Diablo III’s Auction House Considered Gambling by Korean Government

The country that literally invented microtransactions isn’t too happy with Blizzard Entertainment’s plans to implement a real-money auction house in Diablo III, it seems. In fact, the feature in its current form is “expected to fail in its bid at the Game Ratings Board”, which means that Diablo III couldn’t even be sold in the country. Something tells me this might prompt a little re-coding on Blizzard’s part:

The auction house is a potential jackpot for Blizzard, especially with separate fees for listing, selling and real cash conversion.

According to Robert Bridenbecker, vice president of online technologies, the auction house will exist in a double-tier structure, one based on Diablo-only unit (gold) and another based on real money. The former will use only (in-game) gold while the latter will use Blizzard proprietary unit called (battle coins) as well as cash.

Blizzard is apparently reversing its previous policy: on Diablo II’s FAQ website, it states that (selling of characters or items is not a feature supported,) and that (Blizzard will not facilitate nor mediate in the sale or trading of characters/items.)

The issue of gambling, illegal for Korean nationals, is a sensitive one, especially after a 2005-06 nationwide scandal over the Sea Story game machines that first passed the regulatory body inspection but were removed after the police discovered excessively speculative and addictive behavior among the players.

DualShockers delves even deeper into the controversy:

Earlier this week the representative of the Grand National Party Shim Jae-chul (that goes by the rather funny nickname Clean Shim), submitted to the Korean National Assebly a report from the local Game Rating Board, about MMORPGs and the effects of real money trade.

The report said that when a game delivers virtual items based on a random probability, like the loot dropped by monsters in a MMORPG or similar online game, and those items can be exchanged for money, the game is considered a form of gambling, and should be denied rating in accordance to article 1 of the Gaming Industry Promotion Law, effective in South Korea since last July.

The local media interpreted the report as an attack aimed against Blizzard’s upcoming feast of hack and slash mayhem, and alleged that the game would not be rated by the Game Rating Board. In South Korea an unrated game cannot be released, so a denied rating from the GRB would effectively result in a ban of the game.

As you may have guessed by the fact that gaming-related problems are discussed at the National Assembly, South Korea is a nation of gamers. On top of that, since Starcraft is considered on the same level as a national sport, Korean gamers tend to be rather fond of Blizzard. Diablo III is a massively anticipated game between the local gaming community, so, quite obviously, the reports about a possible ban caused a veritable media-induced storm of the century of the likes of what would happen if they banned soccer in Italy or baseball in the US.