Insane Bioware censorship (they have completely lost their marbles)

[TapewormJim (TJ)]

I posted the below on the Veilguard forums, and literally one minute later received a permanent ban. It's Bioware's devs/mods, for sure - they have permanently banned all of Asmongold's reddit followers as well apparently, because they are literally insane - gaga mental.

Posting it here as you can clearly see no Steam rules whatsoever were broken.

I'm not surprised they have such thin skin, however - nor am I surprised they are so triggered by the mere mention of Trump. Steam needs to stop giving activists/crazies the reigns on moderating the forums. People this unhinged and maladjusted to society and humour should not be allowed to cyber-shoot paying customers on the platform.

I've heard the 'their house, their rules' shtick before btw, so spare me that one, yeah? Because 'my keyboard, my post'. You know what I mean?

---

Apparently Avowed will release in Feb, only a few months away. Calling it now that that'll be the next Failguard. I guarantee it. It has the same toony, plastic look, with purple everywhere the eye can see. Is it a contrivance of theirs, or is it just some psychological thing to which they gravitate, unknowingly?

IMO, Veilguard is on the way out anyway judging by the declining CP stats, but it's going be a slow, dull death. I'm more interested in the aftermath - what happens to Bioware after all of this? It'll probably take another month before the sorry ending plays out.

I'm delighted Trump won btw - if he's serious about overhauling DEI agendas, as has been stated elsewhere, there's a mild possibility he might also play a part in dismantling what has happened within the industry.

[Nx Machina]

Publicado originalmente por TapewormJim (TJ):

I don't care if I'm never able to post again on the Veilguard channel with this a/c. Makes zero difference to anything in my life.

You don't care? Yet created a thread.

[76561199734210705]

Publicado originalmente por Nx Machina:

Publicado originalmente por TapewormJim (TJ):

I don't care if I'm never able to post again on the Veilguard channel with this a/c. Makes zero difference to anything in my life.

You don't care? Yet created a thread.

Stop trying so hard

[Nx Machina]

Publicado originalmente por ghost:

Stop trying so hard

Discussion forum.

[76561199737783850]

Publicado originalmente por Nx Machina:

Publicado originalmente por ghost:

Stop trying so hard

Discussion forum.

So you don't understand what I said, is that it?

There's lots of people just like you who are simply trying way too hard to detect irony, and making a fool of themselves as a result. He doesn't care about his account, yet he wanted to bring the issue up, as a whole. Where's the irony here? Nowhere. It's perfectly fine.

Better?

[Nx Machina]

Publicado originalmente por ghost:

So you don't understand what I said, is that it?

I understood hence my reply.

Publicado originalmente por ghost:

There's lots of people just like you who are simply trying way too hard to detect irony, and making a fool of themselves as a result. He doesn't care about his account, yet he wanted to bring the issue up, as a whole. Where's the irony here? Nowhere. It's perfectly fine.

Better?

Ah! An ad-hominem.

What next a religious quote?

[76561199737783850]

Publicado originalmente por Nx Machina:

Publicado originalmente por ghost:

So you don't understand what I said, is that it?

There's lots of people just like you who are simply trying way too hard to detect irony, and making a fool of themselves as a result. He doesn't care about his account, yet he wanted to bring the issue up, as a whole. Where's the irony here? Nowhere. It's perfectly fine.

Better?

I understood hence my reply.

You did? Um ok. Then I didn't. "Discussion forum" ?? What am I to make of that?

And no, "you are making a fool of yourself if..." is not ad hominem. Still trying too hard.

[Nx Machina]

Publicado originalmente por ghost:

You did? Um ok. Then I didn't. "Discussion forum" ?? What am I to make of that?

I definitely did.

Your on a discussion forum.

Publicado originalmente por ghost:

And no, "you are making a fool of yourself if..." is not ad hominem. Still trying too hard.

Of course it is when you attack the person and not the point they make, hence why you snipped "people just like you".

[76561199737783850]

Publicado originalmente por Nx Machina:

Publicado originalmente por ghost:

You did? Um ok. Then I didn't. "Discussion forum" ?? What am I to make of that?

Your on a discussion forum.

Publicado originalmente por ghost:

And no, "you are making a fool of yourself if..." is not ad hominem. Still trying too hard.

Of course it is when you attack the person and not the point they make, hence why you snipped "people just like you".

Forget it. This is going nowhere. Bye.

[Lithurge]

The only thing I know about Asmongold is he's quoted by toxic people who like to spam forums with crap about woke agenda's. What do you think's going to happen when there's this pattern of behaviour continually derailing discussion forums?

[Soren]

You were bringing up election politics in Veilguard and were surprised you got banned? This just in, OP finds out water is wet and comes to Steam forums to post about how shocked he is over this.

That sort of behaviour goes in the off-topic section obviously.

[admiral1018]

It's to be expected, EA is in full panic mode and is doing this type of thing all on all forums. People are pre-banned on their Reddit if they even belong to certain groups (like Asmongold's), which is the first time I have ever seen someone banned for apparent wrong-think. Any negativity here, including any criticism of the insane things the devs have said/done outside of the game, are met with bans.

I listened to the EA earnings call last week, and there were several mentions about how expected strong sales of Veilgard were going to lead to significant earnings next quarter. The market apparently believed this, as the stock shot up after that. The reality, despite EA's best attempts at getting journalists to paint a rosy picture, is that this game has sold poorly relative to expectations given its budget. That means a lot of very well paid execs at EA stand to lose jobs for this after their comments to investors, so you better well believe they're cracking the whip and telling every single EA underling to do what it takes to help the game succeed. If that means enacting draconian moderations on discussion forums or strong-arming journalists into writing puff pieces defending the game, so be it.

[TapewormJim (TJ)]

Starting at the last page, as only back from work - may check the rest later.

Publicado originalmente por Lithurge:

The only thing I know about Asmongold is he's quoted by toxic people who like to spam forums with crap about woke agenda's. What do you think's going to happen when there's this pattern of behaviour continually derailing discussion forums?

You have to be joking. You’re painting an entire collection of people who merely follow Asmongold on reddit as worthy of auto-bans, because you feel he’s ‘quoted’ by some ‘toxic’ people on unrelated forums?

Are you actually serious?

They did it because they are clinically insane, antisocial and maladjusted to society. They’re so out-of-touch they actually think they can do something like that and it won’t be a PR disaster.

Talk about the complete and utter jettisoning of self-awareness. Imagine employing people like this in a professional context. It’s crazy. You’d have to be perilously embedded in your own little la-la-land to do that to potential customers - some of whom likely already are customers - at a time when your product is receiving hate left and right.

They will get what they deserve for what’s either unprecedented arrogance and delusion, or some kind of severe screw loose, to the point I’d be referring them to a medical body for assessment - and that’s not even a joke.

Publicado originalmente por Soren:

You were bringing up election politics in Veilguard and were surprised you got banned? This just in, OP finds out water is wet and comes to Steam forums to post about how shocked he is over this.

That sort of behaviour goes in the off-topic section obviously.

LMAO at this guy’s perception of reality. Are you employed by Bioware too pal? Or I tell you what, do you think you can make that statement and not see financial repercussions as a result? As in, you are saying Bioware is not showing any fragility, closed-mindedness or ineptitude in permanently banning a potential customer over merely mentioning the following:

‘if [Trump]'s serious about overhauling DEI agendas [...] there's a mild possibility he might also play a part in dismantling what has happened within the industry’

Hint - you demonstrate weakness and thin-skin as a business, with a draconian, outdated view of censorship that will lead to bad press, and your demise.

But let’s see how my comment ages, shall we?

[TapewormJim (TJ)]

Publicado originalmente por admiral1018:

It's to be expected, EA is in full panic mode and is doing this type of thing all on all forums. People are pre-banned on their Reddit if they even belong to certain groups (like Asmongold's), which is the first time I have ever seen someone banned for apparent wrong-think. Any negativity here, including any criticism of the insane things the devs have said/done outside of the game, are met with bans.

A sane, grounded analysis of the reality here - clearly you’re a capable adult who isn’t living in a fantasy-land, unlike some I could mention.

Publicado originalmente por admiral1018:

The reality, despite EA's best attempts at getting journalists to paint a rosy picture, is that this game has sole poorly relative to expectations given its budget. That means a lot of very well paid execs at EA stand to lose jobs for this after their comments to investors, so you better well believe they're cracking the whip and telling every single EA underling to do what it takes to help the game succeed. If that means enacting draconian moderations on discussion forums or strong-arming journalists into writing puff pieces defending the game, so be it.

Yes, well said - a sober assessment of the situation. Well look, you’re sort of the exception here by using facts and then applying reasoning, so I haven’t much to say except that you’re spot on with that analysis.

What’s incredible to me is how out-of-touch the EA execs are, and how dense. They couldn’t see this game’s approach bombing, because they’re not interested in games, just charts that said ‘BG3 is high-woke fantasy and everyone’s throwing cash at it’.

It’s as if they imagine the majority of gamers are part of the woke crowd, in some form, and now look what’s happened haha.

Yeah, they’re really going all-in with the heavy-handedness here, but I can’t believe that’s a ‘business strategy’ being enforced by EA. They’d have to be dumb as planks to be that oblivious to everything that's going on.

To me, it’s loose-cannon activists at Bioware just having a mental breakdown and lashing out in the only way they can: by abusing a ‘silence’ button and thinking that’ll make all the bad things go away.

Haven’t seen this level of stupidity in quite some time, but I’ll be delighted when they get their ‘reality check’ at the end of all this.

[admiral1018]

Yeah, anyone who is actually curious about the EA earnings call can see the transcript here:

https://www.fool.com/earnings/call-transcripts/2024/10/29/electronic-arts-ea-q2-2025-earnings-call-transcrip/

It's a fairly boring read, but a typical update where equity research analysts grill them a bit. You can tell the analysts are out of touch with the gaming market now, as none of them bring up the Veilgard pushback, and one of them even commented about all the positive reviews it got right before release. The CEO even said:

"I certainly think Veilguard has breakout potential. "

So his neck is on the line, as his words are now public for the entire investment world to see. If Veilgard flops, you better believe he's going to have to answer for it. So yeah, no surprise at all to see EA do everything it can to bolster this game's sales.

[Soren]

Publicado originalmente por TapewormJim (TJ):

LMAO at this guy’s perception of reality. Are you employed by Bioware too pal? Or I tell you what, do you think you can make that statement and not see financial repercussions as a result? As in, you are saying Bioware is not showing any fragility, closed-mindedness or ineptitude in permanently banning a potential customer over merely mentioning the following:

The anti-woke brigaders aren't customers just like the SJWs of yesteryear weren't legitimate customers and were instead just outside critics attacking things they don't consume and never had any intention of consuming. You guys are tourists. Asmongold especially. The dude does not play a variety of games. He spent his whole life just playing WoW. He's never played a DA game, but boy oh boy is he going to tell you his opinions about it irregardless.

If anything, Bioware banning you guys so you stop trying to pick fights with their actual fanbase is saving them customers potentionally. Conduct yourself in a way where you aren't a hassle to the rest of their customers and then banning you guys might actually have been a liability. But that's impossible for you guys to do.