Show me the paper.

A Bioware community forums user by the name of v_ware was suspended yesterday for posting comments critical of EA, owners of Bioware. The comment in question was “Have you sold your souls to the EA devil?”. This little outburst not only earned him a 72 hour suspension from the Bioware Community Forums, but also prevented him from playing all Bioware-EA games that require online authorization. This means he won’t be able to play Dragon Age 2 for another 2 days, preventing him from enjoying the game at launch.

This situation raises many questions, some of which a Bioware forum moderator attempts to clear up in the thread. V_ware’s ban apparently comes from the EA Community department, which is completely separate from and higher up in the chain of command than the Bioware community staff. This carries some serious Big Brother connotations with it, and also asks, does v_ware have any kind of right to play the game he paid for at the same time as everyone else?

Legally speaking, EA is entirely in the right. We’re all learning these days that most video games are sold under EULA meaning that you are paying to use a game for as long as the owner (in this case EA) allows. This sets a major precedent, however, because if EA can take away v_ware’s game, they can also take away anyone else’s game, if they publicly disagree with EA. Some kind of legislation needs to be brought into place that insures someone’s right to play a video game that they have paid for. I understand that v_ware appears to be a European user, but his case still appears to be a violation of the First Amendment, in most interpretations of the law, as he is being deprived of a product or service that he has rightfully paid for solely on his (some would say) political beliefs.

EA is gonna need to save some serious face on this one.