Iconic game World of Warcraft is just one of several online games to have suddenly been inaccessible from Iran.
Blizzard are claiming that they were forced to “tighten up sanctions”, gamers are alleging that Iran had previously threatened against the developer for reasons relating to the sensitivity of the country’s religion.
Many Iranian players bombarded the forums posting messages clarifying that they COULD get access when they used a proxy server outside Iran.
A Blizzard GM (Global Moderator) eventually verified what had happened in response to many complaints on the forum, explaining:
Our team has been watching this thread closely, and we understand the desire for more information about this situation. Blizzard Entertainment cannot speak to any reports surrounding the Iranian government restricting games from its citizens.
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.
WoW isn’t the only game affected, with similar platform Guild Wars redirecting all logins to a notice reading that the connection had been obstructed as the games promoted “superstition and mythology”.
Assassins Creed, Runescape, Call of Duty and Second Life are also amongst the forbidden games.
Blizzard held that it had no information about Iranian government action against online games. It’s believed that the reason behind this is the Islamic disapproval of the games’ features.
Promotion of superstition and mythology.
Promotion of violence due to too much violence (sic)
Abolishing the deformation in sin.
Demonstration of inappropriate clothing.
