Pathetic. I'm pretty sure the main reason was that they cannot force tax on those trades. Pretty stupid move considering so many MMOs are actually made in South Korea. Now imagine if all those developers and publishers leave the country, it would leave lots of people unemployed.

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/tech/2012/06/129_112964.html Yea, like you are going to tell me what my software should be used for... and I'm supposed to assume that you, Mr. Crap-soo will pay for my monthly bills, food and health, right?

It won't matter which country the developers are in, if that law passes, they won't be able to provide such services in South Korea (if it outright bans them). However, I think it's safe to say that it won't hurt the majority of the MMO companies at all.

Take the recent move in Japan to ban the "Complete Gacha" transaction model (basically spending huge amounts of money on the off-chance of getting a rare item by collecting many common ones), that ban was touted as likely to result in the loss of trillions of yen. Yet some affected companies are already projecting increased profits since abandoning the model.

So the MMO companies will adapt no matter what.

However, looking at the article you linked to, it seems this law is more about preventing users farming items via bots, etc., to sell on to other users; and not preventing in game stores akin to TF2's one.

I guess we'll have to see if these regulations stick this time. Similar things have been done there time and time again, especially with the gambling games like Sea Story, but... it's 2012 and business is obviously thriving.

The major trading sites like itemmania and itembay have had disruptions in the past as a result of item trading bans, but more than 10 years after I've first used them, they're still there.

I haven't been keeping close track of the social issues surrounding regular MMO item trades, but I could imagine why there are voices pushing for regulation there. Like among kids, 1 friend asks to borrow a 1337 item from a RL friend, like a school friend for example, then just sells it off. I've heard stories like this for real lol. I'm sure there are going to be those bullies in school who also happen to be nerds, who scare other kids into giving them items that they can trade away for cash. 10 years ago, there were real-life mobsters playing the likes of Lineage who went real-life PKing on online pricks, but I guess these problems have passed down to kids pretty much. (That reminds me of some funny attempted real-life PK stories, but that's offtopic.)

PAternal states always know better than ourselves what we should do and how we should leave. Paternal states protect us from ourselves even when we don't want that protection.

This is why I despise welfare state and interventionism with my whole heart.

Funny, this reminded me of how mature rated games still can't be shipped to Australia, no matter how many complaints were about it.

A far cry from any solution, but at least it's a step in some sort of direction against the pay to win mentality games are heading. Looking how people are spending 200$ on a single virtual item in D3, it is protecting the weak minded.

You can say it how often you want, it is not loosing its irony ;-P

I think that's part of the motivation behind it.

You can wipe your own ass with your money if you want. IT's YOURS.

If your family members think you are wasting your money, they might try to do something about it. Not the govt. your point is...?

In some jurisdictions -- maybe even in yours -- damaging money is actually illegal.