South Korean Overwatch hacker given one year suspended prison sentence

People take Overwatch very seriously, but no one seems to take it more seriously than the government of South Korea, thanks to the Game Industry Promotion Law and the Communication Technology Protection Law. We've previously covered videogame cheaters getting into legal trouble in South Korea, and today another story has been added to the list, with one man being handed a suspended prison sentence.

A 28-year old Overwatch player in South Korea was caught using and selling cheats for the game online. According to South Korean site, SBS News (translated by Dot esports) the hacker made around 200 million won from selling cheats, which converts to roughly £135,000. This is now a crime over in South Korea, which can be met with hefty legal penalties. In this case, the court handed down a one year suspended prison sentence and two years of probation. This essentially means that the guy won't be going to prison straight away, but if he gets caught doing anything illegal within the next two years, he'll be going straight behind bars.

This comes in the wake of a few other Overwatch-related legal crackdowns in South Korea. Earlier this year, two other cheaters were sentenced, with one getting a two year probation sentence and another being fined around £6,700.

Due to issues like hacking, boosting and match fixing on South Korean Overwatch servers, Blizzard now requires players in that region to link their Social Security Number to their account in order to play- which makes cheating a very risky business.

KitGuru Says: eSports are big business in South Korea, so it’s not surprising that the South Korean government is coming down hard on hackers. Do you think this sentence is too harsh?

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