Dr. TwisTer’s WorSt NightMare

I spotted echoes of this story when I was in Korea and now Arnold Hendrick’s Tidbits newsletter (email only, so no link) found the original story: NCsoft gets a criminal court conviction, Lineage bot makers cry foul. Many echoes to the past here. (note: 1000 Won = $1, or at least it did before the dollar collapsed JUST BEFORE I EXCHANGED MONEY)

“We think that NCSoft themselves want those cheating tools to be used,” a program engineer at Otobox, one of numerous Bot sellers, said in a telephone interview. “Many gamers pay service fees for two accounts at the same time, one for himself and one for the Bot. If NCSoft bans the use of Bot that means its revenue will decrease by half.

“Officially, NCSoft tells the users not to use Bots. But as a programmer, I know that NCSoft purposely designed the game to easily go with the Bots,” he said.

Of note also is NCsoft’s response, aimed at the non-game playing public (which in Korea may be three people).

Game bots are like a cancer, inflicting severe damage on both the gaming industry and gamers. Regular gamers who get frustrated by the bots decide to leave the game in the end. For gaming companies, bots accelerate the depletion of game resources and result in an additional burden of R&D expenses. In addition, those who use bots are often connected to cash transactions of game items, leading to various social problems.