Korean Consumer Protection

A small datapoint about the regulation of MMOGs:

Korean consumer protection authorities are expanding their investigation of MMOG companies poor consumer satisfaction levels and complaints of abusive terms of service, poor quality, etc. Ten companies are now involved. This comes on the back of complaints filed last year by consumer rights groups.

Extract from the Korean Herald below the fold.

Korea's antitrust regulator said it is expanding its investigation of online game developers to include 10 companies, examining claims that their services are failing to deliver the quality promised in customer contracts. The investigation will include industry leaders such as NCsoft Corp. and Nexon Inc.

"We are looking into the consumer contract terms from the companies and judging the legitimacy of consumer complaints. We expect the investigation to conclude in March, deciding whether to impose penalties on the companies," the Korea Fair Trade Commission said in a statement.

The commission has been reviewing the issue since July last year, after consumer-rights groups filed a compliant against NCsoft, the world's largest online game software company, with the Seoul Central District Court. The complaint alleged unfair terms in contracts and poor service quality.

The groups, including the Online Consumer Coalition, said NCsoft has not provided adequate protection of users' personal information and has made transaction errors on several games including Lineage II. They also claim that the company is refusing to compensate customers for technical problems such as server malfunctions, which often lead to errors in the cash points and payment systems.

NCsoft said the contracts are designed with consumer benefits in mind and the company must gather personal information and have full control over item purchases to counter illegal offline cash transactions and fraud. The company also said its services are of above-average quality.

NCsoft saw its third-quarter 2004 net income grow to 22.5 billion won ($20 million), up 220 percent year-on-year, on sales of 63.7 billion won.

The company, which targeted 250 billion won in sales for 2004, has benefited from the popularity of Lineage II that made successful debuts in the United States, Japan and Taiwan after topping the market in Korea.

([email protected])

By Kim Tong-hyung

Comments

[Factory]

1.

"The company, which targeted 250 billion won in sales for 2004, has benefited from the popularity of Lineage II that made successful debuts in the United States, Japan and Taiwan after topping the market in Korea."
Erm, successful in the US? Oh dear, their PR doth overflow.

[petroleumjelly]

2.

Comparatively Lineage 2 has been more successful than the first Lineage.

[Brian Whitener]

3.

http://www.mmogchart.com/
The sequel to the highly successful Lineage, Lineage II launched first in South Korea in November of 2003 and then the United States in April of 2004. As of September 2004 they had nearly 1.5 million subscribers worldwide, with over 75,000 of those in the US.

[Jeff Lotton]

4.

I guess NCSoft fumbled by letting the issue go to court. Now comes the smackdown.

JHL

[Unggi Yoon]

5.

Seasons Greeting all TN athours!

Last December, at the seminar held by KGDI(Korean Game Developement Institute)

I presented a paper which made a synthesis of the legal matters of virtual property issuse in Korean MMORPG since 1999.

The title is "Legal Postion of In-game items & the Unfairness of the EULA banning in-game item Ebaying"

[Sorry, it's korean, no english version now, I hope you have korean friends]

For more information about the paper,
please email me cyberlaw#naver.com

Thanks TN.

[Mario Pelc]

6.

I totaly agree with this ncsoft has not done anything to help me in lineage2
I have been hacked 2 times .. my friends have been banned for reasons unheard of
Their is also a rumor that they want to put spyware on our computers
As for my comment
they have a list of way to lose na server constumers and they are only half way down the list to killing the U.S servers

[Michael Hartman]

7.

> Legal Postion of In-game items & the Unfairness of
> the EULA banning in-game item Ebaying"

I sincerely hope that is just a misleading title. There is hardly a more asinine position than to say it is "unfair" for a company to protect its assets by not allowing people to cannibalize their value.

[Unggi Yoon]

8.

I view the right of in-game item trading gamers not as (virtual) property base often discussed but as contractual base between seller and buyers over the items out side of VW/MMORPGs.

The core value the seller & buyer estimate as a item price is not from gaming company's items itself but from the gamers' playing(service) in getting those items for them.

So, they ane not cannibalizing the company's value directly. Items coded under game program has little meaning itself, just have a meaning against other gaming comapny as a copyright.

On the contrary, thru the in-game itme trading, gamers as a co-contributors of VW are giving additional/corrective value to the whloe VW/MMORPGs. Because, what they seil & buy is not just a coded one but a played one.

The problem like unfairness etc is not result of the item trading, IMHO, It's the fault or lack of desiging of vw economy or constucting of social rules.

Therefore "unfair" in my paper, should be understood in the above context.

In Korean legal system, the contratual right of the seller and buyers can be construed as "Gwonri geum" relations.

By the dictionary, 'Gwonri geum' is translated as "foregift", but in my view, the legal meaning is somewhat different from our legal system.

Thanks TN

[nomaswazi]

9.

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[Fred]

10.

Hi i read your Korean Consumer Protection on the WEB at like to ask are scams aloud in games like Linage2 cause NCsoft do nothing to help people and catch the scammers in the game i personaly think these people will sell the items, they get for ADENA and then sell the adena for real currency which in my books is illegal and surely a prison offence NCsoft (GM's) just call it PVP there takeing our real money and not giveing us a service at all there are no GM's what so ever on in C4 of Lineage2 any more just a auto mated service which is very lame there must be something that could be done about this kind of thing a alliance member last night was scammed out of a +6 Yaksa with Health cost her 40ml this scammer used a fake scam name like my alt but had a E in the name and asked to pass to a alt.I know she did a daft thing but this isnt game play at all like scamming people out of real money at end since alot of people seem to BUY Adnea for game Play and NCsoft gain over it seems to me NCsoft want scams in game so who ever is scammed will go and BUY some adena to replace what they lost very curious how NCsoft get away with this.Also about the customer service we supposed to get is none totaly none there just isnt any customer relations at all.Bad enough i found a site telling people how to scam people in Lineage 2 on the WEB http://lineage2scams.atspace.com/ i havent read it cause im discusted over this.

P.S. hope you might be able to let me know if there is anything we can do about NCsoft and get them to act do there JOB we are paying them for.

[Erik]

11.

Ah, I see you liked my website, Lineage 2 Scams!
Your talking to the administrator bro.