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EA responds to forum and Origin game bans
EA has proven that it’s not afraid to bring the banhammer down on Origin users who defy their Terms of Service. In March, a user on the Dragon Age 2 forums was banned for breaking the forum’s rules, only to find out he’d been prohibited from using his purchased copy of the game as well. Though EA reinstated his Origin access and chalked it up to a system error, Rock, Paper, Shotgun reported that it was not an isolated incident.
EA has never explicitly said that handing out Origin bans alongside forum bans is something that they do. Finally EA responded to Rock, Paper, Shotgun and according to EA Corporate Communications’ John Reseburg: "when someone violates our Terms of Service, we are forced to take actions that can include suspensions and other measures." That’s not a clear confirmation of the policy, though Reseburg later added, "We have listened to our customers and are planning a policy update which will include more equitable rules on suspensions – we want to make sure the time fits the crime."
We understand that EA wants to keep their forum clean (no flame wars etc.) but if that comes at the cost of preventing legitimate purchasers of EA’s products from accessing said games, those purchasers deserve to know about it ahead of time. As it stands now, Reseburg simply suggests, "any user with a question about suspensions or our policies to please contact us at (866) 543-5435 so we can address their specific situation."
Now imagine if Steam would do that…man.
TL;DR: EA banned (and still does) users from Origin and blocks their games if they talk shit on EA’s official forums.
Source: Joystiq
Steam got hacked pretty bad
Here’s the official statement in plain text:
Dear Steam Users and Steam Forum Users:
Our Steam forums were defaced on the evening of Sunday, November 6. We began investigating and found that the intrusion goes beyond the Steam forums.
We learned that intruders obtained access to a Steam database in addition to the forums. This database contained information including user names, hashed and salted passwords, game purchases, email addresses, billing addresses and encrypted credit card information. We do not have evidence that encrypted credit card numbers or personally identifying information were taken by the intruders, or that the protection on credit card numbers or passwords was cracked. We are still investigating.
We don’t have evidence of credit card misuse at this time. Nonetheless you should watch your credit card activity and statements closely.
While we only know of a few forum accounts that have been compromised, all forum users will be required to change their passwords the next time they login. If you have used your Steam forum password on other accounts you should change those passwords as well.
We do not know of any compromised Steam accounts, so we are not planning to force a change of Steam account passwords (which are separate from forum passwords). However, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to change that as well, especially if it is the same as your Steam forum account password.
We will reopen the forums as soon as we can.
I am truly sorry this happened, and I apologize for the inconvenience.
Gabe.
Also I just cancelled my credit card associated with my Steam account and changed my password, Sony gave away free games after their hackings. Is Valve going to do this?
Valve’s official statement (just popped up on Steam):
Steam account sells for $1,000 on eBay
An unknown Steam account holder managed to resell used Steam games – 139 of them, for $1,000.
Seller with a nickname dave311freak estimated his collection’s value at $2,700 and said he wanted at least $500 for the collection. The collection includes Grand Theft Auto IV, Modern Warfare 1 and 2, and Borderlands. He ended up getting double of what he wanted in the first place.
This account has absolutely no bans on any of the games, is in good standing with VAC, and any one of the games can be downloaded at any time on any computer with Steam on it.
I will change all of the information in that account to the winner’s email address and issue a password to the winner that he or she can change once they log in. I will also provide user account information for games that require additional credentials (Dragon Age for the DLC, Company of Heroes Account info, etc…).
Why is dave311freak ditching his Steam account (which is against the Steam Subscriber Agreement by the way)?
As you can probably tell, I spend way too much time buying and playing video games and I am going to try to spend more time with my family and doing other hobbies.
What do you think? How much is your Steam account worth? :-)
Join the forum discussion on this post
Steam: New beta available
New Steam beta showed up today. The beta introduces several fixes and I guess those are worth checking out:
- Added contact email account verification by request and on new account creation
- Improved account security with verified contact email to prevent phishing
- Added mod support for Killing Floor
- Fixed memory leak
Now you can verify your e-mail address:
And after that you are verified:
Why is this so important? Right now if someone steals your account (or simply logs in from another location) they cannot change your password until they click a verification link on your verified e-mail account.
Pretty nice, right now hijacking is almost impossible. Almost because when some idiots have their Steam password and e-mail password the same (or have a keylogger) their account can still be stolen.
Now Valve needs to think about how to stop getting people VAC banned if the person who logs in from other location (the hijacker) manages to start a Valve (or VAC) game with a cheat.
+1 for Valve.
Latest on Tue, 06:43 pm
: Midweek Madness Skyrim 33% off http://cdn.store.steampowered.com/message/1028181507618443955/
: fallout 3 goty just received a price drop to 20€; also fo:nv ultimate edition (includes all dlc and preorder bonuses) just released
: 
: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2521400
: http://login.ign.com/prime/promos/rochard/?display=notAuth
: new indie gala bundle later this week at www.indiegala.com/
: money money money
: can anyone explain what's the friggin' deal with Age of Empires III, a 5 years old game being sold as new @40$/€ on almost every DD platform?
: Facebook is archiving the old Facebook group of ours, here's new one https://www.facebook.com/pages/SteamUnpoweredeu/260963810615450?v=wall
: 
: Checkout Crytek's GFACE, a new social platform for gaming http://www.gface.com/closed-beta
: 
: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Jnk8n3WrXU
: new humble bundle live
: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMWW92UhpZs&feature=player_embedded
: 
: http://www.tumblr.com/photo/1280/epic4chan/15893009078/1/tumblr_lxkmq8V94p1r9t8yb
: http://www.avaaz.org/en/eu_save_the_internet/?tta
: http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/oxzje/official_steam_app_for_android_and_ios/c3l34d2
: there's still hope, first ratification of ACTA in polish parliament and even if it passes european parliament has to vote on it then
: yep, another protest today in Warsaw, and next one during National Stadium opening on Sunday
: So PL actually did sign ACTA? :( Is it right that those guy said sth like "i'll not be extorted by those inhabitants"? o.O
: the next indie royale bundle is live (serious sam indie bundle)
: 
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