South Korea is continuing their efforts to crackdown on the amount of time their children spend on video-games and other non-school related functions. The newest law, planned to go into effect next month, will ban the practice of in-game trading.
The news comes from the ‘South Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism’. The head of the ministry’s content policy division, Kim Kap-soo states, “The main purpose of the games is for entertainment and should be used for academic and other good purposes†as reported by the Korea Times. The crackdown hits users of ‘bots’ the hardest, bots collect in-game items automatically running on script or other code without player interactions. Those items are sold on the virtual market. Anyone that has played an MMO in the past should be familiar with the ‘bot-market’. Those that are found breaking the law could face up to five-years in prison and a hefty fine.
South Korea recently put a curfew into effect to curb the amount of time their children are playing video-games. The new laws are enforced by the local police.
source | koreatimes