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SimCity beta testers are duty-bound to report bugs, TOS implies, failure to do so may result in a ban

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The terms of service for this weekend’s SimCity beta give the impression that EA make no distinction between those who willfully exploit bugs and and those who harbor them, or at least ignore them.

“If you know about a Bug or have heard about a Bug and fail to report the Bug to EA,” the TOS says, “We reserve the right to treat you no differently from someone who abuses the Bug. You acknowledge that EA reserve the right to lock anyone caught abusing a Bug out of all EA products.”

Blimey.

This is very odd, for a number of reasons and not least because it may be difficult for EA to prove that a tester did or did not spot or exploit a bug: What exactly is their criteria for this? Furthermore, is a lock out “of all EA products” (presumably anything on your Origin account, from Dragon Age to Battlefield) really a proportional response to someone overlooking or perhaps forgetting to report an imperfection? And why are they capitalising “Bug” when that’s not at all necessary?

I don’t know about you, but this makes me glad that I don’t seem to have been selected for what seems to be the most serious beta in gaming history.

Thanks to VG24/7 for this, who point out that terms of service agreements aren’t necessarily strictly enforced but, in this case, if you’re taking part then telling on those Bugs is probably an extremely wise idea.