Regarding the frozen "banned users" post

News

The Preamble:

I respectfully (please not the "respectfully" part) disagree with the moderator that the issue of users being banned for making three purchases has been addressed. It happened to me a few weeks back and I thought about posting my thoughts about it, however, I held off not wanting to offend anyone here. It seems now that other innocent users are also getting caught up in this and it is a problem that is only going to get worse if something isn't done. Calmly and rationally mulling it over in my mind I came up with what (I think) would be a solution to make everyone happy...

The Problem:

Gravity is trying to prevent fraud and charge backs by arbitrarily setting the purchase limit to three transactions in a twenty-four hour period. The problem is in how the limit is implemented. Rather than preventing the user from making an "over the limit" purchase in the first place, Gravity instead allows the transaction to take place. Only after shelling out their money does a user find they are automatically banned for making the purchase. In essence, the user has paid for a service they did not receive. "Contact our payment department and if everything is legit we'll reinstate your account", is the paraphrased standard response. In my case it took a few days as they don't work weekends but it did eventually get reinstated (I used my down time to beta test another game that rhymes with "hey on"). Instead of Gravity preventing fraud by a user, Gravity has become the party perpetrating the fraud by not supplying the goods/service purchased in a reasonable and timely manor. This is a risky thing to do on Gravity's part as I can easily see this inviting litigation (class action or individual, despite the user agreement) at the very least and in the worst case scenario losing their (until now) very loyal customers to that "hey on" game.

The Solution:

The solution is simple: Gravity can keep/set their purchase limit to whatever they want. If they're not interested in taking a users money then they can keep it set low. However, a method should be in place that prevents a user from making the over limit purchase in the first place ... well before allowing the financial transaction to take place. Gravity gets to keep its purchase limit and its customers, although probably not too happy about not being able to make a purchase, are at least not out the money for up to ten days.

Final Thoughts:

There is something about Requiem: Bloodymare. The players are the most loyal I've ever seen. Despite all of the technical, financial, and quest glitches, users come back again and again. The players forgive a lot of the games short comings -- they WANT this game to succeed. I too want this game to succeed. We want this to be a big hit for Gravity and we want Gravity to make lots of money from it. It is my personal opinion that for all they put up with, the players (customers) deserve some respect. Please don't alienate players further by "freezing" them out.

The Disclaimer:

I am not acting as legal council nor does the above in any way constitute legal advice. Permission to re post is granted and encouraged.