EA Fails to Clarify Murky Ban Policy

This is representative of a greater problem, too: Why ban?

We often forget to examine judicial practices in society; what our laws are, how they are enforced, and what they are intended to do. Failing to do so causes problems as people get hung up on 'it's wrong because it's illegal; it's illegal because it's wrong' kind of circular logic.

And important societal question becomes relevant here: What is punishment intended to do?

There are two camps: revenge and reformation. The former punishes wrong doers in retaliation because they did wrong. The latter punishes people in hopes that they can help the wrong doers become (societally) good. Unsurprisingly, the former group is interested in visceral punishment, like harsh prisons, corporal punishment and capital punishment. The latter group prefers things like prison labor, therapy and social integration. Neither group is entirely right, but they do have very opposing points of view.

So back to gaming -- why do we ban? What do we hope to accomplish? Permabanning someone from a game is pretty harsh, especially when you're preventing them from solo/offline content as well as social/online content. This isn't stopping people from trying to cheat or mouthing off in chat, and it is hurting some legitimate players who are banned by overzealous moderators. Isn't there a better solution?

My thoughts are, if Origin wants to tie in message boards with the game accounts, why not separate words and actions? If someone is banned from the message boards, or banned for being inappropriate in an ingame chat, muzzle them. The muzzled player can't use the VO functions, and enter text messages of any kind, but they can use prewritten text and dialog built in to the game. (And perhaps a second-level muzzling if they abuse that somehow, like spamming.)

Likewise, cheaters would be banned from playing games, but not communicating or watching. (A second-level banning may rule out spectation, in case of some sort of exploit.)

This could all be merged in to a three-strikes style system where players could see their status easily whenever they were logged in. Each strike would be a ticket against the player by a moderator, all of which could be appealed from this 'community-status' area. This way, no one is banned unfairly or unjustly, and loudmouths aren't punished beyond the scope of their 'misdeed'.

This ended up more rambly than intended. It's an idea, anyhow.

Worst business model ever have local Forum Nazi's control your business.

Anyone remember CMGSCCC, Codebreak now known as Codetwink? (Seriously they changed their name to a name meant to describe skinny gay males which the term Twink came from to insult overpowered users)

You are not buying the game, but a license with which you are allowed to play the game with. This privilege can be revoked at any time and for any reason by the provider. This service is provided for with a cheap and affordable price, with plenty of extras excluded, and more being worked on with each passing day for you to purchase also. If you do not purchase these extras you may find it a problem to connect with others, while if you do purchase them, you may find it a problem to connect with others. We feel that this is the best business model for both the producer and not customers of the game.

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