Think the worst thing that can happen to you for helping gamers cheat in a video game is a ban? Think again, at least if you’re in South Korea.
According to PvPLive, the South Korean parliament has amended an existing gaming industry law to make creating and distributing cheat programs, including aimbots and hacks, for online games actively illegal.
In other words, if you whip up a script injector for an MMO and post it online for others to grab, not only can the company sue you, but the government can charge you criminally, with a maximum penalty of five years in prison and the equivalent of over $40,000 US in fines.
PvPLive asserts that, for example, Overwatch hacking in South Korea is “rampant” and that many of the hacks that infiltrate US servers originate there. Given our own experiences and Blizzard’s record of chasing down cheaters across its many online games here in the west, we can only assume laws like these will have a trickle-down effect here as well. Whether the law is crafted such that it’s exploitable in other ways remains to be seen.
