Blizzard blocks Battle.net access in Iran

Its unfair

?Clearly the focus of our sanctions is not on video games,? U.S. Treasury spokesman John Sullivan said. ?We would consider a license request from Blizzard Entertainment should they choose to apply for one.?

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/world_now/2012/08/iran-world-warcraft-sanctions-gaming-united-states-blocked.html

we are human and must love each other Regardless governments relationship

f**k governments, they separate us

Uhm, how stupid are you guys?

It is not Blizzards own choice, they have to do it because of United States laws.

US does not trade with communist countries or countries with an enemy regime.

Im sure blizzard wants to make as much money as possible, they dont care about nationalities.. Its a profit company!

dont worry we`ll use vpn and play diablo 3 and other games

iranian always have new idea

Wow, you wouldn't think they would do something reputable much less respectable...

gogo!ban people who lives in iran ,cut off thier access to any kind of information...im sure it will help them to get "even more" enlightned about wat is going on in the world and in thier own country,im sick of this not only our own govement is censoring now whole world started to censor information good job ppl instead of baning govement you are bannin people:))oh let me guess next thing will be banning "internet" from all iranian?

You know, I really like the way Laura Parker handles these articles. Always bringing the REAL issues of gaming and related problems. See, it's not wise for anyone to ban games on any country, especially where there's political turmoil brewing. People might get the wrong impression and might even retaliate with serious heat.

Keep it in your pants people, I wish for a day where people can comment without jumping on eachother :pAnyway I dont blame Blizzard, under the law they have to block Iranians.

However that just proves that sanctions only hit normal citizens and doesn't affect the government.

Thats kind of violation of human rights, but then, who am I to decide? :p

I've gotten tired of all these propagandist comments by some brainwashed Americans so I think I just have to make it clear: I'm Iranian and I'm telling you that WOW is NOT banned in Iran. Not only it's not banned, but there are many servers working officialy under the law. everything your government and media are telling you about Iran are nothing but LIES and propaganda. you know nothing about iran. they have told you a lot about those three american 'hikers', but have they told you anything about the Iranian mother of 2 who was sent into jail in america for 'circumventing sanction' ? an iranian university professor, who happens to be a professor at the university I attend, was sent into jail because he was trying to buy simple lab equipment, an Iranian woman was kicked out of an apple store when she was trying to buy an ipad because she was speaking persian. do I have to say more? the US is the true apartheid, The US is the uncivilized country. and it's time you looked past the stereotypes and deceitful news of your media.

Diablo 3 and WOW(including guild wars ,among other games) have been "marked" by the Iranian government  already ,for those reason:

1-Promotion of superstition and mythology (oh the irony...)

2-Promotion of violence due to too much violence.

3-Abolishing the deformation in sin.

4-Demonstration of inappropriate clothing and "slutty" outfits for female avatars.

Here's is the source

http://www.theverge.com/gaming/2012/8/22/3259974/battle-net-blocked-in-iran-world-of-warcraft-diablo-3

And this is the least of crazier things they banned/censored in this country.There is little to nothing civilized about that government  and that's not a racist comment it's just a fact,same way north Korea is as much uncivilized.But I'm pretty sure people,mainly the youth, is going eventually to be fed up with all this shit and boot the religious zealots in charge.They just like to keep people in the dark to better exercise their power.

So I guess I'll post this before I see another racist comment pop up here. It's interesting to know that Iran actually has the largest Jewish population outside of Israel and the United States, in fact many Israeli citizens are actually immigrants from Persian Jews that lived in Iran. Iran has many Jewish people who are politicians as well and say they are treated fairly for the most part from a couple of vids that I've seen. I honestly think most of you have watched too much of the mainstream media again, another symptom of being a sheep. If these people TRULY wanted to kill every single one of you they would've already attempted it, multiple times.

Another sensationalist piece by Parker. When will this end? I'm tired of coming to this site expecting to see, oh, I don't know, video game reviews, and seeing poor writing like this.This is the second article from her like this in a month. The first article was an angst ridden EA opinion piece about weapons and gaming ethics. It was biased, had poor tone, and was critical of policies regarding the proliferation of arms and their role in video games. Now this. Blizzard is abiding by U.S. law.  Parker may have trouble understanding this, as she's an editor from GameSpot Australia. I'm not sure why she's commenting about U.S. international relations and  gaming policies in the first place. The tone of this article suggests there is some sort of poor business practice on Blizzard's behalf for restricting usage of U.S. products from state sponsors of terror.Why are foreign editors even allowed to contribute to the U.S. site? Actually, what does this even have to do with the reviewing of video games? That's what this site is about right? Well, it used to be (a long time ago) about reviewing video games, and keeping a lighthearted atmosphere about gaming. After all, they're GAMES.

Oh, and Parker, one doesn't start paragraphs with "However" in the King's English. It's in poor taste sweetheart.

blizzard games sucks anyways so no big loss for them ther

WORLD OF WARCRAFT: except for countries that the United States doesn't like.

Maybe rename the game: MOST OF THE WORLD OF WARCRAFT.

you know it's kinda unfair

specially for MMO games, since they are online games and can't really be played offline

anyways, what kind of damage would playing online games do to US ?

if there is going to be any damage, it would be to iran because of promising years of young people being wasted on things like games and stuff.

these US guys and Blizzard guys are stupid too.

For shame. 

I can see putting embargoes on dangerous resources and materials, but if Diablo III and WoW are online games isn't that restricting young peoples from interacting with each other and being more familiar with each other. Wouldn't it help dispel the mistrust created by the US installing a brutal regime with the british and the mistrust created by the brutal regime from Iran that replaced it, if we could just chill together and play some games as normal people?

A simple VPN will get around that... for those savy enough to figure it out.

People around the world deserve the same respect, whether they're from Iran, Israel, Cuba, the United States, Syria, etc.  It's a pity to see that even in our present times we can't have a more unifying dynamic since we're all human and citizens of the same world after all.  But what can you do, politics will always be a bitch.

It is a shame that the good people of Iran who enjoy gaming are punished because of their leaders, who surely could not care less about gaming.  

You shall not pass Iran

The comments for this article are so utterly depressing. Can't we all just get along and go on some raids together? Apparently not, because of Islam/Iran/America/Israel/Governments/the West/Women/Men/Blizzard/Everyone. Meanwhile, I'm going to go on living my life knowing that at least I'm not as angry as some of the poor unfortunate souls here in the comments. 

 Laura Parker or who ever at game spot has the power needs to shut this post down as all its for is trash talk

I don't see what this will accomplish other than Blizzard getting some free PR.

It's so sad, that what people think about we Persians, this is sad, Governments, religious, Medias...make people hate each other, and it makes me so sad to read the comments and see what other people are thinking about us, some of them say we even know nothing about games whereas lots of great Persian CG Artists are evolved on those pretty games and movies that your are playing and watching, and the most thing that makes me so so sad is the lack of information, some simple mind people just close their eyes and say nonsenses and spread only hate. 

I just hope people have some caution.

It sucks for Iranian gamers, but the real culprits are the Iranian leaders.  It's all their fault!

Some of the people playing will just pick up their AK47's and patrol more, so they probably should have let them play their game.

Polygon has got some great scoops, I'm going to log into that site more often! Thanks GS! :P

This is why governments suck, all of them. No matter what BS goes on between them, the people are always the ones caught in the middle and suffer for it. I'm not saying online gaming even remotely qualifies as a 'real world' issue, it's one of a million luxuries we can live without. But still, the people are the ones who do without. Government officials never go without... of anything, ever.