Despite Myanmar Sanctions Being Lifted, Residents Still Banned from Origin

One should be extremely cautious to trust DRM. Servers could go down... permanently, or the service issuing the DRM-locked games can revoke your right to play your games at any time.

Before you know it, hundreds - perhaps even thousands - of dollars worth of merchandise are no longer accessible.

It's a horror story come true in the eyes of a gamer. Unfortunately, residents of a certain country are bearing witness to the evils of DRM.

One Redditor, living in Myanmar, reported that EA Games quietly banned the country of Myanmar from accessing its Origin service.

The full story:

"I live in Myanmar, and I own about 20 games on Origin, and have spent hundreds of dollars on the platform. I've bought the full editions of all of the Battlefield games up to this point, with their season passes. I was trying to log into Origin a few days ago, and got a bizarre 'Access Denied' message. I googled it, and found that 'Origin is no longer available in Myanmar.'"

According to Origin Champion:

"With the Origin 10 update, US laws (which is where EA is based) forced them to block certain countries. Unfortunately, you live in one of those countries. I'm sorry but there is nothing we ca do here to allow you access again."

No apology was given and no refunds were issued. The funny thing? This whole event affected residents over a month ago.

People assume that this is due to the trade sanctions placed against the country, which were officially lifted through the Treasury Department on October 7. So it seems as if EA just never got the memo. In fact, Myanmar's sanction began in 1989 with a denial of trade benefits because it violated several human rights charters. The sanctions were fully imposed in 2003 thanks to the Burma Freedom and Democracy Act, which was passed by Congress. EA only complied with the trade sanction law recently.

EA_Tom, community manager on EA's AnswersHQ support forum, wrote to a user on September 15 regarding the denial of service:

"In compliance with US embargoes and sanctions laws, Origin is not available in Cuba, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, Sudan, Syria and Ukraine (Crimea region)."

Remember, issues like this could happen to anyone. Hopefully, residents of Myanmar will receive access to their games once more, but this just dissuades me from purchasing games from Origin. As for Steam? Well, I will just have to be more cautious about what I would like to keep in the future.