Fri, Aug 31, 2012 | 06:28 BST

US Treasury: Games not “the focus of our sanctions”

World of Warcraft, Diablo and StarCraft are not the kinds of goods the US is hoping to keep out of Iran, a Treasury spokesperson has said in the wake of Battle.net’s sudden unavailability.

Speaking to the LA Times, US Treasury spokesman John Sullivan said there’s no reason why Blizzard couldn’t request an exemption.

“Clearly the focus of our sanctions is not on video games. We would consider a license request from Blizzard Entertainment should they choose to apply for one,” he said.

Battle.net and associated games became unavailable in Iran last week. Blizzard’s official stance on the withdrawal is that sanctions block it from offering its services – or refunds.

Prior to Blizzard’s statement, some Iranian gamers pointed the finger at local authorities, suspicious of a new task force dedicated to banning games with content deemed undesirable.

Thanks, GwynbleiddiuM – and gratz on being quoted in the article.

4 comments

GwynbleiddiuM
31/08/12, 7:26 am

Thanks Brenna, I might add Samit from the Verge and VG247 helped a lot to spread this issue worldwide, hats off to all of you. I’m only interested to see that Blizzard lift these restrictions.

marijnlems
31/08/12, 12:19 pm

Yeah Brenna, surely you’ll follow up on this with Blizzard again?

SplatteredHouse
31/08/12, 12:25 pm

I’d like to know whether they intend to apply for such an exemption. Maybe they went over-cautious under guidance to avoid breaches/penalties, or perhaps the concern is over the messaging system.

OlderGamer
31/08/12, 12:41 pm

What a bone head move on the part of the US. I play Civ games, and my fav way to win the game is by spreading culture. By exposing western culture(media) to closed off societies, you can slowly over time get people within that society thinking they could be missing out.

Please don’t take that out of context. There is nothing inherently wrong with Iran, its culture or the people that live there. However spreading your own culture(where it is wanted) is a great way to bring people closer together. You can’t force things of course. But we are talking about video games.

It just strikes me as a counter productive move on the USs part.