EA says Origin will return to country that was strangely ‘banned’

Electronic Arts says it will bring its Origin service back to Myanmar, where computers have been blocked from the multiplayer portal, with gamers there losing access to their collections in the process.

"We are working to restore access to Origin for our players in Myanmar," an EA spokesman told Polygon today. "We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused, and we’ll share updates on timing as soon as possible."

The outage drew considerable attention on Reddit today, and referenced a help request filed with Electronic Arts support at the end of September, apparently when IP addresses originating in the country were first blocked from the service.

An EA support volunteer, who is not an employee publisher, had said that economic sanctions levied by the United States against Myanmar were the cause of the blocking. However, in September, the Obama administration lifted those sanctions effective Oct. 7. They had been in place for 19 years. Commenters in the Reddit threads noted that other U.S.-based games services were accessible in the country.

EA's statement did not give a reason why users in Myanmar had been blocked, nor did it mention how long the blocking has been in effect.