EA Bans Spore Creature Because It Is “Not A Penis”

Give a man a fish and you’ll feed him for a day. Teach a man how to use Creature Creator and he’ll be flagged for violating the Electronic Arts Inc Terms of Service. We all know the story; Spore Creature Creator is released and sophomoric minded gamers the world over began creating phallic and questionable organisms and unleash them on the internet and youtube. Gamers are enthused with the amazingly flexible character generator and the videos, animated icons, and screenshots take over every facet of the internet, from gaming websites, blogs, to even social networking sites like myspace and facebook. EA catches wind of the situation, a smelly, stinky, sweaty wind, and starts banning user profiles and sending out little e-mails letting you know that you were bad.

Bad, humans, bad!

Ok, so we’ve all got that part, and really, as much as it sucks that we were lead to believe we would have creative freedoms with Spore most of us have the common sense to know that if you ruffle enough feathers, claws, or whatever you put on your creature, someone is going to step in take everyone down, even those who don’t deserve it.

Am I one of those folks? 

When I first went on to the Spore Creature Creator, the first thing I noticed was that there way too many penile, anal, and breast-tacular creatures. I wanted to make things that looked new and cool, and see people being creative, and instead I saw a flood of goofy sex creatures that stopped being funny about 5 million creatures ago.

I created 2 creatures, and for my 2nd creature I tagged it with the words “not a penis”, just tired of the whole corny sex creature thing. Little did I know that specifying that my character was not sexually explicit would instead flag me for banning with the following email from EA:

Hello,

Your Electronic Arts account has been flagged for violating the Electronic Arts Inc Terms of Service. We believe that the violation or behavior is serious enough to bring to your attention as it may impact your future access to the service.

< Violation type: Nudity>
Name: Spaztis
Tags: not a penis

Understanding the EA Terms of Service is extremely important, should you have any general questions or concerns please review the Terms of Service here: http://legal.ea.com/legal/legal.jsp?language=en. Should you then need additional assistance, or wish to appeal a violation, you can contact us here: http://support.ea.com/cgi-bin/ea.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=17.

Sincerely,
Customer Support
Electronic Arts, Inc.

EA.com Customer Relations

So I went to terms of service and looked for what I could have done wrong, really, even though they say Nudity is to blame. I failed to see how my weird mantis looking guy was nude by human standards and realize that, technically, any creature that isn’t wearing clothing could be banned for being nude. What is nudity? Tagging my creature as “not a penis” meant he was nude? Who is checking these things? Did I really write anything that explicit or crude?

Come on, look at this guy!

The TOS from EA says:

“Strong vulgar language, crude or explicit sexual references, discussions of illegal drugs, and hate speech are always inappropriate Content for EA Online. Content standards may vary depending on where you are on EA Online, the type of game you are playing and the expectations of the community. Some game play and chat rooms may involve use of stronger language than others, including mild expletives.  Always use your best judgment in online conduct. If you would not say something in a room full of people you have never met, or in the workplace, don’t post it on our message boards or chat.”

Well, you’ve already read this far and have seen me type the phrase “not a penis” a few times, so if etiquette is going to be up to the users judgment that is going to be a tough one to nail on me. I didn’t use any crude or explicit sexual references and anything and everything else to list does not apply to me, so I guess I have to appeal my violation now, but I just don’t understand why they give you the capability to create something they can ban you for.

Were they so naive that they didn’t think they would be opening Pandora’s box by giving a user so much creative freedom? People went out of their way and found dead code in Grand Theft Auto, hacked and modded it, and unleashed Hot Coffee upon the world, and they didn’t think that a super flexible character generator wasn’t going get to a similar point?

I will be very interested in where EA goes from here with Spore. How is this game going to work being censored while depending so much on user generated content? This is going to be real interesting.

http://gamesblog.ugo.com/index.php/gamesblog/more/ea_bans_spore_creature_because_it_is_not_a_penis/

LOL EA sucks. They have most likely a cheap filter on the names and if anyone complains about a created creature they can say that they are filtering on a best-can-do approach.

wow....that is really sad..wtf..

just for saying it's NOT a penis you got banned?

they should stop botting the sites and just actually check the reported creatures

So, the word "penis" is banworthy? That's sad.

What are you talking about? That's what my penis looks like.

Better get spore on release date so that stupid politicians won't try to get it taken off of store shelves. and the reason that the guy probably got the email is because he put penis in the name, they probably have a filter that flags a number of words and he found one and an automatic reply comes. though why not just not allow those words to be used is beyond me

He should have named it "not a phallus". Sounds much more classy.

It was not the creature he got in trouble for. It was for using the word 'penis'. The thing clearly states vulgar language is not tolerated. This is what the dude was going for when he tagged the thing the way he did. He knew what he was doing.

penis is not vulgar

the word 'penis' is the medical term for ......wait...

I'd rather not get banned

Only american companies would do something like this. Nuff said.