{"id":1969,"date":"2008-10-29T08:00:16","date_gmt":"2008-10-29T13:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=1969"},"modified":"2008-10-29T08:30:50","modified_gmt":"2008-10-29T13:30:50","slug":"online-activation-the-noose-tightens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=1969","title":{"rendered":"Online Activation: The Noose Tightens"},"content":{"rendered":"

A reader sent me a link to this<\/a>. In that thread, an EA rep explains to users that if they get banned from the forums, their game account will be banned as well. Which will lock them out of all<\/strong> of their games which require activation. The key post, from one of the moderators:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Well, its actually going to be a bit nastier for those who get banned.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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 =)<\/p>\n

Avatars should be back within 2 weeks of the launch.<\/p>\n

-APOC <\/p><\/div>\n

That smiley is the grin of someone that knows they have hundreds of dollars of your software they’re holding hostage, so they can make you do as you’re told. And you can’t complain because, well, they can make you do as you’re told and you’ve been told to shut up. (Or if they’re being polite, they’ll allow you to go into a closet by yourself and have your say<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

You are now obliged to obey the Terms of Service and the EULA (legalese-dense documents that can change on a whim) or you will be locked out of every game you’ve legally purchased from them. You can’t see the EULA or the TOS before you buy. You can’t get your money back after opening the product to see those agreements. You can’t get your money back if they change it and you don’t like the new terms. You can’t get your money back if they ban you for breaking rules they can change at a moment’s notice. You can’t appeal if you think you were banned unfairly. And really, they can ban you for whatever reason they like, anytime they like, even if you abide by the rules. What are you gonna do? Sue<\/a> Electronic Arts<\/a>?<\/p>\n

Explain to me again who the thieves are? <\/p>\n

I’m usually gentle about this issue. I say things like, “It’s up to you to decide if these terms are acceptable to you.” and “Follow your conscience.” But own feelings are that there is no videogame fun enough to justify doing business with these people.<\/strong> Ever. No, not even if EA comes out with System Shock 3<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Go stomp on someone else’s face. <\/p>\n

EDIT: And don’t forget that EA overmind John Riccitiello hates DRM<\/a>. You know, even though he’s done more to further the reach of DRM and the power it exercises over legit customers than any other single person in the videogame industry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A reader sent me a link to this. In that thread, an EA rep explains to users that if they get banned from the forums, their game account will be banned as well. Which will lock them out of all of their games which require activation. The key post, from one of the moderators:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[120],"tags":[30,83],"class_list":["post-1969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-videogames","tag-drm","tag-ea"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1969\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}