunteers on their forums.

"These comments are absolutely not true or inline with EA's moderation policy. They were made by an over-zealous community volunteer ho does not work for EA." - link

[DangerousDaze]

Originally Posted by itchyeyes

"These comments are absolutely not true or inline with EA's moderation policy. They were made by an over-zealous community volunteer ho does not work for EA." - link

I already accepted that in my previous edit.

/edit - a volunteer ho?

[Telefrog]

Originally Posted by itchyeyes

"These comments are absolutely not true or inline with EA's moderation policy. They were made by an over-zealous community volunteer ho does not work for EA." - link

Again, to clarify. This is the wrong story.

This is a separate and new incident.

[Goronmon]

Originally Posted by DangerousDaze

The mod in question obviously thought it was acceptable to post a message like that in order to try and clamp down on a situation on his or her forum. What I'm saying is that if she knew that any kind of statement would result in her dismissal then she would in all likelihood not have posted.

Volunteer mods for any board are little more than regular posters who have some extra permissions from my experience. I doubt they have any serious training over how to moderate the boards, and most are just working with their superior's assumption that they are not going to post stupid crap. Nothing prevents them from making an ass of themselves, just like nothing prevents a regular poster from making an ass of themselves.

[Adam Blue]

FACT:

APOC is an employee of EA. He's a community manager.

FACT:

Gamers are among the biggest group of douche-bags on the net. And as time goes, they continually get away with it (internet fuckwad theory). EA has such a huge following that a few bans won't hurt them - it will prove a point.

You know why it doesn't bother me? I have no plans to do anything that would result in a ban.