Don’t Expect To Play Blizzard Games In Iran
Politics can ruin a good thing for many people, as demonstrated late last week when WoW and Diablo III players in Iran found that they were unable to access those games. You see, since the United States levied sanctions on the middle eastern country no American company can do any kind of business in there. Because of that, Blizzard was forced to quit doing any sort of business in the country until the sanctions are levied. Here’s the statement Blizzard sent out explaining their actions:
What we can tell you is that United States trade restrictions and economic sanction laws prohibit Blizzard from doing business with residents of certain nations, including Iran. Several of you have seen and cited the text in the Terms of Use which relates to these government-imposed sanctions. This week, Blizzard tightened up its procedures to ensure compliance with these laws, and players connecting from the affected nations are restricted from access to Blizzard games and services.
This also prevents us from providing any refunds, credits, transfers, or other service options to accounts in these countries. We apologize for any inconvenience this causes and will happily lift these restrictions as soon as US law allows.
Hopefully for those players sake things will clear up soon, but I’m afraid that it might be awhile longer before they’re able to get back to Azeroth. You have to wonder, though, will Blizzard offer any sort of refunds/extra play time when the ban is lifted?
