Korea to Ban Online Game Item Sales & Bots
Posted 15 June 2012 by Elly
You may remember the rating fiasco for Diablo 3 in Korea where Blizzard got the game approved by the rating board with the RMAH removed. The latest news from Korea is that the government will be banning the trade for commercial game items and the new law will be revealed by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism next month
Using bots to farm will also be illegal in Korea under the new law, and if the law is broken, perpetrators could face a 50 million won fine or even a maximum of five years in jail. Kim Kap-soo, head of the ministry’s content policy division added:
“The main purpose of the games is for entertainment and should be used for academic and other good purposes”
The new law will be a blow to Blizzard if they had any plans of trying to get the RMAH up and running in Korea, but based on all the problems they had with the rating board, they probably threw in the towel a long time ago.
Source: The Korean Times via IncGamers.com
Should all Governments forbid videogame developers developing any games that allow item sales for real money?
- No (54%, 1,482 Votes)
- Yes (46%, 1,246 Votes)
Total Voters: 2,728
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I see nothing at all absolutely wrong with the Korean decision. Games should be for fun, not a way to supplement your income and further lining a game developers pockets.
I agree.
I agree too.
But do we really need the government to decide that for us?
Apparently. Good call, SK.
I probably won’t use the RMAH because I fear it’ll kill the essence of D3 for me. Not for others clearly and that’s fine too.
You need to push aside your personal feelings about Diablo 3 in relation to the RMAH for a second. Is this really a good thing? A good call? This is a freedom of choice being taken away, it’s not set out to save the integrity of videogames — keep ‘em pure — make no mistake the impetus behind this isn’t the integrity of game design.
Why should all videogames be entertainment and academic only, why can’t there be an element of commerce integrated, if the game is designed with that mind? They certainly aren’t qualified to assess whether a game is designed to integrate commerce and indeed they are not attempting to make judgements on a game by game basis here. This is a carpet ban. You will NOT. End of.
This is definitely not a good move. It’s oppressive and that’s never good.
People are understandably touchy about their freedoms (particularly in the states) but who has the right to bot, and can you unequivocally state that they do? I doubt it.
I think of it the same way as legislation on gambling in certain countries.
Nope. Not talking about botting.
I don’t personally see a difference because, as I said below this post, botting is part of the illicit item selling market. It creates real-world social conditions that are not very favorable, to put it mildly, when it is formulated into a business.
I just keep in mind that different country/different culture, and I’ve yet to see any specifics about this legislation. South Korea is one of the gaming capitals of the world and it’s something that needs to be looked at with a critical, serious eye.
So you read the press release as only banning the illicit sale of items? I read it as banning the RMAH.
to the poll my answer is YES! YES! YES! (I hate D-Bryan but I find it here most appropriate), otherwise every new game and developer from there on out will be a Diablo 3 Actiblizzard clone, caring more about collecting fees from your every pore than making a quality long-lasting title that makes a great impression on every level.
and the ad at the bottom of the page talks about 95% of erection problems…..go figure
as we know humans mostly arent very intelligent – just look at the world … so… yes we do
Except this is an all too common occurrence with regards to fair trade in asian countries. Such as when baseball gained massive popularity in japan, sports team owners purchased 100,000 louisville sluggers but then refused to accept the bats that were brought to their shores citing a ‘new rule’ that demanded a certain diameter bat to be used in professional sports. When L.S. offered to shave off the difference in diameter for them, they said they don’t want the bats but would accept them if given a substantial discount. There’s always some ‘new rule’.
“I see nothing at all absolutely wrong with the Korean decision.”
Here’s what is wrong with Korean government decision:
They are taking decisions for their own people. Government does not need, and cannot act like, someone’s parent. I don’t need someone to enforce me to not spend money on a computer game just because they think I shouldn’t.
And what is wrong is, you may agree with them this time, but next time your daddy tells you you can’t do something and you disagree, you’re still going to have to obey.
With freedom comes responsibility. If you don’t mind losing your freedom “here and there” so someone else takes the trouble to enforce you to be responsible that is your problem.
It’s not this decision specifically that is wrong, it’s the moral hazard behind the power governments have to do stuff like this.
That’s dumb.
Governments are set in place TO TAKE DECISIONS IN THE PLACE OF THEIR PEOPLE.
SK’s government has every legal and moral right to take this decision, and if it was taken for financial reasons, I agree with them. It is important to restrict the consumer’s expenses in some segments of the market that assume themselves as predominantly expensive and risk taking out the other segments due to the technicalities of our economy.
In other words, the government should entice videogamers to spend their money evenly across the market, when they so wish.
How you guys think the government making decisions is better for the people than us making the decisions is beyond me.
That’s one of the main reasons why I hate players these days, they are all hypocrites. If Blizzard decided to sell items on their own everyone would rage, but after Blizzard lied making player’s believe they would make easy money by selling items suddenly all of these players changed their minds, because it’s okay for them to exploit the item selling, but not the big bad company.
I’m not saying it’s impossible to make money from D3 just by selling items exclusively on the RMAH, but the percentage of players that have the skill/time/intelligence/etc to do that is less than 1%. Now if a player suddenly changes his mind about item selling because he’s not making a single penny it will be already to late to revert the situation. Blizzard won! (In that aspect only, because in all others it failed epically)
Korea 2 x 0 Blizzard x -10 Derp players
You people that think that governments should ban the sale of digital goods in games have a bizarre view of the scope of proper government power. Why should the government even have authority over that? What of individual freedom, choice and the like?
“The main purpose of the games is for entertainment and should be used for academic and other good purposes”
Perhaps the most profound statement I’ve ever heard from a government. I applaud this 100%.
Finally, someone “GETS IT”.
IMO, the business side of gaming should END with the purchase of the game. Anything after that is just pure greed and is a detriment to gaming in general.
I fail to see how this is an issue for the state.
Agreed. The nanny state deciding on this is asinine, and is a slippery slope if I have ever heard of one.
I do think that botting sucks – it is absurd to think the Korean government can do squat about it. It’s like it’s 1999 and we are talking about anti-piracy enforcement again.
There are thousands of goods and services that fall under the category of “entertainment” and collect fees beyond the initial purchase through a spectrum of mechanisms.
Of course everyone that hates RMAH is going to side with Korea. I’ll keep on padding out my Paypal account, so I really don’t care.
1999 or January, 2012.
I fear that if a company is only allowed to make profits from game sales then the quality of games to come is on a slippery slope. Times have changed. Companies are no longer making the profits they need to justify the development cost of a game from sales alone and they have piracy, patches and ongoing server maintainance costs to consider. I think it is essential for the games industry to explore other avenues of income generation, whether they be subscription fees, FTP micro-transactions or RMAH percentage fees. If it ensures the continued release of high-quality games for years to come then ultimately the games companies have to make money somehow.
Congratulations to the illicit companies that will sell diablo 3 gold in Korea outside of the safe trade of the RMAH, and from overseas where Korean law can’t touch them, this is a big win for them.
Hopefully such a stance will spread, quite a rotten culture of such trading currently.
So basically if I want to play a RMAH free d3 I have to either move to Korea or play HC.
Way to go blizzard.
Or not use the RMAH?
him not using it does not make D3 free of it. having a RMAH effects all other forms of trading in the game
@ ael
Yeah, as if real money trading in D2 didn’t affect all other forms of trading in the game… everything was pure and all that
I guess it’s a good move but people will go elsewhere to sell their items. This didn’t solve anything. Also, I don’t get the “botting is illegal” thing. I agree that bots ruin the game but is that the government’s responsibility to dictates what is and isn’t allowed to do in games? It’s like saying that using the ‘ABACABB’ trick in MK is illegal… it just doesn’t make sense.
I would say that ABACABB is more akin to the Komani Code than to bots, seeing as it was programmed in by the developer rather than a violation of the Terms of Service.
Criminal penalties for this particular violation do seem a bit harsh, though.
” is that the government’s responsibility to dictates what is and isn’t allowed to do in games?”
It’s clearly written in the EULA and ToS for every game with an online component that it’s restricted, so I can’t see anyone really having a problem with this.
exactly so why make a law about it?
Because it’s obviously an issue of enforcement. There’s actually quite a few negative social impacts from botting. I’m talking real-world impacts, as someone above me hinted to. Ask a Chinese gold farmer how great their life and job is.
A nation has to take care of its people. If a company like Blizzard can’t do anything about botting (and they can’t) then it’s going to have to be up to someone else.
There’s nothing wrong with the ban on botting, although the possibility of felony-level penalties is surprising.
Botting goes hand in hand with illicit item sales. People speak as if there is no connection, but obviously there is, as per this legislation.
I don’t disagree vis-a-vis illicit sales! I’m just saying I would not send someone to prison for five years over this.
I don’t think the life of a Chinese gold farmer would become better if he actually ended up with no job.
Some Chinese gold farmers are actually people in jail forced to play video games (when you have to do it so much you have barely time to sleep, I don’t think it’s fun anymore). So yes, losing their “job” would probably be an improvement for them…
I think many of you might be missing another facet of this legislation. Gold and item trading has become an industry in some parts of the world and is legitimately compared to the sweatshops that people so rightfully demonise. It isn’t just a matter of people independently running bots on their own, they are actual companies with dozens, if not hundreds, of employees. These companies do not use bots for the simple fact that they run the risk of the bots being disabled, so they use real players instead. Far from the “gamer’s dream” of being paid to play a game, they are paid to farm the same area over and over all day every day and are paid a couple of dollars for their efforts. Imagine doing the equivalent of a Pindle run non-stop for 10 hours a day and getting paid $1 an hour for it.
It will be interesting to see just what this law applies to. The MMO industry has been moving towards a free-to-pay micro-transaction model for a long time now and this often goes beyond area content to include items. Will Turbine be banned from selling cosmetic clothing and horses in Lord of the Rings Online? Will NCSoft be banned from selling cosmetic clothing in Guild Wars? What about item DLC for games?
I do agree that this industry is growing quite fast and is becoming a problem. But I don’t think that it is 100% Blizzard’s fault. If this goes through, it shouldn’t apply only to D3 but to all games. Any remuneration through in game item selling should be banned in general.
At least with the RMAH, Blizzard was making a stand against all these reselling sites by trying to control and oversee all the transaction. They recently (re)-added the cap on the number of games you could create in a certain amount of time. Maybe they should use the same model on the number of transactions people can make through the RMAH so people couldn’t abuse it. But then again, they may just go elsewhere to sell.
I just don’t think blaming Blizzard for a problem the is bigger than Blizzard is fair. I just hope that this applies to every game.
This is not a Blizzard-restricted legislation, it’s going to apply to ALL games…
What about al those poor goldfarmers who will loose their job
.
I can only agree with this law :d
and im gona comment on that like this, pips complain about high teer items being sell for cash , aparently dont have money in real life , ther for they will be not able to buy it for cash , so the expect money trading for cash being baned , so they can us curency in the game , thats only true to be told to all of you above , qq and see ya in game trols
And then there’s the minimally exceptional who have no idea what’s going on, but comment anyway, of course.
Good riddance. Need similar legislation here.
How is D3 unlike any other recreational sport or pastime? Buying gear in D3 is like buying clubs for golf, or expensive shoes for basketball, or any other expensive gear. The government is trying to apply ‘club rules’ to all videogame use. This would never fly in the US. Interesting.
on which golf course / basketball court will i find new golf clubs / basketball shoes for finishing a hole / scoring a point?
bad comparison is bad….