EA Not Banning Game Access for Forum Hijinks

Update: EA community manager eaapoc, the bloke who started this whole affair, has acknowledged that his initial threat was "inaccurate and a mistake on my part."

"If we suspend or ban you from the forums, that does not affect your in-game account and certainly it does not impact your in-game account for other games," reads a new post. "I had a misunderstanding with regards to our new upcoming forums and website and never meant to infer that if we ban or suspend you on the forums, you would be banned in-game as well. This is not correct, my mistake, my bad."

Original Story: A forum moderator's threat that gamers could be banned from playing all of their EA-published games, such as Spore and C&C: Red Alert 3, for improper forum behavior was the result of a "misunderstanding," Electronic Arts tells Shacknews.

Explained Electronic Arts:

Posting in EA Forums is enabled by an EA Nucleus account -- but access to the forums and access to the games are separate. Players who have been banned from EA Forums are not automatically banned from online access to their other EA games. Players can be banned if they breach the Terms of Service or Code of Conduct in a forum, game or service. Each forum, game and service is managed independently by customer support representatives responsible for that specific forum, game or service.

A similar threat emerged earlier this year, after a Spore moderator threatened to ban users from the game if they discussed the title's controversial DRM on its official forums. EA quickly responded, explaining that post was made by an "over-zealous community volunteer" and was "absolutely not true or in-line with EA's moderation policy."