Korea Bans Commercial Game Item Trades

Xanthious

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I'm torn over this. On one hand I despise F2P games as they are typically anything but free to play. I also think this race to monetize every single part of gaming is pretty horrible as well. Sadly though, even as much as I really hate the direction gaming is going I don't think government intervention is the answer. I agree with Reagan when he said "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are I'm from the government and I'm here to help".
 

Sylveria

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Grey Carter said:
If the finalized law doesn't feature any exemptions, it will likely cripple the country's MMO industry. An overwhelming majority of Korean MMOs are free-to-play titles which depend on virtual item sales to turn a profit.
Not to insinuate you aren't grasping apparent point of the article your reporting on, but it sounds like they want to prevent players from buying/selling to other players for cash, not totally outlaw the ability for the game itself to sell products or for players to exchange in-game products for other in-game products.

Though, this will totally snuff out the Diablo 3 real cash auction house in one of the countries who'd likely exploit the most profit from it.. and anything that hurts Activision's bottom line brings me joy.
 

RvLeshrac

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Oct 2, 2008
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Ashannon Blackthorn said:
Heh asked my Korean roomie about this one. She just shrugged and said the politician were making a much bigger deal out of it to score cheap points with the older demographics. I can see that.
This is a country where NCSoft had to spend a *substantial* extra amount of cash to build an actual fortress, because their programmers are constantly under threat of death from players.
 

Z of the Na'vi

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Apr 27, 2009
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So...what does this mean for Korean-based MMO's that have been outsourced here to the States? I play one in particular and would like to know if this affects players across the country at all.

Am I going to be in trouble for buying virtual items with actual money because of this new law over there?
 

Deathfish15

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It'll be interesting to see how a company like NCSoft does if this goes live. Their mainly Korean with a North American counterpart. Aion just went F2P with items shop, so that'll quickly get effected.

And then there's Guild Wars 2, a HUGE deal for them, that is buy-box and then cash shop for secondary use. The cash shop would have to strip out all "items" to adhere to the law, but it doesn't remove everything from that cash shop. There are things that are account upgrades like character slots, bank slots, XP boosts, and so on that could still be sold under that new law based on them being just upgrades and not item that can be purchased and either traded or resold.


Z of the Na said:
So...what does this mean for Korean-based MMO's that have been outsourced here to the States? I play one in particular and would like to know if this affects players across the country at all.

Am I going to be in trouble for buying virtual items with actual money because of this new law over there?
Do you live in Korea? If not, then no. This is a law against Koreans from buying/selling virtual items; the law doesn't effect Americans or any other country (China duly noted).

That's not to say that some game's won't change their item shops around to selling only account boosts and upgrades, rather than intangible items. And, it might actually kill a few games to where they shutdown because of this.
 

rembrandtqeinstein

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Wouldn't this also make Steam and iTunes and every download service illegal? You are paying real money for digial items, just bits on a disk, and sometimes only for access to bits on someone else's disk.

I don't see how this could possibly work.
 

cefm

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I'm OK with this. Free-to-play was, is, and always will be a TERRIBLE business model unless it's a sample for a full paid version. I have absolutely no objection to a law that makes it harder to prey on children, financially or otherwise.

Pay your programmers, pay your developers, pay your distributors, and charge your customers a realistic price. That's how the world works, and any other way is a scam.
 

The Abhorrent

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While part of me is happy to see the MMORPG genre take what will almost certainly be a huge and vicious hit (still some lingering spite towards it, long story)... I have to say this is actually a bit worrying. Not so much for what would happen to the MMORPG genre (somewhat want to see it crash & burn, though I didn't expect to see something which could legitimately cause that), but because it seems to be the government is overstepping its bounds a bit; the results could easily be overkill and have a lot unintended consequences.

Be careful what you wish for?

It might be due to the lack of information right now, but this could be (entirely?) a good thing if the details were laid out in a way to keep the effects of the proposed law in check. It'd involve quite a bit of careful work with the fine print, but it can be done. Nevertheless, it's still touchy territory for a government to be taking such a direct role in the matter; at least they're going after a genuine issue with games rather than a frivolous one (censorship and the what-not).

---

As for it not directly affecting nations other than South Korea?
Think about the long-term effects of this type of bill passing for a minute.

While other nations might not have that type of proposal on the table right now, how long will it be before those proposals are actually on the table? This is part of the reason I said it was worrying, other nations could easily start doing the same if it passes. It might not be a problem now, but it may be a problem later. This could be after the seeing what the effects of the law (if it passes) in South Korea, and that may be what determines whether or not others will consider doing the same.

Again, it could be a good thing... but with the already less-than-favourable reputation gaming has right now, there's no guarantee that the politicians are going to handle it properly. The South Korean government seems to know where some of the actual problems are, but it's not quite the case on this side of the Pacific; it's here where you're more likely to see the bill proposal which will cause more collateral damage due to a less carefully laid out proposal. Yes, there will no doubt be gaming lobbyists which would try to go against it; but there still will other lobbyists which will push for it to pass as well.

Just don't think it won't affect you because it's in another country; and that's simply because awareness of this can give another politician, one closer to home, ideas.
 

CardinalPiggles

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I would have thought the main purpose of games is whatever you make it.

I never liked micro transactions personally, but if other people do then why not let them but useless crap.
 

ARCTIC_EAGLE

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What right does the government have to say what you can/cannot sell (as long as it doesn't harm/infringe another persons rights)? Maybe they should ban DLC too because of some BS reason and then why not ban any selling of video games while your at it.
 

Frostbite3789

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redmarine said:
I've personally never been very fond of the idea of buying digital items for actual currency. I welcome this change.
So...you're not very fond of buying video games?
 

PrototypeC

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"Planning to introduce legislation" = Korea Bans Commercial Game Item Trades.

What do you mean, that doesn't make sense? The smug owl says it, it has to be true! ...Could we stop with the overblown news titles now? It's not necessary.
 

uttaku

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from just the title I thought this was going to be another crazy N Korea story about banning trading games as they are anti socialist, now I'm disappointed. :(
 

loa

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Legislating how to play games doesn't sit right with me, as much as I don't like wow gold spammers.
Love how the government declares what "the purpose of games" is.
Creepy.
 

aeroz

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I'd like to point out that buying/selling virtual items has led to some dark things. China uses prison slave labor to mine items in MMOs so they can be sold, how much do you want to bet Korea is where a good chunk of that stuff ends up.

We should remember the culture surrounding gaming in Korea is unlike most western nations, there might be very legit reasons for this law. Such as finding that alot of those examples of death and negligence were tied to people farming gold in a game.