US sanctions lock Iranian gamers out of World of Warcraft

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/us-sanctions-lock-iranian-gamers-out-of-fantasy-role-playing-adventure-world-of-warcraft/2012/08/28/203aeea2-f171-11e1-b74c-84ed55e0300b_story.html

by ValG • 14 years ago

33 21 14 years ago

washingtonpost.com

ChuckMcM• 14 years ago

I wonder if anyone realizes just how severe a provocation it is to cut off a WoW player cold turkey like that.

Seems like a pretty strange sanction though. Hopefully Iranians aren't paying for Twitter access.

Such a strange world we live in these days.

SoftwareMaven• 14 years ago

This seems completely bass-ackwards. If we want to get Iranians to "come to the light" that is US policy, one of the best ways to do that is to actually have them interacting positively with people in the United States.

Furthermore, while I can (sort of) understand not having US money filter into Iran, I can't understand why there is any problem with Iranian money filtering into the US. Every dollar out of Iran is a dollar less the regime has to "fight" its idealogical war.

There are days I get really tired of the letter of the law being the only possible interpretation. When I sympathize with my Iranian brethren trying to get into a raid because their gear is sucky blue crap, it becomes one of those days.

tlb• 14 years ago

It's a plausible theory that cultural engagement with Iran might work better than sanctions. However, you can't have some people doing one and some doing the other. For better or worse, after trying various other things without success, the Administration has decided on sanctions. For sanctions to be effective, they have to hurt enough to force the other side to compromise. Weakening sanctions for any reason just draws out the conflict longer.

mewmoo2• 14 years ago

Every dollar out of Iran is a dollar less the regime has to "fight" its idealogical war.

What war? They haven't started a war in more than a century. Probably more. Seriously is there a war going on I don't know about?

Blara• 14 years ago

I think you forgot the Iran Iraq war. Not sure who started it but it was a war.

eupharis2• 14 years ago

Trying to legally define what is and is not a valid financial transaction coming in and out of Iran is a fool's errand. There's these things called commodity markets, and most everything is a commodity (more or less liquid) that can be bought and sold. Including WoW accounts, WoW gold, etc. If you wanted to launder, say, oil revenues into completely respectable US financial holdings....

And just think: due to these new restrictions, many Iranian players could get into a whole new world of encryption, non-Iranian VPNs, non-Iranian bank accounts, etc., etc. Which could have very positive political ramifications for the US down the line.

Say what you will about America or Germany or whomever in the western world, but I can still write here "Obama is an idiot" or "Merkel is a crook" or "The American Government should be destroyed, the Constitution should be abolished, and the ancient Corinthian Oligarchy should be enacted in its stead" or whatever and still sleep like a babe without any fear of repercussions.

It's far from a perfect freedom, but it's better than the alternative.

derrida2• 14 years ago

On your sleep: good for you because I can't --> http://www.animalnewyork.com/2012/the-department-of-homeland...

There are reports the TSA stopped UK citizens because of tweets mentioning some phrases you did just then. http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2012/01/british_touris...

Sorry about any possible disturbed sleep.

salimmadjd• 14 years ago

Sanctions have not done anything to change Cuba or North Korea. However openness has.

Just look at what happened when Nixon opened doors to China. Now, China is no perfect country, but they have become a business partner and opened up a lot more than they would have otherwise.

Sanctions actually help the Iranian regime to further hide the population from democratic ideas. The regime in Iran was weakest when Obama gave his speech in Cairo and Iranian had access to internet and other means of communications. You need the population to have access to computers, smart phones etc. and sanctions do the exact opposite.

kapitalx• 14 years ago

> If we want to get Iranians to "come to the light" that is US policy

The Iranian's don't need WoW to realize that they are under tyranny. They know well what freedoms they are missing, and who is responsible for it. No one will be blaming the US government for taking away WoW, as these days all anger is redirected at the Iranian government internally. All due to recent tightening of US sanctions (last 2 years) and the massive economic pressures it has caused inside Iran.

> Every dollar out of Iran is a dollar less the regime has to "fight" its idealogical war.

It is naive to think that every dollar in Iran is spent on the regime's "ideological war". Specially people's hard earned money. If you want to trace back the money you're looking for, look at China for continuing to purchase oil from Iran.

orp• 14 years ago

'actually have them interacting positively with people in the United States'

Most (all?) Iranian players would probably be playing on European servers.

This is in part due to the hour differential, and partly because WoW clients sold in Europe automatically (only?) connect to EU servers.

In far too many hours of playing WoW, I've never encountered a player from the US.

gandalfar• 14 years ago

Does this also mean that they can't play Diablo 3?

lotharbot• 14 years ago

Two things of note:

1) This isn't a result of US law changing. This is a result of Blizzard responding to an already-existing law which probably wasn't intended to have this particular effect.

2) Blizzard could potentially do some real good for the world (and get some good PR in the process.) I hope they have some sort of maneuver up their sleeve other than just cutting off Iranian players.

tsotha• 14 years ago

In other news, Iranian economy booms as US sanctions lock Iranian gamers out of World of Warcraft...

maayank• 14 years ago

Or youth on the streets protesting their government, after not being able to escape anymore into a fantasy world

cloudsteam• 14 years ago

I thought this was an onion article

I was dissapoint

norswap• 14 years ago

Ass move from the US government aside, what baffles me here is how uncivil Blizzard can be.

I mean, could it really have hurt to say "we are very sorry, but we were forced into it"?

belorn• 14 years ago

"A post to Blizzard’s message board by a company employee also noted that rules meant Iranian players would not be getting refunds.".

Isn't that the same as stealing? They are taking money in exchange for an service they do not provide.

noarchy• 14 years ago

There's probably something buried in the terms of use that they'll claim allows for this very sort of scenario. If these players lived in North America, they might be able to find a legal remedy, but they're in Iran.

US sanctions lock Iranian gamers out of World of Warcraft

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