Recently, rumor goes that an amendment to ban the exchange of in-game currency for real cash will be adopted, which is bringing a storm to the Korean gaming industry.

The Amendment to the Gaming Industry Rejuvenation Act, which is being drafted by the National Assembly (upper house) to which the Culture-Tourism Committee belongs, stipulates that the exchange of in-game currency for real cash is illegal. The amendment also stipulates that the brokerage involving real cash trade is also illegal. If the amendment is adopted, the companies and websites engaging in in-game currency trade will suffer a heavy blow. 

The amendment stipulates that any foundi n-game currency brokerage behavior will earn the operator a maximum of five year imprisonment or a fine of less than 50 million won (approximately 420,000 yuan). The adoption of the amendment will surely reduce the sales revenue of those games where in-game currency trade is popular, including NCsoft¡¯s Lineage, YNK¡¯s Rohan.

However, there is an effectiveness issue about the amendment. That is, though it stipulates that in-game currency trade is illegal, there are no provisions specifying in-game item trade is illegal. The major purpose that most gamers purchase in-game currency is to buy in-game items. So, the adoption of the amendment may not hit item-selling-model MMORPGs heavily, but it may bring a heavy blow to card games.

Some experts pointed out that, viewing from the purchase of the second largest real cash trade agency website by an overseas company, real cash websites operated on servers set up in an overseas country will be beyond the control of the amendment. In addition, there is possibility that the banning of real cash trade will result in fraud and violence.