South Korea bans virtual item trades

The South Korean government has banned in-game item trades, wiping out gold farming bots and features like the Diablo 3 auction house in one fell swoop.

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The government of South Korea has enacted a ban on the trade of virtual items, in an effort to curb gold farming and the Diablo 3 Auction House. The law imposes a 50 million won (approximately $43,000) fine and a maximum of five years in jail. They really don't mess around.

The Korea Times (via Eurogamer) reports that the new law will go into effect next month. Kim Kap-soo, head of The Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism's content policy division, says that games should be used for entertainment and academic purposes, and that in-game trading is a "serious hindrance" to "healthy game culture."

Diablo III previously faced problems in Korea due to the auction house, and this one move stamps out the possibility of future features like it in the country. It also takes care of gold farming bots by banning programs that "allow in-game characters to hunt and collect items without the need of a player controlling them."

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  • reply
    June 15, 2012 7:39 AM

    Steve Watts posted a new article, South Korea bans virtual item trades.

    The South Korean government has banned in-game item trades, wiping out gold farming bots and features like the Diablo 3 auction house in one fell swoop.

    • reply
      June 15, 2012 7:41 AM

      Interesting.

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      June 15, 2012 7:41 AM

      0WNED

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      June 15, 2012 7:41 AM

      Lmao, what in the hell. Seems pretty ass backwards for South Korea

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      June 15, 2012 7:42 AM

      They destroyed their 2nd biggest market!!

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      June 15, 2012 7:42 AM

      have fun enforcing that

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        June 15, 2012 11:01 AM

        I'm sure they'll have plenty of fun mailing out $43,000 fines and having police bust down doors to collect on those fines.

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      June 15, 2012 7:46 AM

      Will China ever pass a law like this?

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        June 15, 2012 1:20 PM

        hell naw gold farming is their biggest export!

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      June 15, 2012 8:11 AM

      Wait, what? Is this a troll? Wouldn't that wreck every single MMO and online Diablo clone? How would that even be legal in a place like SK?

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      June 15, 2012 8:25 AM

      I'm assuming this ban is the ban of trading virtual items with REAL money? That makes more sense.

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        June 15, 2012 8:31 AM

        That's what I am thinking. Although, didn't SK or Japan recently have a big news item about a game that was essentially a casino?

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          June 15, 2012 11:26 AM

          Ingame gambling with real currency, yeah.

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        June 15, 2012 11:36 AM

        It has to be this. Even if D3 didn't have an auction house, it would still have a "trade" function. Even if it didn't have a "trade" function, there'd still be multiplayer where two people could drop items on the ground and swap.

        And there are a shit-ton of games that allow you to "trade" virtual items with other people.

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      June 15, 2012 8:29 AM

      Hm, will this mess up free to play games? Thought they were supported by this kind of thing.

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      June 15, 2012 8:33 AM

      They have the authority to do this? I mean if it was a specific ban on trading for money then maybe yeah but ALL trading of items? Seems excessive.

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        June 15, 2012 8:35 AM

        99% chance it's about RMT only. It's hard to tell from second- and third-hand translations

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        June 15, 2012 11:53 PM

        If your app is listed in the Games:Casino genre, it's not viewable in South Korea. They are part of the Government's that have speech and regulation laws you have to abide by to sell there. Same with Germany (Violence + Blood + Nazi Insignia), France ( Nazi Insignia ), Australia (Sex + Violence), and Quebec (Language).

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          June 15, 2012 11:54 PM

          Oops dropped a line. First sentence should start with: "On Apple's App Store"

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      June 15, 2012 8:33 AM

      doesn't that mean TF2 is banned in korea?

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        June 15, 2012 8:34 AM

        A shitload of multiplayer games are banned by this

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        June 15, 2012 8:35 AM

        unless some information is missing, it is the death of pretty much any online game with any economic interaction between players

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          June 15, 2012 11:05 AM

          I like the core concept of that. I miss quasi-anonymity of community-hosted servers. Even though developers claim that the accountability inherent in online authentication and/or real-identification enforcement makes games more secure, the unbalancing act of persistent stats, perks, power-ups, and now virtual currency and real-money currency trading has made online gaming a lot more risky, in terms of privacy and monetary loss.

          It's just a game; I don't want to have my identity stolen, my money stolen, or my real-life reputation damaged because of a game. Those who are bought into persistent stats and virtual-item trading may disagree, but I love the spirit in this decision, because it illustrates how far in a dangerous direction gaming has been taken, all in the name of profit via addiction.

      • reply
        June 15, 2012 8:42 AM

        If they could disable trading and random crate drops for that region. You can play the game without it.

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      June 15, 2012 9:55 AM

      This is really good news. If every country did this, the quality of actual gameplay would improve. in video games. which are for entertainment.

      Right now all I see is games turning into skill-free soulless slot machines and virtual economies. Turning gamers into online zombies that are addicted but not having fun. The fact that farming even exists is very worrying.

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        June 15, 2012 9:58 AM

        In addition, randomized gear/loot based games are inherently designed to be addictive, and are exploitative. The sad thing is that people actually get sucked in so hard they pay virtual money for this... What makes this sad is that every publisher/developer now has adopted the same model, and it has turned every game into a grindfest or pay to win.

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        June 15, 2012 10:03 AM

        Well congrats on being a fickle absolutionist unable to see any granularity in the word.

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          June 15, 2012 11:55 PM

          You have the greatest retorts ever

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        June 15, 2012 10:06 AM

        Except the farming mechanic in diablo type games has always existed, except now you can make some real money doing it.

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          June 15, 2012 10:22 AM

          Except what I'm saying is that the fact that farming mechanics exists and are consciously designed is really worrying. The act of farming isn't actually fun, its exploitative, and a form of obsession/addiction.

          If the gameplay experience is actually fun, then people would not farm. Farming exists because of artificial limitations that are there by design to invoke people to either grind for hundreds or thousands of hours, or as a shortcut, pay real money. It stops being fun/exciting, and becomes something like a second job.

          Farming mechanics are not new. You are right. But it is getting huge now, for all the wrong reasons. And as a side effect is fucking up the whole game industry as farming mechanics get shoehorned into every game, even if they dont fit.

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            June 15, 2012 10:39 AM

            Farming getting huge, now? Where were you when EverQuest launched?

            Farming, at least in some sense of the word, is a key component of gameplay, in all games. It's not really a big deal. Also, farming in Diablo IS fun.

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              June 15, 2012 11:18 AM

              Most social/facebook/mobile games are built on farming. In the past couple of years, many high budget games have adopted free to play models.

              This is what I mean by "getting huge". It is getting huge now because it is now the predominant model that is used to target not just hardcore players but casual/social players.

              Farming is not a key component in all games. You probably haven't played many skill based games (which used to be the norm) where time played accounts for nothing except personal experience. Where is farming in a skill based MP game like quake?

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                June 15, 2012 11:57 AM

                You are ignoring some of the best (and best-selling) titles of recent memory to support your assertion. Where's the farming in Skyrim? COD? Portal?

                Plus, plenty of games that involve farming either make it fun (D3) or it provides limited benefit to the gameplay experience (WoW).

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                June 15, 2012 1:29 PM

                I'm farming nubs to increase my skill level. BAN PLZ.

                Games should basically be derivatives of Minesweeper and Solitaire. To protect ourselves from being exploitated of course.

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              June 15, 2012 11:44 AM

              So you are actually having fun running inferno Act2+ over and over again? Every game I join ends with everyone raging/leaving as soon as we get some ridiculously OP elite mob combos like "extra fast vortex invulnerable mortar" soul lasher.

              And even if you kite/graveyard grind for 5-10 mins you get rewarded with some shitty drop after stacking nephalem valor 5 times and +MFing. Hey at least you can sell it for gold on the AH. Oh wait! the prices are inflated because of all the dupes and farmers jacking up the prices of all decent gear to 20 million + which would take an extremely long time to gold farm.

              In comes the RMAH to the rescue! why spend a week farming gold to buy a virtual in game item for a video game when I can pay for it! People are buying and selling gear for $200+ which is mindblowing considering the game is $60.

              The endgame gear is not even that good, the loot modifiers arent as interesting as D2, especially for rares/set items. I loved D2; even though I know that it was also a farming game, this one is just so blatant - its blatantly obvious this game's endgame balance was designed solely around the RMAH shamelessly.

              Done properly, I would look forward to endgame replay because there are new and interesting mechanics in the late game. This just seems like a futile attempt in increasing numbers with no actual payoff, due to the shallowness of the actual game (skills, stats, loot).

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              June 15, 2012 11:45 AM

              Saying that "farming is a key component of gameplay in all games" is as bad as outright condemning it. I tend to hoard ammo in single-player FPS games, but in most single-player campaigns, that's a finite resource that doesn't regenerate. I just want to make sure I have enough for the next boss or horde of monsters. There are definitely people who get a rush out of loot mechanics or farming / crafting, but saying that everyone does is wrong.

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                June 15, 2012 11:56 AM

                Yes. However, hoarding ammo in an FPS game is grinding, not farming. Farming is done specifically when looking for statistically random drops. Grinding is where you get some direct guaranteed reward each time you try. While both are quite similar, farming is much more taxing.

      • reply
        June 15, 2012 10:16 AM

        [deleted]

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        June 15, 2012 10:28 AM

        Lol.

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        June 15, 2012 11:47 AM

        It always has existing. Point: Motherfucking pink tails in Final Fantasy 6. I never did get one of those fucking things.

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        June 15, 2012 12:30 PM

        I agree with you, except for the government intervention part. Most of the people who play these games will agree with the sentiment, but continue playing anyhow, or defend it blindly to avoid the realization that it's exploiting them. It appeals to what I call the OCD/hording demographic.

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        June 15, 2012 2:21 PM

        I understand what you're saying, but only to a point. Game design certainly suggests certain ways to play, but ultimately it is in the hands and minds of each player to decide what kind of relationship they're going to have with any particular game. "Online addicted zombies not having fun" are as much responsible for their level of happiness as Blizzard or any other developer is.

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        June 15, 2012 4:00 PM

        D2 was all about farming, what did that exploit? Blizzard didn't make any money other than the sale of the box, it didn't matter to them how much I played. Get this, people like farming and grinding. If it was as unfun as you say then no one would play those shitty social games or MMOs. Of course, a lot of people don't like them. And I agree with you when the game is centered around RMT.

        But honestly, you are trying to say what, exactly? That people can't stop themselves from playing? Because I'm pretty sure they can as D3 forums are littered with nothing but people saying they're quitting.

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      June 15, 2012 10:15 AM

      If I'm reading this correctly I'm pretty sure this is a good thing. Looking at the actual Korean Times article I'm pretty sure they're only referring to virtual item trading for commercial use, like selling items and gold for cash. I'm not sure what this means for D3's RMAH, but I would be surprised if it meant you weren't allowed to use traditional auction houses since they're a pretty big part of any MMO including Korean ones.

      Needs better translation/clarification.

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        June 15, 2012 11:01 AM

        I'm pretty sure they are doing this so the crack head addicted to game guys don't try to make a living off of it and try to actually get them serve a purpose in the workforce in Korea

        that's how I look at it anyway

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        June 15, 2012 11:02 AM

        [deleted]

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      June 15, 2012 10:33 AM

      I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of bot farmers cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.

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      June 15, 2012 11:13 AM

      Haha doesn't this man an absolute fuckton of video games?

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        June 15, 2012 11:49 AM

        The entire F2P business model, pretty much

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          June 15, 2012 12:00 PM

          and thats why I love it XD

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            June 15, 2012 12:28 PM

            What a weird thing to say. You dislike all free games?

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              June 15, 2012 11:39 PM

              Nah, F2P is good on paper, but it comes with many sacrifices, tradeoffs and noise that more often than not pollute the end product.

    • reply
      June 15, 2012 12:09 PM

      [deleted]

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      June 15, 2012 1:27 PM

      For all you headline readers- this is a bottling program ban. Read the original link, not the shitty shacknews 'story'

      • reply
        June 15, 2012 1:28 PM

        Fuck- BOTTING , not bottling.

        This will only help trading, not hurt it.

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        June 15, 2012 4:09 PM

        It's funny they say it's a ban to help students not waste time, but they're banning botting programs that don't require the player to control anything.

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      June 16, 2012 1:00 AM

      It's something that has come along that needs a good hard look for some possible regulation. Right now for example, Blizzard has the ability to completely manipulate a real money based economy. I don't think it's something that can just be left alone. This is sort of a carpet bomb solution but I won't be surprised if this stuff is treated like gambling in the US soon.

    • reply
      January 21, 2021 2:28 AM

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