By Yoon Ja-young
The country's top game developers including Nexon and Netmarble face 1 billion won ($946,000) in penalties imposed by the Fair Trade Commission (FTC) for deceiving customers with randomized in-game items.
Customers pay a fixed price for the virtual items, but their concrete characteristics such as effect and capacity are determined randomly when the player opens a box. Players who don't have much disposable income tend to purchase such items, expecting to get valuable items for a small amount of money.
Nexon Korea, for instance, sold "Entertainer Count" in its online game Sudden Attack. Players get two puzzle pieces each time they purchase the Entertainer Count, which costs 900 won. They get diverse advantages in the game if they complete the 16-piece-puzzle.
However, the odds of receiving a certain piece were as low as 0.5 percent. Nexon hid such information and only said that the 16 pieces were provided at random. The FTC pointed out that any ordinary customer would think that the odds of getting each puzzle piece would be similar since they weren't informed of such "rare pieces." One of the victims ended up spending 460,000 won to complete the puzzle.
The FTC also pointed out that Nexon did not properly inform customers of their rights to withdraw from purchases of in-game items in its "Counter Strike Online 2" game.
The regulator levied a 939 million won penalty on Nexon, on top of a 5.5 million won fine.
Netmarble also deceived users of its popular on-line baseball game Ma9. It held special events, in which it promoted that the odds of receiving certain in-game items would be raised by up to 10 times if customers participate in the event. However, the odds increased only five times, at most.
In its "Monster Taming" online game, Netmarble sold lottery tickets to users, with which players could receive diverse monster characters. The odds of drawing an invincible monster character were "lower than 1 percent," according to the information Netmarble provided to customers, but in fact it was as low as 0.0005 percent. The FTC levied a 45 million won penalty and 15 million won fine on Netmarble for a deceptive promotion.
The penalties levied on the game developers this time are the highest penalties ever levied for violation of the electronic commerce act.
"The randomized in-game items have been constantly stirring up controversy amid criticism that they are similar to gambling. By penalizing game developers' false and exaggerated information on the odds of receiving such items, we made it clear that the game companies have the responsibility to provide the right information based on which consumers can determine their purchase," an official in charge of e-commerce division at the FTC said.
"We expect the game industry to get rid of deceptive advertising practices from now on," she added.
Korea is the world's fifth largest game market.
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