A 28 year old South Korean man had been sentenced to jail for one year. The crime was for creating and distributing the hack for a popular game Overwatch and had received a large sum of money of around $180,000 US.
The hack in particular, is an aimbot that had been developed since July 2016 and had been sold to Korean players since then. This unusually tough sentence had been cited for larger profits attained by the accused overtime, according to the SBS.
This follows on a new tough stance created by both the South Korean Government and the South Korean branch of Blizzard Entertainment in an effort to curb offenders from developing and distributing illegal software.
South Korea faced a number of issues in the gaming industry for several years. Even some large gaming companies like Riot Games had put forth civil cases against Boosting companies. According to a National Assembly representative, "We will now protect the game industry and the esports system through amendment of the game law."
The South Korean Government had introduced a number of amendments to their laws last year which had also targeted not only hackers, but boosters as well. This included some of the higher-profile players like the Philadelphia Fusion player Kim "Sado" Su-Min for boosting players and profiting of it.
So far, Blizzard had been working with the Seoul's National Police Agency's cyber division to combat the issues such as hacking, boosting and other illegal activities that had been plaguing the South Korean gaming industry.
If you are not sure why South Korea takes these issues seriously, the culture in that country have a greater infrastructure surrounding gaming. The Government had introduced a number of laws to 'regulate' gaming (not just hacking or boosting) such as the "Cinderalla Law".
Will Australia follow South Korea into handling gaming as seriously as they do? Unlikely and if they do, not for a long time. Unlike South Korea, Australia's gaming culture isn't as predominant, thus the regulations surrounding it is far more loose. But, the fact that South Korea's ever growing intensity in punishing hackers and boosters gives us a bit of an insight on what may happen if Australia's gaming culture ever reaches South Korea's level.
