They don't? What about activation?

Dragon Age 2 does. Mass Effect 2 doesn't, Dragon Age: Origins doesn't.

I did nothing of the sort. Read what I said again.

1) He's can play his games offline, some may require work arounds which he would know about given where he spends his time online.

2) Insulting an EA Rep or acting like a dick on EA forums can get you suspended from your EA account.

Isn't DA2 specifically the one he's unable to activate and play? I don't know whether his "Bioware Signature Edition" comes from their DD service or a brick and mortar, but with activation it's fairly irrelevant. I know he's only suspended for 72 hours, but the fact remains, if this was a permanent ban, or became such, it would still ban him from his games.

I get that we "all agreed" (despite the fact that agreement isn't even close to the only legal principal considered when deciding whether an action is valid), but there's an implicit agreement of sales that is being ignored in these cases. It is basically, "if you say you're selling me shit, and I paid for it, you sold me shit."

That means, even if it's a DD, if it looks like a sale, it is a sale. I expect that one day, someone is going to get their asses handed to them in court over something like this. No amount of corruption and lobbying will stop it forever.

Well his main complaint and the one picked up by the media is that EA have locked him out of all his games, offline and online. It's true that a lot of EA games ask you to log into their servers when you start a game to record achievements and also to register DLC however it's not required. Which is why I smell a little BS around this guy's story. Bottom line is if you have a late game save in DA:O or ME2 that uses DLC then he won't be able to play those saves, he will have to start a new one. Annoying but hardly banning him from all his games.

Okay I see your point, I don't necessarily agree, but I think you're more inclined by the fact that you smell BS and I'm more inclined to believe EA is actually this "douchey". I think the fact that the moderator came off as a tool really rubbed me the wrong way.

I deal with unpleasant people from time to time (who are sometimes downright mean, and even verbally inappropriate), overreacting is never the right response and defending a poor response on one's part even bothers me more. I think there's a correct way to say "we don't want you as a customer anymore" and the right thing to do is for DD services to have a way to do this.

I fully agree with you there and I think amazingly the only DD to get this right so far is Stardock who have an attitude "Give him his money back then ban him". If someone is acting like a douche then no one has to take that and certainly not any service they should be able to get rid. Trouble is we have never been in this situation before where games are linked to online accounts.

For want of a better word there is a lack of accountability. We have seen ourselves here people who act like such pricks you just know they can't be like that in real life, they are just being the internet tough guy. Similarly DD's don't have a manager you can call to report the lousy counter assistant. Oh you can put in the e-mail to the complaints department but we all know it gets filed in the recycle bin.

What you have here is a potentially explosive situation where a company has literally no accountability, combined with customers who don't believe they are dealing with human beings. Chances are EA didn't fully understand that suspending his account would also suspend his EA store games. We can only read between the lines here but BioWare don't ban accounts just forum posting, it's somewere higher up that order to ban has come from and that's had a knock on effect. I am in no way saying what EA did was right, it's bloody horrible that they can do this, remember my Steam account was once banned for about a month and it wasn't nice. I just find it funny people are taking this guy at his word all he said was something about "selling their souls to EA", in my experience it takes a LOT worse than that to be suspended.

Except on the Relic forums of course, now they are real facists.

Actually I do not see the issue here at all. If you want to play in their pond abide by the rules. The only thing I use my Bioware / EA account for is activation and DLC - I will never participate in their community as I like it here. He needs to make another account or wait out his suspension and then do his insulting elsewhere. Just my 2 cents.

The clusterfuck release of DA2: Copypasta Edition just keeps getting better and better, uh ? Entertainers everywhere should sit down and take notes, because this is high value entertainment. I wish there was a release like this one every other day, i could easily give up on cable and save myself some serious coin.

I blame this whole mess on the taller than humans dark silver Irish speaking pro-ana na'vi rejects posing as elves in DA2 because they were too damn fugly and not nearly blue enough to get a gig in Avatar.

I for the most part agree with Delixe. But besides that, the whole banning from playing his games might just be a limitation of the EA account system, that EA can't be bothered to fix. One that whoever suspended him didn't know about. It could be.

But in the end we don't really know enough.

Also: Any particular forums you are thinking about, Delixe? (Just curious. Calling anyone fascist makes me wonder what prompted that.)

I have to admit I am enjoying these events and am ruing the fact I didn't buy any popcorn.

Oh and the Elves have Irish, Welsh, Scottish and Northen Irish accents. I liked that everyone was fighting over what type of accent it was when they were in fact all correct. Merrill is voiced by Eve Myles who is most definetly Welsh and is famous for the Doctor Who spin off Torchwood, flmed in Wales ;)

You win my "statement of the day" award.

Heh, just an in-joke about the mods on Relic's forums. The moderators have a habbit of closing down threads like lightning with QAQATL and woe for you if you start talking off-topic ;)

Pitty you aren't closer, i'd galdly share the popcorn ;)

After seing the elves there's just one valid conclusion to reach, Bioware peeps spent most of the budget on pot and i freaking want the name of their dealer.

I watched a few episodes of that Torchwood thing, does it ever pick up in the "interesting" department? I couldn't figure out what kind of a show I was in for if I watched it.

The Brit show I love the most is still Primeval. I wait for the next season with bated breath and am glad you folks have a decent way to "un-cancel" shows that are actually good without waiting 5-6 years to have someone else try it a second time (e.g. Futurama).

EDIT: There I go, derailing a thread again:)