Iranian Players Blocked From World of Warcraft Due To Trade Sanctions 475
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.
Meh theres always private servers... (Score:2, Informative)
So they move to private servers.
Re:It was even available to begin with? (Score:0, Informative)
Gee, you don't think the American media might have distorted the truth about Iranian society do you?!?!?
Re:When I was a kid we thought America was free (Score:5, Informative)
If you did public transit you don't even need that.
TSA now "inspects" railroad passengers to prevent terrorists from hijacking a train and crashing it into a skyscraper. Most news reports about it were the usual frothing at the mouth stockholm syndrome request for them to start body cavity searches of bus passengers. Several states require if you're an adult on public land you must carry ID or you'll be charged. In practice across the entire country if you interact with any cop and have no ID it is assumed there's a warrant out for you and you'll sit in a cell until they figure out who you are via prints or... something.
In the USSR you could be detained for moving between zones without a good reason
In the USA we only do that to black people. As a white dude I'm free to travel, not so for my black ex-coworkers who have all kinds of stories. They're only allowed to drive on certain roads and shop in certain stores without suspicion. Admittedly I live in one of the most segregated metro areas in the country (and no, its not in the south). My cousin who went to Soweto (spelling?) township in South Africa during the apartheid years didn't feel race relations were all that different from home, but some of his fellow peace corps volunteers were pretty freaked out, so I guess it depends where you live in the USA.
Re:Wait a sec... (Score:5, Informative)
WOW-player and computer-savvy are two different things.
Re:When I was a kid we thought America was free (Score:5, Informative)
There are a lot of factual problems with your statements. I'm not going to list all the Soviet space accomplishments I learned about in school, because that's likely a function of specific school one went to and how much detail on the space program one had. But let's look at your other claims.
First of all, the US has not (until very recently in some states like Arizona) been a papers-please state, that is a state where the police can just stop you on the street and ask for your ID and other paperwork. The difference with cars is that you need a license to drive a car. Comparing that to what the USSR did is just not accurate.
Second, it is possible to travel to Cuba and has been for over a decade, and in fact it just got easier about a year ago. http://travel.nytimes.com/2011/07/10/travel/at-long-last-legal-trips-to-cuba.html [nytimes.com]. Even in years where it has been difficult, a minimum of around 50,000 Americans traveled there has been around 50,000. Moreover, there's a very large difference between it being difficult to travel to a specific country and making it nearly impossible to travel to most of the planet. Remember the Berlin Wall at all? People were shot trying to flee as a regular occurrence. The US may do nasty things sometimes to keep people out, but they aren't threatening their own citizens to keep them in.
None of this is to say that the US is perfect. There are serious problems with civil liberties. And in many ways they've gotten much worse in the last decade. But that doesn't mean it is at all like how things were in the Soviet Union.
Re:When I was a kid we thought America was free (Score:2, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driving_while_black
Re:When I was a kid we thought America was free (Score:2, Informative)
"just because we require people to be licensed to drive motor vehicles that we're not the land of the free."
If you don't drive and have no license,you won't vote for the next president in lots of states.
Re:When I was a kid we thought America was free (Score:4, Informative)
Re:When I was a kid we thought America was free (Score:5, Informative)
Re:When I was a kid we thought America was free (Score:5, Informative)
Evidence for this?
All you want [wikipedia.org]
Re:Iran's nuke program seems illogical (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Re:When I was a kid we thought America was free (Score:5, Informative)
So what was it that the USSR did exactly? I don't mean in Berlin near the wall, I mean in Moscow or Stalingrad or a Russian city with russian citizens, not conquered and occupied territory.
In the papers context, anyone authorized (police, KGB, GRU, etc.) could stop citizens at any time and ask for their papers, that included identification information, where they worked, etc. and could ask them why they were they were, what they were doing etc. Failure to cooperate was a crime. And this was frequently used and moreover was used to intimidate groups they didn't like. For a personal example, I know someone who grew up near Moscow in the 1970s who had become interested in Judaism. She joined a group of people who were reading and studying old texts. After a few months, it reached the attention of the government, and one time they went to their regular meeting, she was stopped by KGB people and asked where she was going, and told that it was an unwise thing to do. At the next meeting, they were raided and all arrested. She served a few months in jail and upon being released couldn't get any jobs. In the US, nor in most of the Western world do things like that happen. The USSR wasn't just bad compared to the US, it was bad compared to most civilized countries.
I'm perfectly fine with flying pretty much anywhere in the world, but I won't currently fly to the U.S..
Sure, the current restrictions on flying are stupid, petty and deeply inconvenient. If I were not a US citizen I'd probably not be that inclined to fly here either. But that goes to the "things aren't perfect and have gotten worse" matter, not to any sort of comparison with the USSR.
Re:When I was a kid we thought America was free (Score:5, Informative)
NO! You cannot be detained in the U.S. just for not having ID. You are simply wrong.
The U.S. also does not have any requirements for exit. Airlines will check that you have a passport so that you can get intothe country you arrive at. But the U.S. has no exit restrictions at our borders. You are free to leave.
Actually, there are currently 24 states (that's roughly half of the US) that have "Stop and Identify" laws.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_and_identify_statutes
Re:Iran's nuke program seems illogical (Score:4, Informative)
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 [adl.org]
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?
Re:When I was a kid we thought America was free (Score:4, Informative)
And the limits are generally that actual physical ID is not required. It is only required that you answer the question "what is your name". Police can also ask other questions related to their investigations, but that is outside the topic of "are you required to carry ID in the U.S."
Re:When I was a kid we thought America was free (Score:4, Informative)
Re:When I was a kid we thought America was free (Score:4, Informative)