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

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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.

After a U.S. military drone was shot down by the Iranian army earlier this week, the already tenuous relationship between the two countries has immediately soured even further—and Syria is also caught up in this penalty.

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.

Multiple Iranian and Syrian players have expressed despair about this situation. A common theme is that this won’t hurt the politicians or those with the power to do something, but instead, it’ll affect the civilians whose lives in a war-torn country already offer little comfort and access to video games. Based on the wording of the message, and the fact that it also details that the restriction is down to the whim of the U.S. government, it appears that Riot Games had little say in the matter.

The ban only applies to Syria and Iran right now, but if the U.S. enters into future conflict with another country, those citizens potentially may have their access to League of Legends revoked. The sanctions placed on Iran detail that any business in Iran can’t trade with the U.S. and that any business caught trading with Iran is in trouble as well. League, like many other free games, has to sustain itself with microtransactions, which undoubtedly counts as a form of trade and therefore has to abide by the sanctions. It’s unknown if any other multiplayer games have also been banned in these countries.