quoms:

US government blocks League of Legends in Syria and Iran amid escalating tensions | Dot Esports

As tensions between the U.S. and Iran begin to boil over, the conflict has had an unexpected side effect. League of Legends, one of the most played video games of all time, has been blocked in Iran and Syria by the U.S. government. […]

This is an extraordinary occurrence that hasn’t been seen in the esports sphere before. Tariffs, trade sanctions, and threats of military conflict are frequent sights when countries are in active dispute, but the step of blocking civilians’ access to video games is a novel course of action. It’s quite a change from politicians regularly debating the dangers of loot boxes and microtransactions. This can easily set a precedent of conflicting countries disabling access to games as part of ongoing tensions.

The ban hasn’t stopped some ingenious players from cheating the system, though, and using VPNs to get around the authentication process upon log-in (the part where the client flares up a message that says “Due to U.S. laws and regulations, players in your country cannot access League of Legends at this time”). But this still makes it quite difficult for League players in these affected countries to play anyway since VPNs can be quite expensive in these areas.

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I fucking hate 2019 dude