EA Forums Rules & Guidelines

Welcome to the EA Forums! This is your gaming community - a spot where you can chat about the games you love, seek advice, and share some cool tips.

Please check out our house rules by reading on! For our complete list of rules see our Positive Play Charter and EA User Agreement.

If something breaks the rules, it might get removed and penalties added to your forum account so it's important to be aware of what the rules are. We've covered the main points in the headings below, but if something comes up that's not mentioned here, we'll handle it as needed. The goal is to keep our forums a safe and fun place for all. So, let's all do our part! 😄

If you feel there's been a misunderstanding and would like to appeal a moderation decision, follow these steps.

Click n the heading to jump to that section

• Play Nice- Be the player you'd like to chat with
• No-Go's - What can result in a warning or ban
• Game Over!  - Absolutely Zero Tolerance Stuff
• Got Banned from the Forums? Read this section!

Play Nice!

Think about how you’d like to be treated and do that! Simple! 

Here's how to make that happen:

1. Treat Others with Respect: Our forum members come from all walks of life, with different experiences, backgrounds, and interests. Everyone should feel like they belong because they do! Let's make sure to treat everyone with kindness and respect.
2. Keep Your Cool: We're all passionate about our games, and naturally, we'll have different perspectives. Just be cool about it. Don't squabble, get into petty over and backs, or poke the bear. We won't always share the same opinions and that's ok!
3. Keep Things Clean: We love seeing what you create and share, but remember to keep it clean and suitable for all ages. We have to work together to look out for our younger gamers.
4. Keep it on-topic: If someone created a thread, it's because they're looking for an answer to their question or want to discuss a specific topic. Changing the topic of the thread isn't helpful.
5. Give Credit: When posting content that you didn’t create or don’t own, particularly for fanart, drop the source link and give the artist a shoutout. Creatives work hard, let’s recognize their work!  
6. Get familiar with game-specific rules: Some of our boards may have additional rules specific to the game. Check the sticky/pinned threads of each forum for more information.

No-Go’s

Keep these things in mind when you’re putting together your messages, threads, and posts:

• Personal Comments/Insults: Everyone deserves respect, be they public figures, EA employees, or fellow forum users. This is not a place for personal attacks or to be disrespectful. Leave the rudeness at the door.
• Trolling/Baiting/Flaming: This includes deliberately trying to cause an argument by making sarcastic, off-topic, rude, or disruptive posts or conversations.
• Cursing/Swearing: Using alternatives or symbols doesn't make it okay. We all k*** what you're trying to s**. Our profanity filter catching it is not a get-out-of-jail-free card, just fyi. 
• Sensitive Topics: ...like sex, politics, and religion, etc. If you're not sure if a topic might be offensive or controversial, it probably is! Err on the side of caution.
• Necroposting: Reviving, updating or bumping old, outdated or irrelevant threads clutters up the latest posts, and pushes down fresh conversations from other members. Check the thread's age before you post, and if there are no live discussions on your topic, consider opening a fresh thread instead.
• Commenting about moderation: Our moderators keep this place friendly and safe by enforcing the rules. If you think there's been a mix-up, let us know through the appropriate channels, not by blasting it on the boards.
• Naming and Shaming: No-one likes cheaters, but public call-outs can lead to witch hunts and harassment. If you suspect someone's cheating, report them through the appropriate channels.
• Inappropriate Content: Keep it classy! Avoid sharing content or making comments that imply anything sexual, obscene, or vulgar.
• Spamming: It's disruptive. Spamming can include copy-pasting posts, posting 'no text' messages, excessive thread bumping, flooding the forum with repetitive threads, and mass tagging.
• Mini-Modding: Sometimes it's tempting to step in when you see rule-breaking happening. Please don't. It can escalate the tone of things even more, and even lead to other rule-breaking on your end. If you spot something, hit that report button and we'll check it out.
• Advertising and Commercial Gain: We love to see your creatives, clips, streams, and free-to-enter gaming or league sites, but this isn't a space to boost your channels and products. Be a genuine part of the community. Keep in mind that our community should remain free from paywalls. Any promotion of pay-to-play sites, sale of products, or sharing of referral links will be removed. Let's focus on the genuine love of gaming!
• Boycotts and Misusing Petitions: We all want to see our favorite games improve, but calling for boycotts or misusing petitions isn't the way to go. Let's channel that passion into constructive conversations and feedback. We're in this together.
• Legal comments or threats: The forum isn't the ideal place for these conversations. Legal comments or threats will be removed.
• Sharing Personal Information: Remember, forum posts are visible to everyone. Protect your information and others'. Personal information could be an email address, phone number, real photos/selfies, etc, Keep it secret, keep it safe.
• Abusing Formatting: Excessive ALL CAPS, extra-large fonts, spamming repeated symbols, etc can be disruptive and make things hard to read. Plus, NOBODY LIKES BEING YELLED AT!!?!?@*&!!!
• Clickbait: Don’t use sensationalized thread titles, links or spoiler tags.  If we see those, we’ll change it. Keep it real and straightforward. 
• Adding names in Thread Titles: Thread titles should summarize their content, not call out Community Managers, Officials, or anyone else.
• Cheating to Rank up: Level up your forum account by participating, not by gaming the system.
• Sharing Suspicious Links: We care about our reader's safety. Shady links and links to inappropriate sites, cheat promotions, adult material, or unsafe software are strictly off-limits.
• Impersonating Others: This includes EA employees, other community members, celebrities, etc. Don't pretend to be someone you're not.
• Abusing the Report Option: The report button is for flagging rule-breaking posts, not disagreements.

When one or more of these rules have been broken, we'll reach out and let you know. Continuing to break them will come with timeouts that increase with each occurrence. When you rack up enough of these, you’ll get a permaban!

Game Over!

Let’s take a look at the heavy-weight rule-breaking behaviors. Doing any one of these will result in a timeout.

1. Toxic behavior: No bullying, harassment or toxic behavior. Disparaging comments or discrimination is unacceptable! It's simple, treat others like you'd want to be treated.
2. Real-Life Threats: We take these threats seriously.
3. Promoting Violence: We won't tolerate any promotion or encouragement of violence or aggression towards another person.
4. Wishing bad things for others: Hoping misfortune, illness, death, or harm comes to others is obviously not ok. 
5. Anything Piracy & Malware related! Don’t link to or chat about pirated or harmful content (like Trojan horses or malware). Play fair! 
6. Explicit/Adult Content: Keep it PG! Posting actual sexual, obscene, vulgar, or illegal content, including content with adult themes and references, is serious.  We’ve got gamers of all ages here.
7. Ask for or give out CD-Keys/ Product Codes: Need help with a code? Head to help.ea.com for support.
8. Multiple Forum Accounts: One forum account is all anyone needs.
9. Violating the EA User Agreement: It’s there for a reason. Please don’t discuss, promote or engage in anything against the EA User Agreement.
10. Illegal Activities: Discussing, promoting or engaging in illegal activities is a bannable offense and your gaming account may also be looked at. For example; Identity theft, Identity fraud, "Swatting", Doxxing, Stalking, Making personal threats, Blackmail and extortion, etc.

If you come across any rule-breaking on our boards, here’s how to let us know:

• Reporting Inappropriate Content on EA Forums

I've been banned from posting on the forums - What now?

A short-term ban is our way of preventing further disruptive behavior and asking you to reexamine how you behave on the forum. It means you have broken the rules or haven’t been participating in a constructive fashion.

Take a break, go for a walk, have a snack, play some games: we're not mad at you; you just need a break. Make the most of this time and get to know the rules and guidelines posted above before jumping back in.

Remember; do not create threads and posts about your ban or ask your friends to post about it for you. Chatting about moderation is against our rules, and as a result, that could get your ban extended and may even get your friends in trouble, too.

If you think you've been banned by mistake, get in touch with our Terms of Service team by following the steps outlined here.