Desktops of September Created 12 years ago2012-08-31 20:34:30 UTC by Striker

to advertise a game no one will play

Origin's Terms of Service agreement allows EA to suspend or terminate a user's account, resulting in the inability to install or play any games that are associated with it, with no prior warning and without refund or reimbursement for any purchased content.[26] There have been several instances of EA enforcing such bans for what critics argue are comparatively minor infractions, such as making rude comments in EA or BioWare's official forums or in chat.[27][28]

An early example of this practice occurred in March 2011. A user named "Arno" made the comment "Have you sold your souls to the EA devil?" in the BioWare forums.[29] For this post Arno's account was banned for 72 hours which prevented him from installing any of his purchased Origin games, including the just-released Dragon Age II.[30] When he protested the ban on BioWare's forum under a different username, a moderator responded that the appropriate punishment had been applied and subsequently locked the thread. Other threads that made reference to the issue were also locked by moderators. After reporting on the details of the incident, website Rock, Paper, Shotgun received a statement from EA saying that Arno's account ban was a mistake, and that future violations on the forums would not interfere with Origin users' access to their games.[31]

Despite EA's assurances, several more account bans were again reported in November and December 2011, at least three of which were for infractions that did not violate the Terms of Service. In one case, a user named "Rob" received a 72-hour account suspension for posting a link to a network troubleshooting guide in the EA forums. EA interpreted this as a "commercial" link, even though the same link had been posted elsewhere in the forums for several years prior, and EA's own corporate support site and FAQ contained exactly the same link.[32] A different user named "James" had his entire account permanently deleted for quoting another forum user's use of the term "e-peen." When James contacted EA support for an explanation, he was told that the deletion was "necessary due to the repeated nature of the offense on the account" and that no further communication regarding the issue would be available.[32]

Another account belonging to a user named "Aaron" was first suspended and then permanently deleted after a Battlefield 3 user insulted him in EA's forums. The offending post included coarse language, and because it contained Aaron's name EA's content filter automatically applied the ban to his account, but not to the user who actually wrote the post.[33] EA has not made any further comment regarding specific account bans.

On March 8, 2012, EA issued an updated "Suspension Policy" via their support site. The update states that users whose accounts have been disabled would be able to play single-player games through Origin's offline mode.[34] However, the update leaves open the question of whether users with disabled accounts would still be able to download their games that are not already installed on their computers. In addition, the availability of online play has not been addressed, and the relevant clause in the Terms of Service regarding account suspension and termination remains unchanged.

Another account belonging to a user named "Aaron" was first suspended and then permanently deleted after a Battlefield 3 user insulted him in EA's forums.