Good news for you gaming criminals: If you've been banned from EA's Origin service, changes in the company's online policy may allow you to come in from the cold. EA has altered Origin's terms of service so users who are banned or suspended can still access their single player content.
"If you find yourself with a disabled account," reads a statement on EA's site. "Please note that you can still play EA games in single-player mode. For PC games you will need to enable Origin's offline mode to play games with a disabled account. Go to the settings tab in Origin (the gear icon) and select Go Offline."
There's a process for getting re-instated. Here's a link to EA's page.
While I support EA banning people from Origin for in-game misdeeds -- hacking, abuse, etc -- it did seem kind of strange to ban people from single-player content because they couldn't get along with others or "follow the rules."
Generally, I find game service "moderation" to be very lax, across the board. "Policing" online spaces is difficult, and keeping people from accessing a service prevents the parent company from collecting money from them, so there's a built in incentive to having as many members as possible.
Origin also was reportedly banning people from playing online for inappropriate actions on their message board, which seems a bit crazy, especially when they can't access their single player material. If all you did was use an injudicious curse word on a forum, you really should still be able to play online, especially since you bought the game. I, for one, would be pretty p*ssed if I couldn't play a game I bought and wasn't offered a refund.
Source: EA
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