Gamers from the Russian Federation have begun to complain en masse about the blocking of PlayStation Network accounts they created in other regions to circumvent Sony’s sanctions imposed due to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Until 2022, Russian players «moved» to other accounts in other countries due to lower regional prices, and after the start of the Russian war against Ukraine, this practice became even more active in order to circumvent restrictions on purchasing games.
According to Russian media, Sony has recently initiated a wave of account bans against Russian players who tried to circumvent these restrictions. The bans include accounts created in Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Turkey, and the United States.
It should be noted that so far, no Russians who created accounts on the Indian PSN have been blocked. Some players complain that their consoles have been blocked along with their accounts.
«I got a ban on a Ukrainian account, it died along with the dragonflies on it. And apparently, a console ban from it for the mac address. All network functions are unavailable, all other accounts can’t log in either. Only the Ukrainian one has been permanently banned from the site,» complained a Russian player who supports Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. A screenshot of his post was published by user X (Twitter) PrinceShpil.
Currently, Sony is not disclosing the reason for the blocks and is refusing to refund Russians’ money, while technical support, in particular Ukrainian support, «refuses to make contact.»
«The most adequate explanation: Sony has mapped some of the data centers and IP addresses of ControlID, Windscribe, and other rogues that are used for purchases, and has broken all accounts related to these addresses. We cannot find any other common criteria and features in the accounts besides the date of creation,» suggest gamers from the Russian PlayStation Hub community.