Update: EA Terminates Another Dragon Age II Player Account - News
by VGChartz Staff , posted on 22 March 2011 / 53,058 Views
UPDATE: We just got word from tez19. He doesn’t deny insulting some people in the BioWare forums, but did it “in defense” of Bioware against the “haters” of Dragon Age 2 that are attacking the developers and publisher EA on their own forums.
From verbal racial attacks, to someone wishing death on the developers, these are examples of the things tez19 says that some of the forum “haters” are doing.
He also reiterates that what he did was nothing out of the normal for forum members and that similar people are doing the same thing without having their accounts terminated. Being this the case, he has no idea what actual thing he did that caused the termination of his account.
He does however admit that he might have deserved a temporary ban or a warning. He even says he would be ok with a permanent ban on the forums. What he doesn’t get or appreciate is “i do not accept that my EA account has been terminated permanently without any prior warnings or temp bans. I also did not like in the email they sent me telling me to not contact them by email or phone about the issue, i thought it was very unprofessional.”
Tez19 also said that he has emailed various members of Bioware and has yet to hear a response from them regarding the situation.
He ended the email by repeating that he would have been ok with a temporary or permanent ban on the forums but does not accept his account being terminated without any prior warnings. He also expressed concerns playing other EA games. EA games that run through EA’s account verification. Saying that he has no idea how this will affect him playing online for future EA games.
Tez19’s forum thread has now been taken down by BioWare/EA at the time of this update.
Just last week we reported that a Dragon Age 2 player was banned from playing the game because of a comment he made about Electronic Arts and BioWare. Turns out he’s not the only one.
According to a report from GamingBolt, a user by the name of tez19 is claiming his EA account has been terminated, permanently banning his account from accessing Dragon Age II online. That termination also blocks his ability to play DLC associated with the game as well.
In an email tez19 received from EA, he received word that “this action was taken due the severity and number of violations of our Terms of Service committed with the persons associated with this email address.”
The email also listed his most recent offense, which in this case was making an “inappropriate post.” Good thing he was kind enough to take a screenshot of the email that EA sent him. Check it out below.
What’s more intriguing is that the email says the decision is “final,” and that no further correspondence regarding his account will be acknowledged. Furthermore, the email explicitly states that the user is asked not to contact EA regarding this matter anymore either by email or by phone. I take it they’re really serious then, or maybe it's just another glitch?
For tez19's (now tez20) forum posts in the BioWare forums click here.
We’ve contacted EA and will update this post if we get a response from them.
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I'm glad I boycotted EA years ago. I don't care enough for that money grubbing company any more than a grain of salt. Their customer service speaks for itself. However, it's wrong to insult anyone over anything especially doing it cowardly over the internet, but to permanently ban someone across all platforms over something that was said in a forum no one's going to see? That's ridiculous.
@AussieGecko
How can he have done ANYTHING to deserve a bane on a single player game? Bane him from forum all you like but banning someone from a SINGLE PLAYER game he bought with his own cash is complete bullshit. I encourage him to pirate DA2 and all its DLC, he deserve his game and should not have them taken from him no matter how rude, annoying or completely spiteful he is on forum.
It says the last one is "inappropriate post." It also states "severity and number of violations." So this person has been warned on multiple occasions. Here's a helpful hint. You can be a douchebag on forums, but don't go overboard and you're safe. If you talk sh** to a member of a development team on their own forums, then don't be surprised when they screw you over. Sorry to say, but you deserve it if you're that stupid.
its EA but bioware stops being fun due to its collaboration. the last 2 games didnt have the known bioware quality and now this.... they better get awy from EA soon or theyre gonna go down. EA doesnt care, if Bioware goes down someone else can grow big and becme EAs next victim after BW is sucked empty.
Ban him from the site but not from the network. Only ban him from the online if he does something bad in the damn online
Even then, would somebody be able to read over the Terms of Service for EVERY single game and piece of software they use? Not even just that, but can everybody understand everything in them?
Here's my issue with incidents like these: the terms of service should not be considered legally binding if the consumer has no opportunity to read them prior to the purchase. Now, if the consumer had to read over the terms of service and sign on the dotted line that they have read and understood the terms in order to receive the product, that is one thing. But that doesn't happen with video games. People should definitely take these matters to court.
@JPL78
Excellent point! I wonder if EA put a clause in their TOS that they are allowed to murder you for anything you do that they don't like and you sign it, then it would be legal for them to come to your house and cut your head off.
Moderating their site is one thing. Ruining a player's ability to enjoy content they rightfully paid for because they have a negative opinion is just... so wrong on so many levels. Maybe they could just send some goons over to the guys house to rough him up? That would probably be more acceptable in my opinion.
@AussieGecko: It doesn't matter as their is no course for appeal. That is the stupid EA mistake. Was he warned with the previous violations and able to appeal?
I agree EA should be given a chance to comment before publishing the story, but I suspect they will not comment.
IllegalPaladin wrote: "Terms of Service crap like this just makes the Terms of Service sound even more absurd. How about something protecting the buyers from crap like this?"
Like I said, you issue a 'terms of purchase' and state:
= You taking my money signals your complete acceptance of my terms of purchase and here are the terms:
1 - your 'terms of service' agreement is null and void.
....
By the way, OnStar could STOP my car in the middle of the highway if I said something they didn't like? Could the electric company cut off my power if I wrote that they sucked?
Anyone who's victim of these practices should sue the vendor's ass off. It costs you NOTHING at the small claims court but it should cost them plenty to defend themselves. They are not going to like it.
he must have done something really bad, and is trying to get his account back by playing innocent
what if he actually did something wrong that was deserved of the ban?
Frankly this is a serious issue. This kind of thing is what concerns me with the move to everything going online and having games tied to your account giving the publisher/developer to snip your access to it.
Terms of Service crap like this just makes the Terms of Service sound even more absurd. How about something protecting the buyers from crap like this?
Terms of service that are not a true negotiated agreement cannot be used as carte blanche methods to control the consumer. Just because something in a ToS doesn't make it legal. It's just that most people can't be bothered challenging the big companies when they take things too far.
I hope EA doesn't contact VGChartz to ban me for saying this, but EA has been losing my support for the past 8-9 years... constantly.
Too bad BioWare games are so awesome, too bad...
they can terminate mine if they want, the game is terrible.
Heavenly King wrote: "I think the companies have the right to do this, because when you bought the game you accepted "the terms, conditions, etc, etc,etc"
Well... how about the buyer declaring some 'terms of purchase' and EA's taking the buyer's money implying EA's full agreement with the terms of purchase which should include statements such as "under no circumstances may EA prevent a paying customer from enjoying a paid-for game"?
Does it make sense?
As for the banned guy, he should take them to court. You can file in small claims court and if they don't show up to defend themselves they lose.
I agree with everything Zim said here. This was poor journalism.
I keep on posting comments on this site...but they seem to not be there when I check later. I can't tell if they get deleted or if something else is wrong. But this article makes me think about it.
If I am right, when you buy a game, the companies ARE NOT selling you the game they are just licensing it to you (SC2, WoW, etc). So you have permission to access the content, but it is not yours. I think the companies have the right to do this, because when you bought the game you accepted "the terms, conditions, etc, etc,etc".
Always in order to use a product (game or forums) you have to agree with the norms, and by doing so you have to act accordingly; and if you dont.......... BAN HAMMER!!! lol XD
good job EA isnt that the same way the U.S treats the world?
Oh also my thread about it on the Bioware forums has been deleted for some reason without any message being sent to me to explain why? EA does indeed seem to be the devil as the guy who got his account temp banned said.
Hey it is me here who got the account banned, I would ask if you could please black out my email address. Also the innapropriate posts i believe they banned my account for were ironically posts insulting other members who were bashing bioware developers. One of them was being racially abusive to the korean dev Stanley Woo, and one was wishing death on David Gaider for what the poster deemed bad writing on DA2.
Zim this is my comment to you.
It doesn't matter what he said.
Since when can, and should companies be able to block you from playing your game for expression any opinion right wrong or otherwise outside of the game?
And this is one of the great faults of this digital distribution were being forced into. If I have a old Game Cartridge I can say what ever I like where ever I like and no one can take that away from me.
Basically at this point you may as well just say your paying a $60 rental fee if these companies can just terminate your copy of the game at will. What happens in a year if EA decides it doesn't want to support the game and now you spent $60 on something you can't even use.
And besides this could easily be used as a fear tactic, don't dare say anything bad about EA or they will just terminate all your games. This is obviously an exaggeration, but how long before we have to salute to EA before we can log into the products we paid for?
I don't support many video game related legal fights but this is one that I think should be fought, I mean who actually owns the games people pay for anymore?
And in closing I just want to say how sad it is people are so willing to just roll over and have there rights taken away...
Urg that's it. I'm finished reading vgchartz news stories. The level of writing is so awful it's embarassing. No where in the news story are we going to question the fact that this person is being banned for the number and severity of violations?
An inappropriate post is simply the last one. For all we know the other violations could be anything. IS that brought up in the article? No. Is there mention of contacting him or EA to find out what the other violations were? No. Instead we get the fox news version of gaming news. Knee Jerk reactions with no checking of any information. I mean right of the bat looking at the ToS it seems inappropriate post could range from anything such as death threats to spamming chat rooms. A pretty broad range. So maybe his inappropriate post was a death threat and his other violations were illegal modding and stealing accounts. We have no idea because the news provided to us is of such a poor quality.
you shouldn't register your games to your account
@dunno001:
Here you go. http://gamingbolt.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Untitled-1.png :)
Guys, keep to the topic of the article. Whining about the person using Windows can be seen as trolling a PC platform.
Anyway, for the article itself, I wish I could get a larger image of the e-mail; it would allow me to read it for myself and see how I interpret it. I'm thinking things are harsh, but something's not adding up here...
i agree with mbark
I chuckled a little about the comment, no reason to get insulting, Zephyr.
@Mbark
Wow, it's really hard to stomach how utterly retarded that response was.
Windows 7 + IE9. He deserved it.
