I Was Banned for 72 Hours from Battlelog for using The Word "Badass" in the Forums

[UDeadNowSucka]

EDIT: Post Updated with information surrounding 3 interactions I attempted to have with 3 EA employee's to get this issue behind us.

Just a quick note before I get into this, I also emailed RPS about this after hearing they were investigating the whole EA Forum bans effecting the games themselves that players had legitimately purchased.

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My name is Roger, I have a mustache and this is my Battlefield story.

I bought BF3 the day it was released, even stood outside gamestop for 3 hours for the midnight release. Since October 25th I have played BF3 every single day with buddies on teamspeak.

Earlier this morning (November 25th), I had attempted to join a server on Battlelog, but was greeted with an error message telling me I couldn't connect to EA Online. I then tried several different other servers, all giving the same error.

Thinking it was a problem with my browser, I closed Internet Explorer out, and then reopened it again and tried to login to Battlelog, only to be greeted by the message "Buy BF3 to get access to Battlelog".

I figured it was a temporary issue with EA's servers, so I walked away from my PC for a couple hours, ate, watched some tv and then came back to try and play again, only to be greeted with the same message at the login screen, "Buy BF3 to get access to Battlelog".

I immediately contacted EA's support and spoke with an advisor in a chat. This advisor informed me my account was temporarily banned for 72 hours.

I checked my email and lone behold I had an email from EA, informing me my EA Online Account was banned for using the word "Badass" on the battlelog forums. The context that the word was used in, was myself calling Germany a badass country. Note, I posted this in the General/Off-Topic forum as well.

Apparently this really angered a mod for some reason and I was banned for 72 hours. My plea's to various mods on the EA forums were met with obvious defense of EA's ridiculous policies. Yet none of them would admit that a forum ban and a game ban should be seperate.

I am now completely unable to access Battlelog at all, to play the game that I PAID FOR.

Here is an exact copy of the email, for those doubting me. Also my battlelog name is "UDeadNowSucka" without the quotes.

Hello ,
Your Electronic Arts account has been suspended for 72 hours for violating the Terms of Services for Electronic Arts Online.

Violation:Inappropriate language

[almost as badass as germany. Switzerland: they do a lot of stuff I think that just about sums up europe.]

You can read the Terms of Service for Electronic Arts Online by going to the following web address.

http://www.ea.com/global/legal/tos.jsp

If you feel that this action is unwarranted, or if you wish to dispute the claims of this email, please submit a dispute form by using the following link:

http://support.ea.com/cgi-bin/ea.cfg...nated_form.php

The Electronic Arts support team is available at http://support.ea.com should you have any general questions or concerns about the rule or its enforcement in the game, as we feel it is important to understand the rule completely before returning to the game world.

Sincerely, Customer Support Electronic Arts, Inc.
EA.com Customer Relations

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The 3 Interactions I attempted to Have With EA Employee's.

First EA Employee Interaction: CrazyCanuck

CrazyCanuck is a high ranking forum mod with EA and one of the battleog mods as well. I spoke to Canuck in a pm on the EAUK forums about this whole thing, in which we sent several pm's back and forth to one another. He searched through my entire battlelog post history, found one thing to latch onto, and then tried using it as a reason to defend EA's 72 hour ban. Yet he couldn't pull his head far enough out of EA's ass to realize that unbanning me from battlelog so I could play the game, but keeping me banned from the forums in battlelog was pretty reasonable. In fact, I even proposed that as a middle-ground and he wouldn't agree too it.

Second EA Employee Interaction: Crash7800

Crash7800 is the Battlefield Community Manager at EA. I tweeted Crash7800 about this on twitter and he never responded back. Not even a direct message or anything. Not even "hey, I heard about your case, nothing I can do, sorry". I heard Crash7800 sent someone his dogtags in the mail for making a video. But he can't look into a forum ban that was unjustified?

Third EA Employee Interaction: Zh1nt0

Zh1nt0 is the Global Community Manager for EA/DICE. Zh1nt0 pm'd me on the EAUK forums the day this happened, after seeing my forum post and asked me for my battlelog name to look into the issue. Then never got back to me.

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The official Response from EA's Battlefield Community Manager Crash7800

Sorry that I didn't reply sooner - Holiday here :) I've been checking in where I can, but I'm sorry your issue wasn't on my radar at first.

It will take me some time to look into this issue. I'm sorry that I can't help you at this exact moment, but I can't just go around overturning bans without an examination.

I'm sorry that being banned from the forums resulted in your being banned from the game. This can sometimes be the case - I'm still working to figure out every use-case. I'm looking more into this functionality and what possible improvements could be made.

I can tell you that things like this post -link-, or this post -link-, or this post -link-, or a lot of what you said in this thread -link- (Rape joke - really?), or this entire thread that you started, seemingly only to troll -link- are not helping your case. Especially when you do that all in one day.

In complete honesty, I think that what's gone wrong here is that our report for why you were temporarily banned is wrong. You were probably banned for the reasons I've listed above. I probably would have temporarily banned you too for spamming nonsense and acting like a troll.

EDIT for clarity: To that end, I will be looking into this issue to determine whether this is indeed the case. Our internal reporting for these issues should be more thorough if so, for just such an instance.
I'm sure this will solicit some questions. It's 1 AM here, so I'll have to get back to them in the morning :)

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My response to Crash7800

I love the way you say it can "sometimes be the case". Why don't you go read the Rock Paper Shotgun articles, where everytime a user was banned from the EA forums, they were also locked out of the game. So don't use the phrase "This can sometimes be the case", because ITS ALWAYS THE CASE.

Whatever I may have done on the forums should in no way effect my ability to play the game itself. And thats all there is to it. Short of posting links to hack sites, there is absolutlely no reason why I shouldnt be allowed to play, even when banned from the forum.

EA knows this. I know this. You know this. Every gamer alive knows this.

I suggest taking the forums down until EA is able to properly address this issue.

You can link too 500 different offensive posts I made for all I care. Suddenly trolling is worthy of being locked out of the game entirely? In what world does EA exist in? A dillusional world, thats what.

My problem is that I am unable to play the game itself. I could honestly give a shit less about being able to access the forums.

Again, I'll state the obvious.:

I DO NOT CARE ABOUT BEING BANNED FROM THE FORUM. WHAT I CARE ABOUT IS THAT I CANNOT ACCESS THE GAME ITSELF.

EA CLAIMED THIS WAS AN ERROR AND WOULD BE FIXED WHEN THE DRAGON AGE USER WAS BANNED.

8 MONTHS LATER AND IT IS NOT FIXED. FFS.

[TillEulenspiegel]

I really wonder if this is policy, or an individual moderator going a bit too far. Either way, it's terrible. But if EA is deliberately handing out game bans for anything that could be construed as a mildly naughty word, that's quite remarkable.

[psyk]

What was that it in response to? I'm thinking it's more for the whole sentance rather than the word badass.

[UDeadNowSucka]

It was a forum thread I had made where I summarized my thoughts about each european country. I made it in the off topic forum. I can assure you, "badass" was the only slightly offensive word in the entire thread. Nothing else even came close to being an offensive word or curse word. The thread was actually quite funny and comedic in nature. In no way was it created to offend others.

Not to mention, dont you think that if there was something more serious that I had said other than "badass", that the moderator would have banned me for that, instead of banning me for using the word badass?

But none of this has anything to do with the real issue at hand. Why did my forum ban effect whether or not I could access the game?

They should be seperate.

I did not cheat.
I did not aimbot.
I did not wallhack.
I did not abuse other players.

I have a perfectly clean Punkbuster history.

I did nothing in the game itself, that should prevent me from being able to play it.

[Taidan]

What was that it in response to? I'm thinking it's more for the whole sentence rather than the word badass.

The email clearly states "Violation:Inappropriate language", and a quote giving the "Inappropriate language" in question is also clearly given.

The only other word in that sentence that could count as offensive is "Switzerland", but the number of people who still use that as a curse-word these days is dwindling swiftly.

[psyk]

Inappropriate language can cover more than one word.

and a quote giving the "Inappropriate language" in question is also clearly given.

Nope that would look like this.

Hello ,
Your Electronic Arts account has been suspended for 72 hours for violating the Terms of Services for Electronic Arts Online.

Violation:Inappropriate language

[badass]

[Drake Sigar]

I really wonder if this is policy, or an individual moderator going a bit too far. Either way, it's terrible. But if EA is deliberately handing out game bans for anything that could be construed as a mildly naughty word, that's quite remarkable.

I don't think it's deliberate, they just seem to have a bad dual ban system in place which they aren't motivated to fix. When this first happened I thought we were going to get a scandal on a level not seen since Battlenet tried to end online anonymity.

[Heliocentric]

That's badass.

[UDeadNowSucka]

Even if I would have cursed the mothers of every EA forum moderator that ever existed on planet earth, it still doesn't change the fact that I did nothing in the game itself that should prevent me from playing it.

It's not like I aimbotted and now I'm here complaining about being banned.

[psyk]

You agreed to this when you installed the game/made a fourm account no use crying about it now.

OT - helio just clicked through to your wordpress and the latest peice is on "sword of the stars" is it any good? got it for free in a newsletter and haven't got around to it yet.

Also single of multiplayer?

[UDeadNowSucka]

No I didn't agree to it.

I didn't agree to be restricted from a product I paid for and have done nothing that should prevent me from playing it.

[Heliocentric]

Log out of the EA forums and stay logged out and it won't happen again.

[psyk]

Yes you did when you accepted the T&C you should really read it next time.

[UDeadNowSucka]

Because you read the entire T&C of every game you buy right?

I take it you also print it out and make backup copies for future reference?

Give me a break. Don't sit here and defend lame TOC's and poor business practice. I'm sure your smarter than that.

[Memph]

I'm pretty sure he ain't.

edit: ok that was pointed. but 'don't cry about it' is about as conducive to the discussion as posting a random lolcat.jpg.

RPS have been plenty vocal about the ridiculousness of this practice, so you're certainly not alone in viewing it as completely unfair, but sadly bar making the stupidity public and waiting 72 hours there's not much else you can do.

[metalangel]

No I didn't agree to it.

I didn't agree to be restricted from a product I paid for and have done nothing that should prevent me from playing it.

WHEN YOU USE ANY ONLINE GAME, SERVICE or WEBSITE FROM ELECTRONIC ARTS YOU ACKNOWLEDGE THAT YOU HAVE READ, UNDERSTOOD, AND AGREE TO BE BOUND BY THESE TERMS.

Section 10, Rules of Conduct

EA reserves the right to terminate your Account and to prevent your use of any and all EA Services if your Account is used to engage in illegal activity or to violate this Terms of Service.

While I agree they're being ridiculous, it is a case of their house, their rules, and you agreed to be bound be those rules. If you don't like it, your only course of action is to never buy an EA product again.

[psyk]

Lol

I wish more people did this, imagine xbox live with no angry racist shouty kids because they let fingers run, BLISS, and the added bonus of an increased amount of rage/I'm sorry/suck up posts for the xbox live suspension board.

[Taidan]

Inappropriate language can cover more than one word.



Nope that would look like this.

No, because then they'd be giving a single word out of context. Some inappropriate language can be entirely appropriate when used on it's own.

Since there's clearly nothing inappropriate in the quoted sentence, we can put this down to another case of an EA forum mod screwing up, and EA's stupid policy of "forum ban equals game ban" exacerbating the problem

I can only assume that your defence of this undefendable situation and your "quit crying" language is an obvious attempt at trolling. So quit crying about this person's quite reasonable outrage at their unfair behaviour.

[TillEulenspiegel]

If you don't like it, your only course of action is to never buy an EA product again.

Given that nobody could possibly "like" EA's recent behavior, that seems the only sensible decision.

[Drake Sigar]

The way I see it you have three choices:

1. Create a new account and re-buy all your games every time you get banned.

2. Stop buying EA games.

3. Stop using EA forums.

The third option is the most hassle-free and allows you to play all those EA games few can seem to live without.