PSN Ban PlayStation Network 1

It’s a holiday in the United States, so that means there are no press releases to mull over and games industry drama gets a big fat spotlight shined in its eyes instead. To be fair, this is an unfortunate story that we hope will be resolved promptly. Over on Reddit, a Mexican gamer claims that his PlayStation Network account has been closed due to a cultural misunderstanding.

According to his post, his username Kike_0615 was banned due to it including an offensive term. But as he explains, Kike is short for Enrique, which is his real name. Of course the word is also used as a derogatory name for Jewish people, which is why the ban was issued in the first place. “I’m really sorry if I offend anyone by posting my nickname, I swear to God that’s my nickname since I was little,” he explained.

Seeing as this is very clearly a misunderstanding, you’d think it’d be easily resolved, right? Unfortunately not. Multiple representatives at Sony’s customer services department have explained that nothing can be done, one even adding that he may need to try again in a few months when the PSN name change feature goes live publicly.

Of course none of this is good enough, because all of the user’s purchases are tied to his banned username. We’re confident that this will get resolved in due time, but it’s a sad situation. At least the victim is behaving very maturely about the whole unfortunate scenario: “I understand it’s offensive, and just like I don’t like it when someone calls me an offensive name I wouldn’t want to offend anyone I play with,” he said. “All I ask from Sony is to let me change my name.”

Update: All's well that ends well: the ban has been lifted.

[source reddit.com]