If we are suspicious of people who give away Sims Store items and call that a waste of money, wouldn't it make just as much sense to be suspicious of modders that give away their creations for free, instead of charging like TSR does? Or people who spend tons of time modding, instead of volunteering at homeless shelters, food banks, animal shelters and other charities?

I am NOT trying to offend any modders when I say this! I greatly appreciate all of the work that goes into the creations that you make and I appreciate the sites that host their works! I do my best to support them in the ways that I can. I am just pointing out that time and money are both things that can be spent in similar ways and that it is inconsistent to hold one to a different standard than the other.

It does make sense if you consider time and money to be the very same thing. Modding is a recreational thing for me. I do it first and foremost for me. I wouldn't spoil it with charging money for it even if I had the chance to do so.

I think folks are getting a bit, erm, aggressive/defensive - of course you can spend your money on whatever you want. If you want to gold plate your asscheeks, that's your business. And it's pretty normal to spend money on small entertainment stuff like computer games. But ya gotta admit, it is a little unusual to spend large amounts of money (hundreds or thousands) on computer game items for other people you may not actually know at all.

For the teens?

Well, when you give money away to some charity it's not like you know personally each and everyone one of the people benefitting from your donations.

I believe that a corporation has the right to exist on its own terms in accordance with the prevailing law of the land. Everyone that buys and registers an EA game agrees to that same philosophy by proxy (or in fact). So buck~up kids. It's in da' rules.

Yes and that is why it´s going to be interesting to see what rule was broken.

Well this is...interesting. I just skimmed the thread so this may have already been said but EA is not only not required to give cause for banning people, per their Terms of Service but it would actually be pretty damn stupid for them to post a cause until after a thorough investigation has been completed. The legal issues they would open themselves up to if they posted their cause with no hard proof to back up their claims would hurt and maybe even destroy their business.

And I know this has been said but to reiterate the point, you are not covered under free speech when posting something on an internet forum. The owners/administrators/moderators get to decide what is allowed to be posted there. If they don't want you badmouthing their brand all over their forum they are entitled to delete the posts.

It looks that simple and nice on paper (or on a computer screen here) but once my money, no matter how much, is involved, you better give me a better reason than "unknown" to justify you doings.



Maybe they should try 4chan...

Second Life & WoW..just to name a couple of games..also games with massive players and virtual goods, also games that have banned over virtual goods. This is not an uncommon practice. Apparently EAxis thought something was suspicious and acted on it. In most cases people who are banned have it lifted if the company finds no "foul play", maybe the case here I don't know. I agree some sort of communication should have been sent, this may have prevented this thread in the first place. But companies don't have to give reasons unfortunately. I don't know these people in RL and unless someone here does then no we really don't know what was going on, but it was something enough to cause alarm on EAxis part. I'm not defending anyone's case here but I agree with others that FB boycott won't make a difference. "The Sims 3, has helped EA rack up a massive $644 million in sales for its fiscal first quarter of 2010, with over 3.7 million copies of the game shipping out worldwide."- I doubt this many people will even go to the FB page, much less EA. I do hope this turns out well as most people here are commenting how nice these people are.

Now alot of the gifters are getting banned. Some have not gifted as much as Alexis or Kerby, but they still have made a numerous amount of gifts, and now they're getting banned.

Also, to people who are saying that Alexis and Kerby shoud be donating to charities and helping the homeless, how do you know they don't? Maybe they volunteer at the soup kitchen every sunday? You don't even know them, so who are you to talk about how people live their lives?

Plus, if you get banned, you know that you no longer have access to your purchased store items and the games you Digitally Downloaded from EA? That's robbery right there. And in EA's TOS, it states that they have the right to ban you without prior telling you. Alexis and Kerby got banned for "unknown reasons" and when they try to contact them, they get the generic response, so they'll never get to know why they got banned.

When I said I would be suspicious of someone who spent large amounts of money on simpoints to give away, I didn't mean I would suspect and convict! I meant I would be suspicious and investigate. It's out of order for EA to humiliate customers who might be perfectly honest by publicly banning them without explanation before investigating properly. At least they could have made it a discrete temporary suspension, done politely and with an explanation to the customers concerned about a request for some more information.

Considering how some of the most prolific Exchange accounts do nothing but re-upload Sims and lots created by other people on other sites, hearing this makes me sad. I hope the accounts you gifted were creators and not thieves.

Why I am not participating in an EA Boycott:
1) Insufficient information. Not only do I not know why they banned these people, I don't know how these people acquired the points they are gifting. I don't read the EA forums, so I don't know how they behaved there. If post #58 in this thread is the Alex of Kerby & Alex fame, I am not impressed with how you behave here.
2) I already don't participate in the EA forums. I don't buy simpoints or store goods. (And this thread doesn't make me any more likely to. Give me hard media, EA, and you can have my money. Otherwise, I'll make do with the freebies.)

Are you listening to me, EA? PUT YOUR CRAP ON DISK AND I'LL BUY IT.

Oh, Gawd.... another grammar Nazi... they're like thorns up my ass.



Grammar Nazi: noun. A narcissist who likes to tear down others to make themselves feel bigger.

So did it work yet?

Seriously, be nice, dammit!

Be kind, courteous, and respectful toward everyone here - whether you agree with them or not. Please do not snark, insult, talk down to, belittle, or namecall.

If I have to step in repeatedly on the same discussion, it tends to make me a little testy toward those who continue to make my big purple text necessary. Please take heed of these warnings - or you may be asked to leave this thread.

edit: nevermind. I just read Ivanna's post, and I don't believe Alex did anything wrong, she is just a wonderful and charitable person. Period.

edit: sorry HP. Grammar Nazis get on my nerves...

My excuse for the grammar mistakes is that english is not my mother language since people are responding to my text it is understanable... ..uderstah..understandable? * Opens dictionary.....*

First, let me say that I am very grateful for all the creators on this site for every thing you guys do. You have saved my game from the "dreaded Blue Lots" as well as provided me with hours of additional entertainment with the free downloaded content. I have more CC from this site and a few others than I do from the EA store site. Unfortunately, it does slow my system down, But, I love it and therefore am willing to suffer through the slow down. Especially, since I cannot work do to several different reasons. I literally have no income. My Boyfriend has only been able to find work part-time in the fast food industry. He's been there for a year and they still won't give him full-time hours. Instead they hire more part-time high school kids. We are trying to support ourselves and our 3 year-old daughter. I cannot get on SS disability because I have no medical insurance and therefore no doctor will see me in order to give me the disability rating needed to apply for S.S. Disability. Oh, and so no one can say it. There are no free clinics in my area. We have 3 that work on what they call a "sliding scale", but none are accepting new patients. There are alot of people on the Gift Gathering thread in similar situations. One, who suffers from brain cancer and after having 6 , I repeat 6, tumors removed, stuggles with spelling and is given a huge amount of grief because she can't spell on every other forum she has ever tried to post on, and she has been accepted without question on the gifting forum. That is why alot of us are there. Alex and Kerby and the others that do the largest amounts of gifting to us, do so for no other reason than it gives them and us, the recipients a little bit of pleasure and brightness in our otherwise dark days. Alex in post #58 is "the Alex" of Alex and Kerby. She is a very kind and generous person. She doesn't ask for anything in return. The girl I mentioned earlier with brain cancer, told alot of us that Alex donated $2000 to the American Cancer Society in Sara's name. without any reasons just cause. That is the kind of person Alex is. Now I'm probably in trouble with alex for telling, but I just wanted the people here who seem so suspicious of her to know a little bit more about her. Kerby and the others are the same type of people.
They genuinely enjoy bring a little joy to those less fortunate. Please forgive Alex if she sounded a bit defensive. She's been having to defend herself and her reputation ever since this whole mess started. I too am generally a very sinnical )sorry if MY spelling stinks) person but these people have restored some of my faith in humanity and EA has come in an taken it back away again. I know alot of you think the "boycott" is like, pardon the language, but, like pissing in the wind, but if you consider the fact that game and the forum has users worldwide and everyone tells someone else it could possibly make more of a dent in EA's pockets than one might think. I mean, Isn't there enough other reason's for someone to join the boycott, even if you don't know or care that they have destroyed the community feeling in the forum. How about releasing shoddy games that require numerous patches and still don't function, or even bad or shoddy work even on other platforms. I mean, my boyfriend constantly complains about their sports games being horrible and unrealistic like the football game calling plays that no coach would ever call in real life at that point in the game. Their business practices are the worst I have ever experienced and I was in retail management and customer service for over 20 years. If enough people quit buying anything with the EA logo on it it would have an effect on EA's bottom line. That is the only way to get them to notice they have some serious problems that need to be addresssed. That and alot of people from the boycott page are also posting to the google financials for EA stockholders. Ok, I'll get off my soapbox and let you all go back to your entertainment choices.

This!

No matter how much you back up the files, if you don't have the information on your store account, it will not successfully install. Those purchases are not yours, you are renting them.

Being on disability, I cannot and will not make virtual purchases for a game. That is ludicrous. I do help people, my family and friends, if there is a need, I have it then they will have it. I guess applauding someone for buying or uh... paying rent for someone else virtual game kind of eludes me. I don't see the sainthood in that kind of thing. So yeah, I find it suspect.

Bragging about the ability to afford wasting money to "gift" children and teens on a forum for popularity doesn't do anything to alter my suspicions. I think it's sad to see the simmers begging for someone of you "special" gifters to send something their way. On my Sims 3 forum page, there is not wishlist and I close it so there is no misunderstandings. I don't want gifts. I can get mine in my own way.

EA banning for gifting is silly, I figure it is a way of getting someone to pay for those who cannot buy from the store. Same amount spent if the gifted person had bought it. I still say, there had to be something else that caused alarm on the forum.

excuse me but i have the games installed on 2 computers...mine which has internet and my kids which does not have internet...and i have put my downloaded store items on her computer...(with a disk)

and that computer has never had internet access....

So what happened? All the items bought from store just disapeared from the game? Sorry for stupid question :D....but im just wondering.

Simittaret: I got the impression that Store-bought stuff would continue to work fine in the game, but if for example you had to reinstall or your computer crashed you wouldn't be able to use them anymore, even if you had a backup copy on a disk or something. But then someone said that that's not true. I have no idea. I don't use the Store anyway, and I only have the Sims 2.

No way that EA would've banned people unless they had some pretty strong suspicions or complaints about them. Big successful businesses don't just randomly ban people who spend loads of money, you know. They must have their reasons, and hopefully after they've investigated it more closely they'll be willing to tell people what they were. Yes, it sucks that you can't access all the stuff that you bought if you get banned, but EA does mention it before you sign up, and it's in their Terms and Conditions, whichanybody who signs up on there must've agreed to. Yes, it is annoying that they haven't given an explanation, even a " we are investigating a complaint" would be a start, but they're not obliged to tell people anything, and again they make you aware of that in their Terms and Conditions. Yes, PRwise they're not handling it well, but the amount of money it may lose them is neglible, boycott or no boycott.

SUSPICIOUS! Who the heck wastes [QUOTE:] "thousands of dollars" on SimPoints? Very suspicious, probably hackers trying to get popular and well-liked... IMHO, anyway. I would ban them to further investigate because that's suspicious. Totally NOT normal to spend so much for random strangers online who can very well afford their own stuff!

I am technically challenged, so the words escape me. Before WA came out, those who got the store items by other means than purchasing them, had no problem installing the Sims3Pack in the game. After WA, that patch update changed the way legal purchased and illegal obtained packages were read for installing. (Maybe someone with more technical terms can help)

Some that lost the forum accounts, maybe through banning, could not install their backed up files. If the Sims3Pack was not on the account purchase history page, installation failed. I don't know how that would work on computers that don't have internet, but I know that EA have the right to pull your purchases from you. You are in affect, just renting the virtual clothing, furnishings and build items.

I am using the "renting" term from the court settlement on selling your previous purchased games is illegal.

I'm tired of all the accusations... To reply to Lavaster : I seriously doubt that, if these people would have hacked to get simpoints, they would advertise this everywhere on the sims 3 forums... They both had threads asking people to post their wishlist so they could gift them. So I ask you : why would a person who has just hacked or used a code generator or even stolen cash cards advertise this ? That person would have to be incredibly dumb... Plus I doubt it is even possible to generate codes for cash cards as it would trigger some sort of flag... Gaming companies usually keep track of the codes that are generated and sold... And also, these two people have been gifting for months, if it's not a year now... So if they would have stolen anything, wouldn't EA have banned them a long time ago ???