EA/BioWare can Revoke Your Gaming and DLC Licenses for Forum Conduct Violations

Yesterday a post appeared on the official BioWare forums containing a complaint from a gamer who says he was unable to play his recently purchased copy of the Signature Edition of Dragon Age II (from the EA Store) because his main forum account (which is tied to his EA account) was suspended for 72 hours:

So.
My other account got suspended yesterday for 72 hours. My suspended v_ware account has all my Bioware games registered to it. My other games are Mass Effect 2, Dragon Age: Origins and Awakening. I have played every game off Bioware since KOTOR, which is my favourite game of all time.

Since I have these other games and off course have played the DA2 demo, my previously unlocked DA2 content is assigned to this account.

When I got the mail I was curieus. I wanted to know what I did that was offensive. The mail stated that I was suspended for inappropriate content. There was no further explenation to what the particular reason was.

On EA Live Chat they told me that that I said: “Have you sold your souls to the EA devil?” (This is a quote, don’t suspend me again)

Now, those are the words I said, you can’t argue with that. I’m not going to try and sugarcoat that, let me just say in my defense, I have always been a pretty reasonable person on this forum. So I agree that you guys suspended my account from the forums for 72 hours. Btw, this is the first time I got suspended.

What I don’t agree with is that I can’t activate my new DA2 game.

This is the deal. I just got my Bioware Signature Edition from the store. I allready knew I was going to play it without the extra content since I can’t activate my extra codes. What I did not know was that I needed to activate the game before being abble to play it. So now I’ve got a dead game for 50 euros. Pity.

So for your consideration. Please let someone who payed for his game at least play it.

Arno
x

PS: Don’t really know where to post this, since I’m unable to post in the technical support forum because I don’t have an activated game. Figured it may get more attention from the mods here anyway. And pm’ing Chris Priestly is just sort of rude.
PSS: No trolling and no flaming. I knew what I did was wrong, the mods were right to suspend me, but being unable to play a game you bought seems a little steep.

The response from the BioWare moderator? “EA Community bans come down from a different department and are the result of someone hitting the REPORT POST button,” says the moderator. “These bans can affect access to your game and/or DLC.”

A former worker at EA, tells us that this has ALWAYS been the policy for ALL EA games. Your account on the forums is tied to your EA Account, meaning it is tied to your online persona (and the gamertag or PSN ID attached to it) — you can go on the EA Identity Manager to check it. You will see all your forum personas listed under your EA Account.

When you get perma banned from a forum, it DOES affect your EA Account. Meaning, if you get perma banned, it also flags your EA Account, which means you won’t be able to access any EA games.

Here’s a link to the full thread on the BioWare forums:
http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/141/index/6459941/1

So in short: Troll the forums, no fun and play for you!