Virtual Currency Trade Legalized

Having been prosecuted for trading in the virtual currency of the popular online game Lineage (which was considered to violate the Game Industry Promotion Act), Mr. Kim and Mr. Lee were found not guilty at second instance. On Jan. 10, the Supreme Court of Korea announced to maintain the verdict given at second instance. It was the first time that this Court had ruled on the controversial in-game currency trade. The ruling is expected to bring great impacts on South Korea's game trade market whose scale has arrived 1,500 billion Wons, and people's view on games will also change to some extent.

Over the years, game producers have firmly stuck to the aion kinah principle - "The currency and items in online games are all virtual and belong to the developers. No trade in them can be conducted." Civil units and parents also disagree with such trade, and insist that both games and in-game currency trade will impose negative impacts on children's education. But players' opinion is: "The in-game currency and items belong to players, and business in this area is actually popular in real life. In this way, restrictions on such trade will be deemed as an infringement on consumers' rights".

After analyzing Lineage's features during second instance, the Supreme Court of Korea found that the currency in Lineage - "Aden" was not among those forbidden to be resold according to the specifications in the Game Industry Promotion Act. Evidence includes: 1) no one was found to bet on the lucky ones with certain stakes by rolling dices or spinning wheels, and then share the stakes; 2) players got Aden and items by killing monsters or fighting against each other; 3) the trade in Aden was quite popular inside the game. In short, the trade in Lineage's virtual currency could not be deemed as buy aion gold gambling, but somewhat a kind of payment for labor.

A new business model is likely to come out.

With the legalization of Lineage's virtual currency trade, the game market is very likely to witness a brand new business model. Particularly, those small and medium-sized game companies are expected to receive great chances of expansion. It is also estimated that legal in-game currency and item exchange centers will also appear.

However, large game companies believe that the new business model is not the problem. What matters is as a social concern, how the in-game currency/item trade can be made transparent? These companies hope related authorities can clearly show the development direction. In their opinion, "it's very common to see Aden obtained in abnormal ways nowadays, and there's no way to determine whether the virtual currency trade is legal or illegal. Once such trade is legalized, certain adjustments will have to be made to the Game Industry Promotion Act and related taxation standards should also be set accordingly.

1 million Aden is sold at 8,000 Wons on in-game currency/item trade intermediary websites currently, and the turnover of the in-game currency and item trade in South Korea is about 1,500 billion Wons. It's estimated that the illegal trade in this field also reaches 1,000 billion Wons.