Over the past few days, reports have been coming in that World of Warcraft players in Iran have been unable to access Blizzard's hit MMO World of Warcraft in that country. Some people speculated that the Iranian government was to blame and accused it of trying to block access to World of Warcraft from their end.
As it turns out, that's not the case. In a post on the game's message board, Blizzard said that it was the cause of the Iranian World of Warcraft blackout. It stated:
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.
The message added that Blizzard was unable to give any refunds to any Iranians playing the game, again due to the US trade sanctions. It concluded its post by saying, "We apologize for any inconvenience this causes and will happily lift these restrictions as soon as US law allows."
Source: World of Warcraft website | Image via Blizzard
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