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World of Warcraft: Crimean Accounts Suspended, Steep Price Increases in Russia
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Crimean gamers woke up to find that Battle.net has suspended accounts as a result of Western-backed sanctions against Russia implemented to try to stop tensions between Russia and the Ukraine. Crimean players no longer have access to Heroes of the Storm, World of Warcraft, Starcraft II, Hearthstone, and Diablo III. While World of Warcraft has been blocked in Crimea for several months, Battle.net had remained open for Blizzard's other titles.
"In accordance with current trade regulations relating to the region of Crimea, we are legally required to suspend access to your Battle.net account," the company's notice read, Geektimes.ru reported.
In addition to, but seemingly unrelated to the cut off of Battle.net services mentioned above, the Russian community will see a steep increase in the cost of all Blizzard products. For instance, the WoW Battle Chest (base game and all expansions through Pandaria) will rise from 359 Rubles ($6.67 USD) to 549 Rubles ($10.20 USD) with similar increases for all Blizzard products and services across the board.
At this time, subscription prices for World of Warcraft will remain unchanged.
Price increases for gaming-related products have been rising in the past several months as the Ruble has fallen off against Western currencies and as pressure to implement sanctions has mounted.
Read more at the links above.
Comments
It's perfectly relevant to gaming and is not designed to become an argument about the efficacy of the sanctions as much as it should engender sympathy for fellow gamers in Crimea.
Price increases in Russia, and any other region of the world, are always news.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Result will be that Crimean players will :
1. Play other online games.
2. Play Blizzard games on private Battle.net-like services.
american govt hurting american business
i bet blizzard aint too happy about it. Putting politics aside the whole situational is insanely dumb, like what are they expecting - russia to roll over and give crimea back because they closed access to WoW? mkay.
Its just a freaking game, why cut off people from it... that makes no freaking sense at all, oh well, russia still has world of tanks and since its belorusian its not going anywhere any time soon
If it were just Blizzard services that were cut, this would make sense. However, I'm pretty sure the idea is to cut everything you offer to a region to apply economic pressure. Most parts of the world are reliant on trade from the rest of the world. Being cut out has significant consequences to local economies.
yea, gl on finding some with a similiar playerbase as the org servers.
"I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"
how will they ever live without apple, paypal and google? I have no clue!!!11 You just dont get russians man...
QFT
Ironically you both are correct. Cut out always hinders economy. Any sanctions are making things harder for everyone involved. Economy is global worldwide thing, despite some people think. Economists just making gestures about situation. Most often word heard is 'nonsense'. Well, politics.
And yes, Russians will get by without apple, paypal and google just fine. Another Iron Curtain wouldn't do much difference for Russia. But will set back everything for about 30 years, though.
And while rising prices is quite usual thing - after all ruble worth twice as less compared to dollar - why only Crimea is beyond me. Block whole Russia. That'll be show.
Try it sometime. You'll be surprised.
Well, they are out there, packed and running.
"going into arguments with idiots is a lost cause, it requires you to stoop down to their level and you can't win"
Excellent reply.
I'm sure folks living in the neighborhood of a civil war probably have bigger things to worry about than Battle.net access. Worst case scenario, play Warcraft III for however long the embargo lasts. I still play that gem, what, 12 years later?
And I'm sure there are plenty of Russian (mod edit) MMOs they can play if they need the online fix.
Well depending on how many get on the train and for how long... This will sting a already fairly strained economy, especially if the more savy RUS take their money elsewhere..
Now as for gaming in articular... it will not make much of a dent beyond pissing a few gamers off. But i guess it will drive up the price of game gold and cut down on the numbers of bot´s.. =P
This have been a good conversation
You play Warcraft 3 as your main game? And there's actually very few Russian MMOs compared to other countries like Korea or NA.
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The real question is; WHEN WILL THE RUSSIANS BE BANNED FROM DOTA
Played: UO, LotR, WoW, SWG, DDO, AoC, EVE, Warhammer, TF2, EQ2, SWTOR, TSW, CSS, KF, L4D, AoW, WoT
Playing: The Secret World until Citadel of Sorcery goes into Alpha testing.
Tired of: Linear quest games, dailies, and dumbed down games
Anticipating:Citadel of Sorcery
Paypal, google, Battlenet and other services are operating just fine in the Russian Federation except the recently annexated Crimean region. My brother works in Saint Petersburg and according to him the sanctions against Russia are very little felt over there mainly in some agricultural products. They definitely do not have an impact in the people's every day life.
The whole economic blockade laid upon Russia is pointless. Russia can be fully self sufficient in everything. And those few things they're not self sufficient in they can buy from befriended lands like China. Actually, the sanctions will hurt Europe in the near future more than it'll hurt Russia. Winter will be here in 6 months, and half of Europe relies on Russian gas (glad I'm in The Netherlands we we're self sufficient on that front), which should be bought and stored during the summer already. Also look at EU export to Russia - nothing there any more and the agrarians are really suffering from that (just to name one sector).
Economics and politics aside... I agree with most, what's the use of blocking gaming services? It's already mentioned that the Russian players have enough legit 3rd party publishers for most games (4game being a real big one), and this will hurt Blizzard a lot because if it takes too long these gamers will go to one of the many private servers available in Russia...