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

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: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!

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.