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Iranian Players Blocked From World of Warcraft Due To Trade Sanctions
cold fjord writes "Is this the end of the world . . . of Warcraft? Maybe for Iranian gamers who are undergoing a forced morale check due to tightening sanctions cutting access to their game of choice. From the article: 'Iranian players of "World of Warcraft" ... have found themselves frozen out by Blizzard Activision Inc., the American company behind the game. Iranian role playing enthusiasts have spent much of the past week peppering Blizzard's message board with complaints about how they weren't able to log on to the service — only to be told recently that U.S. law was to blame. "United States trade restrictions and economic sanction laws prohibit Blizzard from doing business with residents of certain nations, including Iran," the company said in an email sent to players last week...'"
Thanks to the sanctions, they can't get refunds either.
I remember growing up during the Cold War, and being taught all the pro-U.S. propaganda: The Russian space program sucks. You don't need papers to travel in the U.S. unlike the USSR. U.S,. citizens were free to travel anywhere, unlike those poor Soviets. Only Poland cracked down on labor unions and dissedents. And so on.
It was only after I grew up and learned to see through the bullshit that I realized that was all lies. We had been lied to just as much as the Soviets. The Russian space program is filled with firsts that American students never learned about (we only got the NASA stuff and a brief mention of Sputnik). You DAMN SURE DO need papers to travel in the U.S. (try getting pull over by a cop sometime and tell him you have no identification, driver's license, proof of insurance, and registration and just see what happens, or try coming here sometime to see if the cops accept "We don't need no papers, this is America!" in lieu of your passport/green card/visa). Polish labor unions weren't the only ones that got cracked down on in the 80's. And American are ABSOLUTELY NOT allowed to travel anywhere they wish (try joining your European friend on his vacation in Cuba sometime if you think so).
And if you're American you are also prohibited from doing business with any country the American government doesn't like (which are usually the ones who dared overthrow one of the U.S.'s corrupt puppet regimes).
Land of the free...not so much.
So they move to private servers.
But they're totally familiar with "Nuclear launch detected."
Can't be letting iranians build ghosts!
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
Because obviously there's nothing more likely to inspire outrage and violence than nerds denied their gaming habits.
This will be the straw that breaks the camel's back, and returns Democracy and Freedom to Iran, decades after the CIA took it away.
I think that last part is just Blizzard actually, lol. I would think that receiving $50 or whatever from services provided to an Iranian then getting told that's not allowed would mean you have to undo the trade by giving that $50 back.
Given the hardline stance in Iran, I would think all western games would be banned for being un islamic in the first place.
Life is not for the lazy.
I'm always shocked at just how much American culture has spread world wide. And the thing is - it often works in our favor. Iranian kids playing WoW can't in any way benefit Iran that I can think of, but has multiple benefits for the U.S. Someone from the gov should be on the horn right now getting those accounts reactiviated.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
Could this force Iran to stop enriching uranium? What if Steam followed suit...what would happen then?
obvious redundancy is obvious
The US has just pissed off a few hundred more Iranians. Ahmadinejad couldn't be more happy.
I have a feeling that bored Iranian computer savvy individuals, newly irritated with United States foreign policy, could backfire.
The Bureau of Industry and Security, US Department of Commerce, is the place to go to see the appropriate regulations. See, especially, the Export Administration Regulations, the Commerce Control List (especially), and the Lists to Check list. (Yes, there are so many lists that the lists themselves have a list.)
Wouldn't F2P solve this situation since there is no business transaction?
I swear they give me mod points to shut me up.
There have been no recent changes that would require them to no longer provide WOW in Iran.
Did NASA ever have a rocket explode and kill 48 of the Engineers? Don't get me wrong Russia has a functional space program, and is going to make mistakes just as we have, but I think blowing up a Large Number of engineers would shape the opinion of people during the Cold War that their space program sucks. That one little Vostok-2M rocket probably set them back a decade in talent.
If a cop pulls over someone with no Drivers Licence and no Insurance they have proven that they shouldn't be driving. You need insurance because the risks while driving is high, and you need a licence so that you can actually prove you know how to drive. If you want to walk from LA to NY go ahead, but be sure not to go through Death Valley, I hear it's a pain this time of year. And AZ probably isn't a good pick if you're not white, but that's why their immigration laws were challenged, and challenged as being a little too much unamerican.
And if you want to go to North Korea so Badly by all means go, no one will miss you. I'm sure they will be fine if you just walk in without an ID or Papers without telling them that you're coming. You'll have a job already lined up and ready to go.
I remember reading the agreement for using an Oracle 10g client a few years back, and one section was that you can't have been born, or be a resident in a list of countries, which included Iran. Needless to say, my friend (who was born in Iran and held dual citizenship) just installed and ran it anyway.
Yeah, lets solve all Blizzard business troubles by making their entire business model to give their game and services away for free with no business transactions at all!
F2P, we loose money on every gamer but make it up in bulk.
What a moron. And if you comment on how F2P leads to cash sales... exactly how would those not be blocked by sanctions as business transactions? I had hoped I would not need to point this out on a tech forum but apparently I do.
Please BMOC, nominate yourself for a Darwin award soon.
Ah, WoW, afaik, still has the largest userbase of any MMO, or very near the largest. There's lots of smaller games that survive and even thrive on the freemium model. I don't think Blizzard has anything to fear from going F2P if they haven't already. As you said, they would be better suited to make it up in bulk.
Oh, and, why you so angry?
I swear they give me mod points to shut me up.
...that's all Iran wants - a million pissed off teen/twenty-somethings will a whole lot o' anger and a newfound whole lot o' free time on their hands...
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By not buying rods (which was proposed in a UN resolution I believe) Iran is do a bunch of things. Iran looks to be strong by standing up to the US and not doing what it wants. That feeds Iran's propaganda. By making their own, they can up the enrichment to make weapons. The stuff they buy would not be that high. Even a dirty bomb of highly enriched uranium would be very bad. That is enough of for more propaganda.
Iran knows that it will take a lot for some country to actually go to war with it. Iran has much to gain by doing what it wants. Even if it is attacked, it gains politically by that as well. Unless all the other Islam countries are going to do nothing which is very unlikely, Iran has nothing to lose by enriching uranium. If Iran was threatened with being nuclear bombed, it might rethink what it is doing. Iran knows that the US will not nuke it. I do not think and western country will nuke Iran. Who would nuke Iran? Russia maybe but unlikely. India again not likely.
Why is this an issue? Guess what, the online yarn store also can't sell to them, or puzzles R us, or any other businesses. This is why it's called sanctions. You aren't supposed to be doing business with them in an attempt to influence policy change.
Ah, WoW, afaik, still has the largest userbase of any MMO, or very near the largest. There's lots of smaller games that survive and even thrive on the freemium model. I don't think Blizzard has anything to fear from going F2P if they haven't already. As you said, they would be better suited to make it up in bulk.
I'd add "and talk to Valve about how Team Fortress 2 is doing if you're still not sure", but I don't think the folks at Valve would be able to hear you. Not over the sound of all that money pouring in.
Doesn't anyone think of the implications, the consequences, of such a move? Iranian kids will no longer be able to play WoW, instead they might learn and study, and be better engineers than ours who are able to continue wasting their time. It seems the US is hell bent on trying to give other countries an edge in technology.
And here I was thinking the US doesn't like the Iran. How wrong I was, they even help them increase their productivity!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Iran is committed to the extinction of the Jews.
Not they're not. That's a bunch of horseshit propaganda that the U.S. and Israel have created to justify their shadow war against Iran, one that's been going on since their puppet totalitarian Shah got tossed out by the modern DEMOCRATIC government of Iran.
Even a dirty bomb of highly enriched uranium would be very bad.
A dirty bomb of any enrichment of uranium up to 100% U235 would be a silly waste of resources when one could make radioactive isotopes with shorter half-lives, thus more badness for the buck. The only thing sillier would be to use pure bismuth (say, in pepto-bismol), which would remain radioactive for (by the 7 half-lives rule of thumb) almost 2 trillion years (except at such a low level that its radioactivity was not realized until the 1960s).
As to Iran having nothing to lose, convincing every one of their neighbors who can to buy or make their own nuke to keep Iran from trying anything cannot be in Iran's interest. Hell, the Sunni states in the area are even talking about not wiping out Israel until the Iranian threat is neutralized!
Lots of illegal stuff going on at all levels of government, and U.S. society, for that matter. Our Constitution prohibits almost everything noteworthy the government does these days.
Nothing to see here, move along.
They feared that it could be used to suppress protest or support unpopular rule.
>>>Iran is committed to the extinction of the Jews. This is a publicly stated policy
No there isn't. The comment you are referring to has been accurately translated as, "Someday the government in Jerusalem will fall and be wiped from the pages of history." It isn't the Jews that government hates, but the government. In fact there are many Jews living in Iran even as we speak, and they are not being round-up and exterminated. So stop spreading anti-Arab/Iranian hate speech and racism.
As for the nuclear weapon Secretary of Defense Panetta has alread said, "No I don't think Iran is developing a nuclear weapon. The fuel they have is not anywhere pure enough for weapon use, and it is within compliance with the Nonproliferation Treaty."
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
I thought it said that Iranian prayers were blocked.
There's simple ignorance, and willful ignorance, as well. Almost as common as brainless drones, and neck-and-neck with the paranoid schizophrenics.
A verrry small minority are actually reasonable folks who've merely been duped into disagreeing with me.
They feared that it could be used to suppress protest or support unpopular rule.
I would require Blizzard set aside the funds so that if/when the sanctions get lifted they can either process the refunds or reinstate the accounts. Otherwise how much money has Blizzard "gained" by doing this??
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
Ahmadinejad has made too many anti-Semitic remarks to mention here so here is a handy list by year: http://www.adl.org/main_International_Affairs/ahmadinejad_words.htm
So no it is not just one "mistranslated" statement. And no, mentioning it has nothing to do with "spreading anti-Arab/Iranian hate speech and racism". Where the hell did you get that from?
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
Players that have mastered the game of WoW will most likely be able to use tools such as TOR to be able to proxy bypass any limitations they place.... /. as well !?! ;)
unless the fear is more if you are caught using TOR then you would go to jail for doing so...but this I am uncertain about in their laws right now...maybe someone from there may answer me, unless they blocked
I'm pretty sure they will still be fighting over Israel in 2 trillion years, even if it's a radioactive magma swamp.
Henry Ford also made anti-Semitic remarks, you still buy his cars...
Iranian productivity just doubled lol
"Unless all the other Islam countries are going to do nothing which is very unlikely"
The arab countries' governments would be quite ecstatic to see Iran taken down. 'Persia' and Arabia have had this power competition for centuries. Notice how the arab countries are trying to change the name of the Persian Gulf to just the Gulf in order to piss Iran off. There might be other countries to jump on Iran's side, but not their closest neighbors.
Which starts with the well known sophistry of "wipe Israel off the map", a debunked lie. Between that and their support of the 'Ground Zero Mosque' ban, the ADL has zero credibility.
For every anti-Semitic statement Ahmadinejad has made, we can probably find an equivalent statement coming from a politician in the US. Not to mention the anti-Arab statements coming out if the Israeli and US governments....
It's called political rhetoric. Of course, Ahmadinejad may be anti-Semitic; it's a free-ish world, and he has a right to his own views, however misguided.
This is the same argument I've heard against Islam based on Jihad, and the same argument I've heard against playing D&D. Focus on the outliers and a perfectly acceptable (if twisted) interpretation of what's going on, introduce the "slippery slope" rhetoric, and then appeal to public opinion on killing kittens/babies/etc.
Personally, I'd be a lot happier with Iran having nuclear weapons than Pakistan and India having them... Iran is at least fairly self-sufficient and has a record of being able to defend itself from external and internal instability.
Of course it's propaganda. Guess which country in the Middle East has the highest Jewish population after Israel? That also has Jewish members of Parliament?
The parent, cdrguru, is a lying liar.
Iran had a secular democracy in 1953. The CIA helped overthrow it and installed a dictatorship. Then the US puppet's security arm, Savak, worked with the CIA to kill off, imprison and exile the left. By the late 1970s, the only independent bodies in Iran were the mullahs, and the informal relationships bazaar merchants formed. Thus when the economy collapsed, and repression intensified, the mullahs and bazaar merchants were at the forefront of the revolution, they were the only independent bodies the CIA had not wrecked.
Then Americans have the gall to stick up their nose and whine about theocracies. Of course, Iran is a secular paradise compared to somewhere like US puppet regime Saudi Arabia. In Saudi Arabia, women are not even allowed to drive cars. So why do we hear this theocracy stuff for Iran but not Saudi Arabia? Would it have something to do with the government (which has popular support, and some democratic forms - much, much more than Saudi Arabia) not asking "how high" whenever the powers that be in the US say "jump"? The gall and hypocrisy and rose-colored glasses of imperial-happy Americans seems unlimited, only planes flying into their war-planning pentagon buildings seem to wake them up from their stupor for a short bit.
No way would I live somewhere as hellish as New York (hurricanes), or Minnesota (mosquitoes), on a year-round basis. (Or lots of Canada, either.)
British Columbia has some nice temperate places, OTOH, so don't over-generalize. I hear there's nice places in NY, but I'm skeptical. The non-First Nations I've met seem like they may have hint of a Scottish accent, though maybe in some of the blizzardy parts they have ex-Swedes? As I said, I wouldn't live somewhere too difficult. I plan to upgrade from California to Oregon, and eventually on up to B.C. someday.
They feared that it could be used to suppress protest or support unpopular rule.
Estimated GNP up almost 200%. Experts remain mystified as to the reason behind this sudden surge in productivity.
Iran is committed to the extinction of the Jews.
Not they're not. That's a bunch of horseshit propaganda that the U.S. and Israel have created to justify their shadow war against Iran, one that's been going on since their puppet totalitarian Shah got tossed out by the modern DEMOCRATIC government of Iran.
I won't argue that the idea Iran wants to wipe out the Jews is complete nonsense.
But calling the Iranian government democratic is an extreme stretch. The candidates are severely restricted, the voting is largely rigged, and the main authority resides with the Supreme Leader who is not elected (not the President who has limited authority), and the Guardian Council who is half appointed by the Supreme Leader and half by the parliament. It may become democratic one day, but right now it is mostly an autocracy.
I stole this Sig
If we are trying to slow down Iran's nuke development, shouldn't we be encouraging them to play WoW? The US government should be sponsoring free WoW accounts for Iranians.
All the sophistry in the world can't magic up the list of anti-Semitic bullshit Ahmadinejad has promoted.
Was his Holocaust-denial conference another Western media conspiracy?
Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
The first quote on your list is mistranslated, and I suspect the others are as well. When a list starts-off with a debunked lie, it holds zero credibility.
Besides we all know the president of Iran is not the real source of power. It is the elected Parliament and the Supreme Leader (ayatollah) that hold the strings. I don't want to say the Iranian president is a "puppet" but he's pretty close to it. The Supreme Leader has stated several times he disavows any idea of exterminating the Jews (which is why we see them living in Iran and happy to be there).
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
I can almost quote you on this: "But calling the US government democratic is an extreme stretch. The candidates are severely restricted, the voting is largely rigged, and the main authority resides with the media who is not elected (not the President who has limited authority), and the Pentagon who is half appointed by the president and half by congress. It may become democratic one day, but right now it is mostly a plutocracy."
Arabs (and Persians in this case) don't like Jews and Jews don't like Arabs. It has been like that for more than a thousand years. Now to invade a country because one of said groups perceive the other to cause them harm is just playing to their petty feuds.
Yeah but your substitutions make the statement nonsense.
Besides, you're not convincing anyone the US political system is as bad as the Iranian system, people are familiar with the US system and you won't change their minds. What you are doing is telling them the Iranian government is as good as the US system, and I really doubt that's what you really intended.
I stole this Sig
Your problem with New York is hurricanes? I would have said my problem with New York is New Yorkers.
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
Send me the balance +50% Bitcoins and I'll pay your bill for you :-|
A blog I run for the wealth
Iranians should roll a new president.
Henry Ford also made anti-Semitic remarks, you still buy his cars...
Ford isn't a country, and it isn't trying to get its hands on nukes.
Downmodding is the refuge of the weak. Don't downmod, make a better argument!
For every anti-Semitic statement Ahmadinejad has made, we can probably find an equivalent statement coming from a politician in the US.
Ahmadinejad isn't "a politician", he's the President of Iran. Heard many anti-Semitic statements from Obama lately, or Bush or Clinton before him?
Not to mention the anti-Arab statements coming out if the Israeli and US governments...
I haven't heard anything about "wiping the Arab world off the map"; have you?
Downmodding is the refuge of the weak. Don't downmod, make a better argument!
www.vanityfair.com/politics/2012/07/benjamin-netanyahu-on-israel-mitt-romney
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=25003
http://theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/features/articles/islamophobia_no_longer_even_questioned
(everyone has a very slanted take on this, so I thought I'd post a cross-section)
I haven't heard anything about "wiping the Jewish world off the map" either; The Iranian government wants the Israeli government gone as it is unabashadly anti-Islam; the Israeli government wants to nuke Iran because it sees the Iranian government as an anti-Zion threat.
Both sides are high on rhetoric, and have been for hundreds of years. The US supports both sides, but is interested in keeping Jewish-controlled Israel in control of Jerusalem and Gaza. Tehran wants the state of Israel, as erected by the west, removed from the map. Literally. They're not talking about nuking Israel, they're talking about changing the political makeup and boundaries of the physical area. This is the politics of the situation, and has nothing to do with individual intolerance or hate -- those are a completely separate issue.
Put a different way: Iran wants Israel off the map the same way that Yugoslavia is now off the map, and the same way that the colony of Hong Kong is now off the map (or the USSR for that matter).
Of course, Iran dreams of being Persia again as well....
Oh I'm not saying that the Iranian system is as good as the US, I'm just telling you that all countries have issues. To start pinpointing a specific country like that is just pure propaganda, and the same can be said about the US, but to you, as an American, you will see it for what it is, complete bullshit. That was the main idea of the argument.
I'm actually a Canadian.
And my opinion of Iranian politics comes from multiple sources, including conversations with Iranians where they generally had a more pessimistic view of their government than I did.
The US government, while it has serious issues, is fundamentally democratic.
The Iranian government, while it has democratic characteristics, is fundamentally a theocracy/autocracy.
Its easy to obscure the truth with details, but when you start comparing the Iranian government to the US government on favourable terms, and calling Iran democratic, you need to take a step back and reconsider which details are really important.
I stole this Sig
Yeah. All the sophistry in the world. Like leaving out the second half of Ahmadinejad's comments on the Holocaust:
1) Did it happen
2) If it happened, how does it justify taking land by force for a bunch of immigrants to create Israel, or justify Israel's treatment of the Palestinians.