NCSoft: S Korea Government to fight bots

Since the recent plight of the popular Lineage 2 bot L2Walker developers website, more information has surfaced.

In South Korea, bots prevention has been extended from civil level to government level.

On December 3, 2008 (Seoul Time), the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of South Korea held the "Symposium on the Second Mid- and Long-term Plan on Game Industry Rejuvenization" in Seoul. Ryu In-Chun, Minster of South Korea Culture and Tourism Ministry and the entrepreneurs present stated to take a strong stance against bots.

At the symposium, Ryu In-Chun said that bot is a type of product which infringes the copyright of others, and the South Korean government will formulate relevant laws and policies to prevent bots. He also said the government is making an amendment to Game Law. Once it is approved, people can tackle the problem by legal means. In addition, he said if enterprises put forward any good methods to eliminate bots, the government will respond proactively.

NCsoft CEO Kim Taek Jin commented that technically, bots can be rooted out, but because there have been no relevant laws available, bots prevention has not given satisfactory results. Kim Taek Jin said the amendment will definite help create a bot-free gaming environment.

The amendment which is still to be approved by the National Assembly of South Korea, stipulates that any person who creates or sells bots will be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of less than one year and in addition, be fined less than 10 million won (approximately USD 10,000). NCsoft and other game companies are planning to use laws to fight against bot-selling companies.

Botters can see this several ways:

1. Oh goodie bots are going to be free and underground

2. Oh my God it's the end of the world - my favorite bot sellers in jail!

3. This is great, perhaps normal and competitive gameplay will prosper again!

LinKing in Korea

It seems that Korean LinKing users and sellers do not have to worry about the production and sale of LinKing's Korean client.

When questioned about the recent developments, the response was "I do not care much about it." - most likely because he is based in China and only third party sellers are in Korea.