{"id":13883,"date":"2012-08-30T20:22:56","date_gmt":"2012-08-31T00:22:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theredphoenixapl.org\/?p=13883"},"modified":"2026-04-22T09:37:59","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T14:37:59","slug":"blizzard-bans-iranians-from-world-of-warcraft-citing-sanctions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/2012\/08\/blizzard-bans-iranians-from-world-of-warcraft-citing-sanctions\/","title":{"rendered":"Blizzard Bans Iranians From World of Warcraft, Citing Sanctions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/redphoenixnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/obamacomp.jpg\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-13885\" title=\"obamacomp\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/redphoenixnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/obamacomp.jpg?resize=290%2C290\" alt=\"\" width=\"290\" height=\"290\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #000000\">Sanctions Also Mean No Refunds, Blizzard Confirms<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\"><strong>by Jason Ditz<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\">The World of Warcraft\u2019s players are gearing up for a new expansion pack to be released next week, but they\u2019ll have to do it without Iranian players, as Blizzard, the game\u2019s maker and operator, has confirmed they are<\/span> <span style=\"color: #0000ff\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/technology-19399375\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff\">banning all Iranians<\/span><\/a><\/span> <span style=\"color: #000000\">from accessing the game because of US sanctions.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\">Though like many other companies Blizzard was not directly doing business in Iran, the realities of a global network allowed Iranian players to acquire the software and play on European servers. Blizzard insists the move was meant to \u201c<\/span><span style=\"color: #0000ff\"><a href=\"http:\/\/eu.battle.net\/wow\/en\/forum\/topic\/5168067998?page=97#1933\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff\">ensure compliance<\/span><\/a><\/span><span style=\"color: #000000\">\u201d with US law.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\">It is entirely unclear how US sanctions even theoretically prohibit online roleplaying with Iranians, but Blizzard\u2019s confirmation will end ongoing speculation that the ban was somehow imposed by the Iranian government due to \u201cobjectionable\u201d content within the game.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\">Apparently the US sanctions are also anti-refund, as Blizzard\u2019s confirmation of the banning of all Iranians included saying that the law \u201cprevents us from providing any refunds\u201d to their Iranian customers. Again, it isn\u2019t clear what part of US law actually forbids providing refunds to Iranians for services not provided.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff\"><a href=\"http:\/\/news.antiwar.com\/2012\/08\/28\/blizzard-bans-iranians-from-world-of-warcraft-citing-sanctions\/\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff\">Fuente<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sanctions Also Mean No Refunds, Blizzard Confirms by Jason Ditz The World of Warcraft\u2019s players are gearing up for a new expansion pack to be..<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38450,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,43,187,97],"tags":[229,197,199],"class_list":["post-13883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","category-media-culture","category-science-tech","category-us-news","tag-economic-exploitation","tag-imperialism","tag-iran"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/redphoenix.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/obamacomp_13883_1478c.jpg?fit=290%2C290&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13883"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13883\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39494,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13883\/revisions\/39494"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}