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Gaming is not just an activity in South Korea. It is more of a religion, with teens around the country hooked up to the gaming screens for hours on end. Pro players are considered a celebrity and this further makes gaming an even more popular activity around the youth. Now, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Television has attempted to curb this to some extent.

One of the greatest incentives of gaming, for South Korean youngsters, is to obtain virtual money through farming and item trading. The authorities have now rendered farming, botting and item trading illegal in an attempt to discourage the teenagers from spending so much time in front of the machines.

Botting is an illegal activity anyway but with this new ban imposed by the ministry, anyone indulging in the said activities will be facing up to a hefty $45000 fine and five years in jail.

However, this also calls into question such games which officially endorse and allow farming. For instance, games like Diablo 3 have farming as part of the game play, allowing users to trade items with each other. The question, then, is that whether or not this ban also extends to ‘legal’ farming, the kind which is endorsed by the creators of the game.

Banning botting, on the other hand, is a very welcome move across the board since bots tend to cost game creators a lot of money since they have to persistently ban new bots which pop up each day and have to keep an eye out for them.

Source: Gamasutra

Courtesy: Forbes

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