Early this morning, a frustrated gamer in Myanmar revealed on Reddit that EA has canceled its Origin service for the entire country without warning, preventing thousands of customers from accessing their digitally-distributed games. While details are still emerging as to why this is the case, one confused gamer reached out to EA through their “Answers HQ” help desk after receiving bizarre “Access Denied” messages when connecting to Origin. The company responded with the following explanation:
Yes, 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 can do here to allow you access again.
Another query was met with a simpler answer:
I’m sorry but Origin is no longer available in Myanmar.
EA has reportedly refused to offer refunds for the digital content that has been lost by Burmese customers as of the time of this article, though no official statement by the company has been released at this time.
We will follow this story and provide updates as they occur.
