Nexon bans Ukraine from MapleStory because of sanctions imposed on Russia

[Toff]

This happened around a year ago, but I haven't posted about it here.

One day I found out I was unable to log in to MapleStory, with the game telling me that I'm accessing it from "outside of its service area". I thought that this was the result of something similar to the Nexon Europe merge with Nexon America, which erased my whitelisted status in Vindictus and made me unable to play it. I contacted Nexon support, asking them to reinstate my account, as I had a whitelisted status there for years, if not over a decade.

The reply I had received shocked and confused me. Here is what the support had to say, and I quote:

Greetings,

Thank you for contacting Nexon Player Support.

In order to comply with current export laws and trade sanctions, Nexon America cannot provide game service or support for countries currently embargoed by the United States. The following countries will no longer be able to access our games or services: Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Syria, and Ukraine.

We're very sorry for any inconvenience this may cause.

Should you have other concerns, feel free to contact us again.

Apparently, the ban happened shortly after the United States had imposed sanctions on Russian-occupied Crimea and certain Ukrainian individuals who cooperated with the occupying power there. While Crimea is a Ukrainian territory by the international law, the sanctions were imposed on the Russian Federation for the occupation of said territory, not on Ukraine. Ukrainian mainland is not under any sanctions or embargoes by the United States.

I tried to explain this to support, tried telling them they or whoever is responsible for making this decision got it all wrong, but was greeted with the same copy-pasted response. I asked them why the MapleStory Region Limitations page does not have any information regarding restrictions for Ukraine, and they acted like it's something they can't talk about:

Thank you for keeping in touch with us.

I understand your frustration with wanting know more about the issue with embargoed countries. Unfortunately, we are unable to disclose any more information aside from what was already given in our previous responses. We thank you for your understanding regarding the matter.

Should you have other concerns, feel free to contact us again.

I reminded them about the whitelisted status my account had for years and asked them to reinstate it under this pretext, but they said they cannot do that. I asked them to elevate my ticked to a higher-tier support, and they eventually did, only for a 'Senior GM' to answer me with the same copy-pasted response:

Hello there,

Thank you for staying in touch.

We understand your frustration and we're very sorry for the trouble. However, as the previous GM stated, Nexon America will no longer be able to provide game service or support for countries currently embargoed by the United States in order to comply with the aforementioned current export laws and trade sanctions. At this time, we will not be able to lift these restrictions due to these laws.

I apologize for any inconvenience this has caused. If you have any further issues or concerns, please feel free to submit a new ticket.

Eventually I got fed up with this and our final conversation went like this:

Hello again.

Due to the fact that you
- refuse to revoke, revise or review your false embargo claims,
- refuse to provide a source for those claims,
- refuse to provide services in Ukraine based on those claims,
- refuse to explain why the public MapleStory Region Limitations page does not contain the information about Ukraine being one of the blocked countries contrary to your claims,
- refuse to reinstate the whitelisted status to my account created before 2008,
you leave me no choice but to report this as slander and shady business practices by Nexon America to the appropriate authorities. I'll start with the Embassy of Ukraine in the United States.

Have a nice day.

Thank you for contacting Nexon Player Support. I apologize for the delayed response.

I understand that you have chosen to take legal action against Nexon America. We here at Nexon America take threats very seriously. Because you have decided to pursue legal action, I am now unable to provide you with any additional assistance and we will be closing this ticket. Please have your attorney contact our legal department.

Nexon America, Inc.
621 Hawaii Street
El Segundo, CA 90245

I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this has caused you. If you require further assistance on another issue not pertaining to this one, please let us know by submitting another ticket.

I laughed so hard at their final response. "Legal action", "threats", attorneys. They didn't even give me their legal department's email, just their physical address. I would've actually emailed them and tried to explain the situation.

I ended up reaching the embassy of Ukraine in the United States, and they told me that this is not the first time they hear about such situations. They said there were cases of US banks refusing to service Ukrainian citizens under the same pretext. They open the sanction list, see the word "Ukraine" there and ban the entire country without bothering to read into the details. Sadly, the embassy said that they cannot do much about it, and that it is up to me to educate Nexon America about their error in this situation.

At this point I was too exhausted to go on. MapleStory really is not worth going through all this trouble. It's just really frustrating how they treated me and my friend (who also had a whitelisted account like me) and invested so much time into our characters. Also, having the US sanctions for Russian aggression against Ukraine being turned back at Ukraine is both insulting and infuriating, and makes me wonder whose side Nexon America is actually on in this fight.

I was thinking of creating another ticket and ask Nexon for their legal department's email, I also considered contacting someone from Kotaku or Polygon to cover this story, but I'm not sure I care enough anymore.