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Watch what you type in the forums, lest you be unable to play your games.

We reported recently about the massive bans that EA has handed out to players caught using an in-game exploit on Battlefield 3. Now, we have a report that gamers that have been banned from the EA forums are also unable to play games that are linked to an EA account, such as anything played with Origin, EA’s Steam-like PC game client. Though EA claimed that the player banned in March who was unable to play Dragon Age 2 had been restricted from his game in error, the website Rock, Paper, Shotgun has found that games as recent as Battlefield 3 are unplayable to gamers found in violation of the forum terms of service.

This is understandably an issue that has gamers concerned. No one wants to say a wrong thing in a forum post and suddenly be unable to play a game that they have already paid money for. EA issued a statement to RPS today, which only serves to make the entire situation more ominous.

“With every game and service EA offers, we take the satisfaction of our customers very seriously. We discourage cheating and strive to maintain a high level of integrity in both our games and our forums. Therefore when someone violates our Terms of Service, we are forced to take actions that can include suspensions and other measures. We do not take those decisions lightly – however the integrity of our services and the satisfaction of our customers requires a clear set of rules.”

From the wording of the statement, this seems to be focused more on the story we ran about Battlefield 3 bans than anything about the fact that paying customers are unable to play their games for a TOS infraction. Keep in mind that it is possible to play your purchased games offline with Origin, unlike Steam, but you would obviously not be able to utilize any of the online functionality for said games.