Parental Controls

[DaSpoony]

Just got this game and went to play on the campaign. I accidently clicked on the multiplayer and it came up with "Parental Controls prevent you from playing". Considering I've gotten platinum on every game I've played (Currently 11) I can't be restricted from playing on the multiplayer or platinum will be impossible. My parents have no idea what they've done (if anything), but are more than happy to remove the block. How can I solve this??

[ally]

You have to wait untill the date you entered for your birthday when making your psn account is 18 years past, most likly you entered your birthday so will have to wait untill you are actually the correct age to play the game. This happened to my mate with resistance but has he doesn't care about trophies he just made a new account with fake details and that was that.

[DaSpoony]

But that's ridiculous! The game is a 16?? Why should I have to wait till I'm 18. This has completely screwed up my platinum record. If I knew this I would have never got the fuckin' game.

[Arun.]

If that it is true that is truely stupid, I would say email EA and see what they can do.

[DaSpoony]

I'm currently 15, if the servers shut down before I reach 18 I will murder everyone who was even vagually to blame for this. Can anyone confirm that I can't play on it until I'm 18, because I don't want to send a moaning email to EA if there's a simple way round it

[DaSpoony]

Just posted a similar message on the official Bad Company 2 forums.

UPDATE: Here's the post on the forum - http://forums.electronicarts.co.uk/battlefield-bad-company-2-ng/991939-parental-controls-ridiculous.html#post13682765

So far all I've had is extremely unhelpful people, as clearly none of them care about trophies or see my dilema.

[geo222]

You know you can change your parental control settings on the settings menu? Go to settings, then into security settings and edit it all there. You'll want you'r parental control to 9, that's what mines on, and that's no restrictions I think. You might have to find out your four digit code though, and I have no idea how.

[DaSpoony]

You know you can change your parental control settings on the settings menu? Go to settings, then into security settings and edit it all there. You'll want you'r parental control to 9, that's what mines on, and that's no restrictions I think. You might have to find out your four digit code though, and I have no idea how.

Thank you very much - this is exactly what I was looking for! :D I'll check in an hour or two as I'm currently unable to get to my PS3

[geo222]

No problem =)

It's worth warning you that you might not be able to play multiplayer even after changing this though, a lot of people have had to make new accounts for MW2 because it ignored their security settings and blocked them from the online. Not the campaign though which is interesting because the campaign is what makes these games have the 16+ ratings, hence why QoS was a 12.

[DaSpoony]

I just think it's a bit of a con to sell a game with a 16 rating, but to actually mean the player must be 18 to access the multiplayer (which is a vast majority of the game)

[geo222]

Yeah, I really can't believe EA have managed to let that happen. I'm pretty sure it's illegal...

[waterfields]

surely you said ur 15??? lol Which means you need to wait til ur 16....not 18.....and really...u nly buy games that you know ul platinum....wow

[DaSpoony]

Yeah, I really can't believe EA have managed to let that happen. I'm pretty sure it's illegal...

Wow, I can't believe no one else has noticed this problem (maybe they were all just smart enough to pretend they were 18 from the beginning). I'm never the first person to encounter anything unual - makes a change!

[DaSpoony]

surely you said ur 15??? lol Which means you need to wait til ur 16....not 18.....and really...u nly buy games that you know ul platinum....wow

That's because my PS3 thinks I'm 1 year older than I actually am. And no I don't by games that I know I'll platinum, I buy games I know I'll enjoy. I bought LBP entirely because I loved the idea of creating my own levels, and I didn't expect to get platinum but I did. I'm also currently playing Arkham Asylum. Those combat challenges are extremely difficult and I'm not sure if I'll be able to do them, but I'm gona try and persevere for the platinum.

[geo222]

It seems a bit like the YLOD, people know about it (though a lot less) and know it's wrong but nobody can really do anything about it. People end up submitting to Sony and handing them more money rather than looking into their legal rights and actually getting a refund off the retailer.

EA might change it if there's enough complaints I guess...


surely you said ur 15??? lol Which means you need to wait til ur 16....not 18.....and really...u nly buy games that you know ul platinum....wow

There's a huge difference between only buying games you know you'll platinum and platinuming every game you own. Some people are just motivated to completely finish a game.

[ally]

Ok what I said isn't entirely true, as I thought it was an 18. As it's a 16 surely you just wait untill then.. You can't complain, ea are within their rights to do it as you shouldn't be playing a game if you are younger than the ratings (not that I ever abided by this) but they know that kids will be bought anything so it's just a more effective way to police it.

Complaining about this is like you walking into a bar and complaining that you don't get served, ea are just abiding by the rules.

[DaSpoony]

Ok what I said isn't entirely true, as I thought it was an 18. As it's a 16 surely you just wait untill then.. You can't complain, ea are within their rights to do it as you shouldn't be playing a game if you are younger than the ratings (not that I ever abided by this) but they know that kids will be bought anything so it's just a more effective way to police it.

Complaining about this is like you walking into a bar and complaining that you don't get served, ea are just abiding by the rules.

You haven't read my earlier post, my PSN account is 16, and they have no reason to believe I am younger.

[geo222]

Complaining about this is like you walking into a bar and complaining that you don't get served, ea are just abiding by the rules.

No, it's like going into a bar, buying a drink, then being told you can't drink it.

They're not abiding by the rules, they're enforcing them. Everyone knows age ratings are BS, and it's just business for EA, I'm not sure why they'd stop it.

Maybe you could get your parents to phone up sony and say they entered the date wrong and whilst this wasn't a problem before, it now is and it needs to be changed? That's if the parental control thing doesn't work.

[ally]

No, it's like going into a bar, buying a drink, then being told you can't drink it.
More accurate would be getting an elder to go to a shop to buy you booze, then being told you can't drink it, which is the law after all. The point I'm making is you, in ea's eyes should not have been bought the game in the first place so wouldn't have this problem.

[DaSpoony]

Ok I went to edit the parental controls (there was no password so I typed 0000 and it worked) and changed everything to off on both my and my parents accounts. I went to play online and still it came up with a message saying "cannot log on because your PlayStation Network account is restricted by parental control". I turned the console off and on again, changed the parental control settings to level 9 and it still didn't work. Tryed one more time with parental controls off and once again, it didn't work. So who do I contact? Sony or EA?

[Barracuda167]

I would very much doubt if EA has any input to the age rating of the game, they would have to submit the game to an independant body to be rated in the same way that films are and I would also doubt EA would want to enforce the age restriction as it is in their intrest to sell as many copies as possible. In summary I would say it is down to either parental control settings on your PS3 and/or your PSN account details.

[geo222]

More accurate would be getting an elder to go to a shop to buy you booze, then being told you can't drink it, which is the law after all. The point I'm making is you, in ea's eyes should not have been bought the game in the first place so wouldn't have this problem.

My analogy was still better than your other one. But I think you can actually buy alcohol legally at 14 with a meal, so it would be like doing that, then being told you can't drink it. Anyway, he said he was 16 on his account, so he should be allowed to buy and play the game.

Spoony, I think you need to contact EA, then Sony. See if either can help you out, and remember you're 16 ;)

[ally]

My analogy was still better than your other one. But I think you can actually buy alcohol legally at 14 with a meal, so it would be like doing that, then being told you can't drink it.
Consider a rather pointless pint of cider with your parents the offline campain, which minors are free to play/drink, but for a full on getting leathered with the lads, or the online experience the law is somewhat tighter. My god this is a shite analogy isn't it...

[geo222]

Yeah... especially as I said earlier, campaign is the one that the gives the game the stupid rating. So it's like the 'full on getting leathered with the lads' is the one he's allowed to do, but the 'pointless pint' he's being banned from....

[DaSpoony]

Ok guys, I've sent a message to EA and they replied in less than a hour asking for some of my details (PSN, EA account, birth detail and post code). I gave them this info a couple of hours ago but have had no reply

UPDATE - They've now replied with the following message

Dear Sir/Madam,

Thank you for contacting Electronic Arts.

I searched with the information and found that your PSN ID "DaSpoony" is linked to EA account "daspoony@hotmail.co.uk". In order to assist you with this issue, I suggest you to contact playstation support.
Sony - http://uk.playstation.com/help-support/ - 08705 99 88 77

If there is anything else we may do to assist you please let us know.

Best Regards,

Ackley
EA Support Centre, UK and Ireland

[Challenger2uk]

Let us know how the phone call goes, let me know if you get someone that speaks fluent english, that would be a shock.:shocked2:

[SGrim]

The problem is that some people, me included :undecided: are stupid enough to put in their real age where, when thinking about it, it is quite obvious that some content will be blocked.

Ive ended up having to wait to play COD4, BF:BC, BF1943 and LotR:Conquest online on my proper account as ive only turned 16 recently. I also still can't play MW2, Resistance 2, BF:BC2 and Far Cry 2 (not that im too bothered about that one :P) online which is a real let down at points.

I do think that EA are way out of line this time though, to sell a game at 16 and then only allow 18's to play it online is stupid and they should quite frankly by sued for it as its false marketing..well that my opinion anyway :D

As for your problem though, the only thing you can do is contact Sony and try to get the age of your account changed as Parental Control had nothig to do with it. I've simply made another account to play the older games on and wait out until i get to the right age, but thats because i don't really care about platinuming every game i get so i can understand that you are even more hacked off about it than i am. But theres not much you can do to fix th problem unfortunately :( :bigcry:

[CraigoCorleone]

There is a way to save all your game saves, and your trophys are linked to your PSN ID, so you could reset your PS3 back to factory settings. You'd be able to download your stuff from PSN as you get 3 licences on most stuff. (Some are 5). Look into it a bit more just in case there is some stuff you will lose. Then once it is reset don't put your age in. Don't know if you have tried this or if this is the cure, but might help. Is the age rating linked to your PSN ID?

[CraigoCorleone]

Silly question but are you in the UK?

[DaSpoony]

Silly question but are you in the UK?

yep. What you were speaking about before. I don't fully understand sorry, could explain it differently or show me a link. I'm not bothered about my game save whatsoever (with the exception of LBP), all I care about is playing on games I should be able to play on and keeping all my trophies.

[Challenger2uk]

Can you play single player? if so and can't play online, I think DICE has something to do with it. On the disc under the DICE logo is says 18.

[McMilian]

Anwser is simple if you aren't 18 you can't play because it's not for your age group.
BTW: Play for FUN not for trophies (Trophies just make you play longer but are not a reason to play a game, chill out)

[geo222]

Did you read anything in this thread, or are you just a brainless moron? The game is a 16, and he's already said he's not just playing for trophies. So, thanks for your useless imput, bai :)

[DaSpoony]

Called PSN customer services today, was put on hold for 5 minutes and decided to give up. Probably should call tommorrow at a less popular time

[geo222]

What time did you call?

[DaSpoony]

What time did you call?

5:30 (stupid time I know). Tomorrow and Monday are holidays so I'll probably have to call on Tuesday (8:00am when it first opens :) ) which sucks considering I've practically got all the campaign trophies so I've got nothing to do. Ah well waiting a couple of days isn't that bad, but I hope like hell they can fix this.

[geo222]

Practically? Have you not played the game much? The campaign trophies were so easy I finished them after only 6-8 hours of play, and I spent loads of time trying to destroy buildings with C4 before I realised I could use the UAV to do it...

[DaSpoony]

Practically? Have you not played the game much? The campaign trophies were so easy I finished them after only 6-8 hours of play, and I spent loads of time trying to destroy buildings with C4 before I realised I could use the UAV to do it...

No I haven't played it much (but finished getting all the campaign trophies today). I haven't been playing on the PS3 much lately due to revising for exams :(

[DaSpoony]

http://www.newscorp.com/images/futurama_prof.jpg

I made sure to call PSN customers services as soon as it opened today (but still had to wait 10 minutes to get through) and took all the parental restrictions off my account. As I understand it, there are simply some restrictions which can only be taken off this way as they're built into your account rather than your console. Finally I can play on the multiplayer part of this game. Situation Resolved.

[Reaver]

Well done mate! btw I signed that petition in your signature.

[DaSpoony]

Well done mate! btw I signed that petition in your signature.

Yeah I'm so glad it's over! Did come at a cost though - hate to think what the bill is gonna be, I'm thinking about £15 *gulp*

[geo222]

That's rediculous... it's a shame you can't really get your money back :P

[ally]

Fair play to you mate for sticking at your cause.

[DaSpoony]

Thanks guys! It was quite funny when I recieved the "Fifteen minutes of fame" trophy as I felt like I had really earnt it lol as I'd spent much more than 15 minutes just trying to get onto the multiplayer!

[geo222]

You should get a '15 minutes on hold' trophy :)

[DaSpoony]

You should get a '15 minutes on hold' trophy :)

lol. Too true ;)