When gamers are caught in the crossfire of international politics, bad things can happen.
Due to US sanctions against Russia, World of Warcraft and Diablo III service to the Crimea region was suspended yesterday. Blizzard said that it did not have a choice in the matter: “In accordance with current trade regulations relating to the region of Crimea, we are legally required to suspend access to your Battle.net account. All current subscriptions will be canceled.”
Blizzard is the latest company that has had to rescind business with the region due to sanctions, following others such as Apple and Amazon. Economic sanctions against the peninsula were levied by President Obama in December 2014.
[Source: The Moscow Times]
Karl_Hungus EO_Lonegun Well actually they did exactly this last year :D
neserbohy No, it’s not a separate company, it’s Blizzard
Karl_Hungus I was generalizing, not making an observation on this specific situation.
SeloNWÂ
Er, from what I’ve read, Putin is actually quite popular in Russia overall….still!
His attempt to make hacking legal for Russians as long as they’d pay the Russian government a % of their profits reduced him to “off-kilter loon” in my book.
Good thing I don’t come here to read the comments for geopolitical insight.
SeloNWÂ EO_LonegunÂ
I hope that’s sarcasm, and not full blown crazy.
The reason this is happening is because the Crimean citizens need to be punished for voting for and still supporting Russian reunification in recent polls.
They must be punished until they hate Russia for the things the west is doing to Crimea (I know, it makes perfect sense).
Gadgets4G It is the Crimean people’s job to beat back the “red menace”? What do you think would happen to them if they tried?
yonabox I think you will be safe. The U.S. supports Israel unconditionally. And if something happens, you can maybe use a proxy and to play.
I guess this means the U.S. has acknowledged Russia’s ownership of Crimea. Hopefully Blizzard can hand the reigns to Tencent or w/e Chinese company has WoW so people can play again. Or Blizzard can just make WoW completely F2P in those places. Either way, the people should not have to suffer for the squabbles of big, old men.