More Dragon Age II Ban Follow-up

Though the story of the Dragon Age II player who was unable to play his game when he was banned from the BioWare forums was fairly quickly resolved when the player's ban was lifted, an odd element of the original story remained. It was noted at the time that the EA Community Terms of Service were said to include the possibility that such a game ban was valid, explained like this: "EA Community bans come down from a different department and are the result of someone hitting the REPORT POST button. These bans can affect access to your game and/or DLC." Rock, Paper, Shotgun (thanks Joao) has a follow-up on this, reporting other incidents where players lost the ability to play their games as a result of T.O.S. violations on the forums, including a player claiming he was locked out of the PS3 edition of the game last weekend. We asked EA for definitive word on whether their policy meant players could be banned from a single-player game based on forum postings, and they repeated their explanation of this being due to a bug:
As noted last week, we have identified an error in our system which can suspend a user’s entire account when our terms of use policy has been violated. We are working to fix this and expect to have the issue resolved by the end of this week. Again, we apologize for the inconvenience -- it is not our policy to prevent customers from playing a single-player game. Any registered player who feels they have been banned inappropriately is urged to contact EA Customer Service at http://EA.com/support.
View : : :
7.
 
Re: More Dragon Age II Ban Follow-up
Mar 16, 2011, 11:25
7.
Re: More Dragon Age II Ban Follow-up Mar 16, 2011, 11:25
Mar 16, 2011, 11:25
 
This kind of feeds into my thought that these companies don't even realize the ramifications of DRM that so many of us are concerned about. How many decelopers making Steamworks games really think about the fact the customer might not be able to play it someday? Do they even put any thought into that at all? Did EA put any thought into EA account bans having ramifications for PC games? Do developers making games for console services like XBLA think about the longevity of that service and if their games can be playable classics in 20 years?

Maybe they all do think about it and accept it or even celebrate it, but I often wonder if maybe it just completely goes over their heads while they are focused on other things.
Avatar 54622
Date
Subject
Author
1.
Mar 16, 2011Mar 16 2011
2.
Mar 16, 2011Mar 16 2011
3.
Mar 16, 2011Mar 16 2011
4.
Mar 16, 2011Mar 16 2011
5.
Mar 16, 2011Mar 16 2011
6.
Mar 16, 2011Mar 16 2011
14.
Mar 16, 2011Mar 16 2011
15.
Mar 16, 2011Mar 16 2011
16.
Mar 16, 2011Mar 16 2011
 7.
Mar 16, 2011Mar 16 2011
Re: More Dragon Age II Ban Follow-up
8.
Mar 16, 2011Mar 16 2011
9.
Mar 16, 2011Mar 16 2011
10.
Mar 16, 2011Mar 16 2011
11.
Mar 16, 2011Mar 16 2011
12.
Mar 16, 2011Mar 16 2011
13.
Mar 16, 2011Mar 16 2011
35.
Mar 16, 2011Mar 16 2011
17.
Mar 16, 2011Mar 16 2011
18.
Mar 16, 2011Mar 16 2011
19.
Mar 16, 2011Mar 16 2011
20.
Mar 16, 2011Mar 16 2011
21.
Mar 16, 2011Mar 16 2011
22.
Mar 16, 2011Mar 16 2011
23.
Mar 16, 2011Mar 16 2011
24.
Mar 16, 2011Mar 16 2011
25.
Mar 16, 2011Mar 16 2011
29.
Mar 16, 2011Mar 16 2011
45.
Mar 19, 2011Mar 19 2011
26.
Mar 16, 2011Mar 16 2011
28.
Mar 16, 2011Mar 16 2011
39.
Mar 16, 2011Mar 16 2011
40.
Mar 16, 2011Mar 16 2011
41.
Mar 16, 2011Mar 16 2011
44.
Mar 17, 2011Mar 17 2011
31.
Mar 16, 2011Mar 16 2011
32.
Mar 16, 2011Mar 16 2011
33.
Mar 16, 2011Mar 16 2011
34.
Mar 16, 2011Mar 16 2011
36.
Mar 16, 2011Mar 16 2011
37.
Mar 16, 2011Mar 16 2011
38.
Mar 16, 2011Mar 16 2011
27.
Mar 16, 2011Mar 16 2011
30.
Mar 16, 2011Mar 16 2011
42.
Mar 16, 2011Mar 16 2011
43.
Mar 17, 2011Mar 17 2011