South Korea Banning Virtual Item Trading, Botting and Farming

[Griffin Ceawlin]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2012/06/15/south-korea-banning-virtual-item-trading-botting-and-farming/

Implications for SL?

Discuss.

[Paul Hexem]

Implications for WoW, SWToR, and similar games. SL? I'm not so sure.

[Perrie Juran]

"Anyone who violates the law may see a maximum fine of 50 million won and five years in prison. The ministry plans to provide the police department in Korea with active guidelines, such that it can actively enforce the law." 

That's a lot of Wons!

 

(from linked article)

[Griffin Ceawlin]

A Won Ton!

[Amethyst Jetaime]

It will be interesting to see how this applies to SL.  It could mean nothing or it may mean no more SL for South Koreans.  It would depend on what the law considers 'trading".  Is buying Lindens trading?  Is earning them?  Is buying virtual goods trading? Would this make South Korean players only be able to obtain things that are totally free?  How would S.K enforce this? What liability would LL have in all this if any?  All unanswerable by anyone at this point, except by SK's government.

 

[Paul Hexem]

I'm quite certain the ban applies to MMO's where it's against the rules and there's a black market for it. MMO's treat their economies differently than SL does. LL sells the L$ themselves, so there's no black market for it here, they don't need to run sweat shops to farm L$ like they farm gold in WoW- it can't be farmed at all. As a matter of fact, they probably don't even bother with SL- there's no profit because you can't make bots earn L$ that can then be sold in bulk.

[Tiffy Vella]

It sounds to me like the spirit of what they are doing is to end farming....so in regards to SL, would they target camping bots? Would the purchase of virtual currency still remain legal?

 

(mind you, all currency is virtual these days.)

 

 

[Storm Clarence]

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Perrie Juran wrote:

"Anyone who violates the law may see a maximum fine of 50 million won and five years in prison. ." 

That's a lot of Wons!

 

---

That's a big reason why they don't have telephone books.  There are so many Wings and Wons they might wing the won number.  

[161488303349]

i think this move is in response to what has happened since the Korea Supreme Court ruled a while ago that offworld trading in game assets wasnt illegal. when it was previously considered illegal under their existing laws

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2010/01/116_58775.html

was generally accepted that inworld trading was ok if the game allowed it. just not offworld on outlaw sites (outlaw meaning without the gamemakers permission or consent) 

since the Supreme Court ruling has been lots of offworld outlaw trading posts been set up. without perms/consent and without any regulatory oversight. the regulatory oversight part is a problem bc the Supreme Court ruling basically says that bc is legal then trading in assets is a taxable activity

the tax part is a game changer for the whole games industry. bc it means that even inworld/ingame transactions could also be subject to taxes

the game makers dont like the tax part. no one does really

+

also the gamemakers dont like outlaw trading bc can bring their game into disrepute when their customers get caught up in rogue outlaw sites. the game maker gets the complaints and told to do something by the unhappy customer who got ripped off on a outlaw trade and wants the gamemaker to reverse the transaction/trade ingame

+

personally i think the Korea proposal is for the best. more bc of the tax implications than anything. if Korea law is not changed then will encourage the taxman in all kinds of countries to look at sales/vat on inworld transactions if the inworld currency is convertible to rl currency

at the moment is general accepted by the taxman that inworld credits is not real money. is only when the credits are cashed out to reals that the taxman enters. i think this the best to handle it. is going to get messy otherwise