The L.A. Times is reporting World of Warcraft computer game players in Iran have found their access tripped up by U.S. sanctions, and they are not happy.

Gamers on an Iranian messageboard first believed their own government was curbing access.

But WOW creator Blizzard Games posted a message on an Iranian WOW messageboard explaining they had restricted access in order to comply with new federal trade restrictions:

"United States trade restrictions and economic sanction laws prohibit Blizzard from doing business with residents of certain nations, including Iran. Several of you have seen and cited the text in the Terms of Use which relates to these government-imposed sanctions. This week, Blizzard tightened up its procedures to ensure compliance with these laws, and players connecting from the affected nations are restricted from access to Blizzard games and services.

"This also prevents us from providing any refunds, credits, transfers, or other service options to accounts in these countries. We apologize for any inconvenience this causes and will happily lift these restrictions as soon as US law allows."

User Rastivv wrote in response:

"Well I kinda feel like this is a double sided victory for me. This proved everybody here claiming that the block was from the government wrong but at the same time I'm now certain that there's no way that I can play wow anymore. Sigh..."

Another user, Kindap, said, "bye bye dear friends and thank you all , but it's not fair sanctions on normal people , btw good bye world of warcraft and thank you blizzard for all that passed time you made us happy in [sic] game."