When it comes to EA games, you really should watch what you say.

That's what one BioWare forum-goer learned after possibly being banned by asking BioWare, an EA studio, "Have you sold your souls to the EA devil?" The comment resulted in a temporary 72 hour ban, but more importantly meant that the user couldn't play a brand-new copy of Dragon Age II during that time.

"I just got my Bioware Signature Edition [of Dragon Age II] from the store," the user wrote on BioWare's forums. "I allready [sic] knew I was going to play it without the extra content since I can't activate my extra codes. What I did not know was that I needed to activate the game before being abble [sic] to play it. So now I've got a dead game for 50 euros. Pity."

In the same forum thread, BioWare's Stanley Woo posted a link to EA's terms of services, specifically pointing out sections 9 and 11, which refer to Termination of EA Services and Accounts and Rules of Conduct. "EA may terminate access to any online or mobile products and/or EA Services at any time by giving you notice of such termination within the time period specified when you joined the particular EA Service," the ToS reads.

Though temporary, the situation presents a potentially dangerous precedent, where saying something inflammatory about a developer or publisher could result in the company revoking the player's right to play a game he or she lawfully acquired. And when coupled with the news that the Dragon Age sequel also features unadvertised SecuROM DRM, it provides even more negative publicity for the game.

Ars contacted EA for comment but has yet to hear back as of press time.

Update: We just received word from EA's Andrew Wong that the situation was actually an error. "Unfortunately, there was an error in the system that accidentally suspended a user's entire account," he told Ars. "Immediately upon learning of the glitch, EA took steps to restore the user's macro account and apologized for the inconvenience."