Simjenn permabanned from EA’s Banana Republic

For those that have not yet heard, Simjenn – as completely inoffensive an individual as ever posted on the EA Forum – has been permabanned for appealing against her suspension for posting up, wait for it, a dancing banana.

Needless to say, people are pretty pissed off about this – a new low in EA’s petty-mindedness.

You don’t need to tell us that the EA Forum’s turned into a tower of steaming $hit lately aggrivating all too many decent, polite, sociable people: ignoring the boorish behaviour of those with nothing better to do with their time but ‘grief’ and troll, whilst indulging in the worst chicken-shitting of any deskbound tinpot tyrant by kicking out at those committing ‘infractions’ according to unwritten rules, ban-hammering anyone who cries foul about it, and having SimGurus spouting weasel-words of sympathy about such bans that come to zero whilst solely interested in trying to get board users back into a ‘buying mood’.

The end result has been their board’s emptied to the point its active posters in a day are less than some independent forums. How many more will permabanning Simjenn prove to be the ‘final straw’ for some? Who knows? But it’s a situation that should never have arisen in the first place.

But there’s no use complaining to EA about it – as has been demonstrated, Simjenn appealed against her 3 day ban and was handed a permaban for her trouble.

What you can do is make EA’s The Sims3 website employees pay for it another way.

Don’t Get Mad – Get Even

Don’t bother writing to the company – the sort of shit Jarsie9 spouts showing she’s no idea how to deal with The Man. That’s what they want – you moaning in private to them – where you’ll be ignored, feel dejected about it, and do nothing.

Do it in public.

We don’t mean by doing anything silly on their forum board – that’ll give them the excuse to gag another critic with a permaban and cutting you off from friends not on the indie forum or blog circuits.

Post it on other Simmer forum boards to warn other Simmers about what to expect from the current EA Forum runners should they chose to post on it (ones you are already members of – don’t go joining forums simply to post the news of Simjenn’s ban up, their owners will quite rightly not thank you for that!). Forewarned is forearmed – and what better reason to stay put on their independent boards where they don’t have to suffer any such arbeitrary nonsense from desk jockeys having a bad day in their cubicle.

Better still, write to your country’s high street stocked computer magazines (using your Simmer alias if you want) and tell them what happened – keeping it short and concise, and asking is this EA’s idea of good customer relations.

The one thing all big corporations fear is bad press – the marketing gurus and hideously overpaid PR advisors warn them constantly that bad press puts people out of a ‘buying mood’.

But especially bad press banged up in the national media (about to enter the ‘silly season’ when they’re desperate for any stories at all) about how they treat customers, just as the summer/winter holidays are approaching across the world and people from kids to adults are thinking about buying something to do during all that free time they’re gonna have.

With the global financial meltdown – everyone’s a lot less devil-may-care about the pennies in their pocket, less tolerant of spending money on products by corporations that treat their customers like dirt. So many games are released with bugs and glitches, you want to know they see customers as more than milch cows. A company whose employees petty-mindedly permabans someone from their website for a dancing banana smiley hardly sounds like that, does it?

EA’s currently not exactly popular with investors – the report of them turning a net profit of $30 million over the last quarter was greeted by their shares dropping 4% on the US Stock Market in after-hours trading – in short the money-men greeted it with ‘big-deal!’. If EA’s finances are to turn around, they are heavily dependent on the world Simmers community showing they’re still a name to conjour via sales of the projected add-ons to the Sims 3 series such as Ambitions.

The Sims series is their biggest success, and unlike the shoot-em-ups and sports titles that have to compete against competitors superior brands, it enjoys a unique niche. But they would be foolish to think that means they can take their loyalty for granted.

Time they got themselves a little public reminder.

Take the fight to EA, sure – but as any good general throughout history knows, you need to be the one chosing the battleground that suits you, not them. Give them some publicity they’d rather not have and see how they like those plumbobs.