14 DAY TRIAL // A number of players have been stunned to see that the terms of service linked to the beta for SimCity imply that full Origin bans are planned for those who fail to report the bugs that they find to publisher Electronic Arts.
It seems that the company is not ready to enforce the language in the official document and that players have nothing to fear if they take part in the beta.
A representative from Electronic Arts tells Kotaku that, “The clause in the EA Beta Agreement for the SimCity beta was intended to prohibit players from using known exploits to their advantage. However, the language as included is too broad. EA has never taken away access to a player’s games for failing to report a bug. We are now updating the Beta Agreement to remove this point.”
He adds, “Quite simply it’s not something we would ever do. Players don’t have anything to be concerned about there – just some language that was far too broad in the original agreement, and is being updated now.”
Sing-ups for the beta stage of SimCity are now closed, but those who are invited will be able to play the city-building title on the PC during the coming weekend.
Developer Maxis and publisher Electronic Arts are using the testing phase to evaluate the state of the game infrastructure and to see whether all the core game mechanics are working as they should.
All players are encouraged to report bugs and offer feedback via the official forums.
The new SimCity is designed to focus on collaboration between players, with new mechanics that are encourage gamers to work on regional projects and more ways to develop their cities based on personal preference and shared resources. SimCity will be launched exclusively on the PC in early March.