Of course using such words is ‘not professional and does not contribute to resolving the’ but only if there is a reason for that.
For example Visa and Mastercard left Crimea (ofc we are not Crimea and does not related to it anyway - it is just an example) and I wonder why these companies did it. The answer is in order published on whitehouse.gov. It is an explanation and all companies have to follow it. In our case (Epic and Belarus) it is just an initiative of your company and it has no explanation except mysterious ‘local legislation’ (without any details and links to that legislation).
Definitely in such case Epic can’t break the law as well as any other company. But I do not know any other company who set such limitations. Every day I use paid services from US and often buy physical goods and never experienced any problems. I doubt that such companies as Google, Ebay, Valve etc. break the law…
Dear Epic Games staff, I’m pretty sure Lebanon has nothing to do with Crimean crisis sanctions, as it is not even a European country. There are no US Sanctions on Lebanon as 70% of our imported goods are originated from the United States. And if there was it would be all over the news because our economy would collapse because most of our business is with United States and Europe, and country mainly relies on trade with the western world. I dont see why you would block IPs originating from that region in the first place. There are many developers in Lebanon that rely on such technology, and personally me as a developer rely on Unreal Engine to create content. is causing trouble to the whole IT world in Lebanon. It really is of no coincidence that once UE4 went free for, incident happened. Please revise the US sanctions and laws against exporting software technologies to region and let us know as soon as possible what is the final decision so us developers such as me and Azzam would know what to do. Because if it is illegal to use UE4 in Lebanon I am going to consider switching to another engine for development.
Countries do apply sanctions to one another, and that’s directed to the governments not it’s people. is a video game development software that has nothing to do with governments. How are game developers/artists involved with these at all.
If it was a software government even wanted to use, or any government related company wanted to use, then it was easier to understand the IP block. But the governments probably haven’t even noticed Epic has blocked access to their engine as they have nothing to do with it at all and I doubt US laws have anything to do with individuals (us artists) nor they expect that because it doesn’t affect anything but making some people switch to other game engines. But what do I know… let’s see what happens.
+1
Yeah at least let us use epic games launcher for unreal tournament and Fortnite please ! { I dont have any problem with old UT or unreal games on steam}
Although I am capable of getting the engine legally from another country, if Epic games want to block a country, don’t care if it’s the one I am located in or another one, I will not use engine. Even though I was using UDK and UE4 for 3 years now, I will switch engine since it interferes with my project’s goal: a game for.
It has been 4 days now and I am working on a deadline. Epic has been kind in the past, but is unacceptable. You want to investigate, lift the block, then when you’re done investigating make the decision.
I am sorry but I had enough of “not available in your country” sites and never expected from Epic.
Hi Azzam. I understand your frustration but please can I ask you to calm down. Kindly take request to AnswerHub under the Legal category or contact Epic directly through the provided channels.
The only reason to block the IP is to prevent harmful activities originated from IP. There are no and never was any other reasons to block IP addresses. Epic can’t prevent using UE4 from blocked countries way just because there are still simple ways exists to access it (VPN/proxies). If Epic believe that US law forbid export of UE4 it should stop provide it online completely and provide it only on per-case basis with very strong contract which prevent licensee to pass it further to third parties in any form (otherwise I could ask my US or EU friends to get it for me). We all understand the absurd of .
At moment copies of UE4 exists in blocked countries and could be used, so should Epic be punished by US law ? Absurd!
The repositories are private. You need to link your GitHub account to your Unreal Engine account … which you can’t do because you can’t access the site.
Please can you take up on Answerhub with the Legal team. They are the best people able to address your problem.
We have to wait for the result of ongoing investigation, guys. We have Epic staff’s and replies in thread regarding the, and I strongly believe they were informative and honest. It’s not like such issues can be solved in a matter of hours. The legal counsel Epic was brought to problem needs some time to do its work. Unfortunately but it is unlikely that we will see some progress on earlier than next week, perhaps.
EPAM is US based company but its biggest office is located in Belarus. It makes EPAM leading outsourcing company in Eastern Europe. Wargaming is UK based but more than 50% of its employees are located in Belarus too.
Hi, I’m having the same problem.
Can’t access the unrealengine.com site due to a 403 error.
I was able to access it before the news of UE4 going free.
I’m located in Cuba.
Hope the staff at Epic can solve .
Please speak in English in these forums, there is a section for Russian speaking support if you’d like to post there. Also, please refrain from insulting other forum members, ESPECIALLY in other languages.
