Korean MMO Games Hotbed For Crime?

Thanks to Frictionless Insight for pointing to a Korea Times article discussing the involvement of online games in cybercrime. According to Chang Yoon-shik, chief of Cyber Crime Investigation Team 1 at the National Police Agency (NPA), more than 22,000 of the 40,000 reported cybercrimes in MMO-crazy Korea are games-related because "online games are not treated just as online games, and their money not treated as imaginary money. A lot of cyber crimes involve cyber money, but people are buying and selling this cyber money with real cash." A particular example is given, as "On July 3, the NPA arrested two hackers... on charges of manipulating the server of an Internet game service provider to obtain 60 quadrillion won in cyber money and exchange it for 1.5 billion won [$1.2 million USD] in real money."

Comments

In other news

[BigBadDude]

robber were arrested when hitting a monopoly bank

Inflation

[neglige]

[...] to obtain 60 quadrillion won in cyber money and exchange it for 1.5 billion won [$1.2 million USD] in real money.

If the amount of money in an MMORG can be increased by hackers, this should result in an inflation - in the world of the MMORG. Good thing that the increased amount of money won't have any effects on the real economy (the amount of money is not changed there)... this could be quite disasterous.

On the other hand: who exchanges the fictional money into real money? The company? If so, the company needs some solid funding, because at one point in time, all the MMORG player could decide to exchange all their MMORG money. I guess that would push any company into bankrupcy.

Re:Inflation

[lafiel]

EBay is a good place. Resell large amounts of online cash into US dollars because people are willing to pay for large amounts of cash....

I sold buckets of gold in UO for a good amount of US dollars, those were good days.

Re:Inflation

[neglige]

Resell large amounts of online cash into US dollars because people are willing to pay for large amounts of cash

Hmmm... do I smell a business model here? :) Here is the idea: create a company where every employee play some MMORG and accumulates virtual money. Then sell this virtual money for hard cash. It would be interesting to see if this would actually be profitable...

And since I posted this on Slashdot, I can get this idea patented ;)

Re:Inflation

[Daetrin]

On the other hand: who exchanges the fictional money into real money? The company? If so, the company needs some solid funding, because at one point in time, all the MMORG player could decide to exchange all their MMORG money. I guess that would push any company into bankrupcy.

I'm not sure, but i would guess it works the same as MMORPGs in the US. The players trade and sell items/cash among each other, and the company has nothing to do with it. Given how much discusion there has been about games that involve financial transactions with the company in exchange for items i think we would have heard about it if there was one in Korea that had actually implemented the practice.

Re:Inflation

[trompete]

The coolest part about this (and scariest) is that we're controlling the exchange rates over EBay. I don't know whether to laugh or cry!

Re:Inflation

[Ieshan]

Most games have a EULA that prevents people from legally doing this.

While they don't have a way to enforce it on a personal level, they'd certainly do something about it if it was ever taken to a business level. :)

Re:HI?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think people should first stop using cyber as a prefix for all thing internet related.

Nice cyber rant! :)

right on

[DrunkClam]

in an open society information should be just as important as anything "real". These kids have exposed what is an oversight in our modern economics. Now we can see the need for reuglatory oersight, so that online games can become part world economy. I think some diehard kids in mexico could totally make a run on some of the old hardware shipped their way every year. Turn that into a cash cow. Kill the capitalists with their own tools.

Re:HI?

[nadadogg]

at least Cyber-whatever sounds better than E-whatever. I'd much rather be prosecuted for Cyber-crime than E-crim.

So don't have an economy in the game

[Asmodeus]

Seems like an easy solution - provide a game environment in which money is not an issue - rank or status could replace it, for example the Navy have little use (although I admit some) for money. But Naval officers don't buy warships ;-)

Re:So don't have an economy in the game

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh yeah, just like people won't post party-line BS just because slashdot has karma instead of dollars.

Dude, if it's a number, scale, rank, whatever, humans will try to compete for king of the mountain.

what the hell?

[Tuxinatorium]

Anyone crazy enough to pay $1.2 million for any sort of advantage in a silly MMO is out of their mind and deserves to be ripped off...

Re:what the hell?

[dpete4552]

Well it was more than likely sold in smaller quanities to many people.

Or would they?

[Cirrius]

This business model has been around, unharrased, for years.

http://www.ige.com/

They do a lot of selling on http://www.playerauctions.com/