Korea's Fair Trade Commission Raids Blizzard's Offices

Written by: QuintLyn Bowers (@QuintLyn) | May 31, 2012 1:30 pm

86 Comments

Just when we thought the Diablo III launch drama was over Blizzard is raided by the Korean Fair Trade Commission.

Players who had difficulty logging into the game contacted the FTC after being denied refunds when attempting to return it. Blizzard claims that this refusal is due to a strict “no refunds” policy on used products.

After receiving “many complaints” from customers that Blizzard regarding the refusal, the FTC has launched an investigation. In an effort to gather evidence to determine if Blizzard has violated Korean Law, they have seized documents and evidence that they will sort through in an effort to determine if Blizzard has violated Korea’s electronic and commercial contracts law.

At present, Blizzard is still refusing to refund customers, but has said they will increase server capacity.

Korea's Fair Trade Commission Raids Blizzard's Offices

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http://www.facebook.com/people/Sven-Jack-Cept-Janssen/1473006061 Sven Jack Cept Janssen

MIKE ! wb…
http://twitter.com/crocodilius ryan phillips

you used the unique CD key, making that copy of the game irrelevant to someone else.
for all they know, you copied the key and will post it all over the internet, thus voiding that product.

meh, i bought mine on the blizzard store so as far as i know i dont even have a key, its just linked to my email or whatever.
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Magus-Hrist/100003601604634 Magus Hrist
  
  With the online DRM it makes no difference who knows the CD key. If Blizzard deactivated that copy, the key would be worthless.
- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1260066056 Steven Diaz
  
  Ryan, riiiight, because buying a physical item that doesn’t work properly obsolves a company of actually supplying a WORKING product right?
http://twitter.com/Luke_Malcolm Luke Malcolm

Inb4 Haters gunna hate
http://www.facebook.com/Ploute Jereme Pierce

WoW Blizzard…that is totally screwed up. Just refund the money and suck it up. This is horrible PR.
http://twitter.com/DanKevThom Daniel Thomassen

I think they should refund people since they didn’t deliver the service they advertised.. doesn’t matter if it’s a physical item or a service. If it’s not working you should be able to get a refund
http://www.facebook.com/joao.aniceto.37 João Aniceto

I do belive Anet already refunded some people on their game. At least I think I read it somewhere.
- http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
  
  Yeah, but the game hasn’t been released yet. Let’ see if Arenanet refunds prepurchases after the game launches and if there are problems with logging on the first week.
  - Chris Pelha
    
    Won’t need too, there won’t be any login issues because they actually plan properly and take their customers complaints seriously :O
  - http://profile.yahoo.com/ITHF7XKYGVXFAPCDMDJTKHLBBU Lian Wan
    
    That would be less likely for a number of reasons.
    - there simply aren’t as many(if any at all) people who will blindly buy a game just because it’s from ANet(it took GW1 4 years and multiple campaigns to sell the same number of copies that D3 sold at launch).
    
    - while the 3 day headstart is sold as a perk for pre-purchase it also gives ANet 3 days of breathing room for dealing with stuff that comes up.
    
    - required capacity for D3(or any other instanced game) is harder to estimate than for GW2. There is no way to know how many people are going to be partying and how many will be going solo. For GW2 they can use the BWEs to figure out maximum people per instance and then it’s just some simple multiplication and division.
http://www.facebook.com/people/John-Delaney/100000062870510 John Delaney

Korean Law gives them 7 days to return any software product if there is a problem with it and the problem is not the end user’s fault. That’s the main issue.

Edit: If software is sold as a digital download and requires an online connection, account and login to use, is it still a product? Or is it now a service?
- Kagitaar
  
  You could easily argue that even if you consider the disk and it’s code a product, it was the Battle.net service that was having issues and therefore the law does not apply.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Willi-Enderle/1668850948 Willi Enderle

Welcome back Mike B!
http://www.facebook.com/people/Kris-Yeisley/554290488 Kris Yeisley

Single player game should’ve never been online only to begin with.
- http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
  
  Haven’t heard of bootlegging copies of D3. Hacking yes, but playing the game for free, because they got a bootleg copy, no.
  - http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1260066056 Steven Diaz
    
    Dularr, what’s your point? Games being pirated isn’t as big of an issue as companies would have you believe. If it REALLY were an issue, games like Skyrim, Mass Effect and Max Payne would never have made any money. If you make a GOOD game, people, even the pirates, will pay for it and support it. The issue isn’t pirating, it’s lazy developers and companies that make trash products that aren’t worth a single cent. They try and blame pirating but the truth is that people wouldn’t have bought the game due to it being crappy.
Rahqwas Williams

What about people from other countries where it takes 24 hours to download? The whole world doesn’t revolve around America you know. Using a disc takes 10 minutes, downloading takes at least 12 hours. If I bought a game ever and they didn’t supply me with a disc, I would demand a refund.
- http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
  
  I’m guess if not now, in the future, you won’t be playing many games. Seems like all games are going digital download, even if you had a disc.
- Old Ben
  
  > If I bought a game ever and they didn’t supply
  > me with a disc, I would demand a refund.
  
  If a game (or song, or any other digital product) was labeled “electronic download”, why would you expect them to “supply you with a disc” ?
  
  Check what you’re buying before you buy it.
  
  Besides, the issue here has nothing to do with what medium is used to distribute the game; the issue is that the game requires players to log in, and the log-in servers aren’t responding. Doesn’t matter if you downloaded the game or installed it from a CD, it still requires a connection to the server.
- http://profile.yahoo.com/ITHF7XKYGVXFAPCDMDJTKHLBBU Lian Wan
  
  That is actually not very accurate unless by America you mean “NOT the USA” because the USA doesn’t rank all rank very high for download speed when compared to other countries. It isn’t the slowest but IIRC it isn’t even in the top20 of the fastest.
http://www.facebook.com/ashley.lund2 Ashley Lund

I still believe in the no refund policy for games (digital or box). What’s to stop people from buying the game, beating it, and then returning it??
- Kagitaar
  
  Exactly.
- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1260066056 Steven Diaz
  
  Ashley, you have a point, right up until the item you purchased isn’t working for a large portion. See, ISN’T WORKING. What part of that did you not comprehend? NOT WORKING as in NOT USABLE or PLAYABLE which means you CAN’T BEAT IT. Sorry about the caps, just making sure you can read THAT since it seems you couldn’t read the video description or understand what the video was about.
  - jayremy
    
    Its about customer satisfaction and delivering customers the products/services they legitimately expected to get from paying their money for as part of the transaction.
    
    If anything it should probably be more strict, doesn’t matter who enforces it, public, companies or gov; all game companies should release complete products not ones that are way too buggy or simply is under performing.
    
    Again it’s not there is returning because people are saying “I don’t like the game” after getting a full play through, these are people who would like the game but the service is not being available as expected, just as bad as releasing a game with the last quarter (ending) of the game removed but telling people the ending was there.
  - http://www.facebook.com/ashley.lund2 Ashley Lund
    
    The point I’m making is where do you draw the line. They have this policy for a reason.
    
    Go back to Gamebreaker’s website and watch the Big Pineapple story. There’s a reason the Korean servers are having problems, and its not like Blizzard isn’t working to fix it.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=637909006 Matthew Todor

I think it’s ridiculous that The Korean FTC acted so fast. The game hasn’t even been out for a month, and people have been waiting a decade for it’s release. Of course it’s going to be difficult to log in. Cut them some slack, honestly. It’s understood that Blizz is an MMO company, and should know how to handle these things, but seriously, give them some time. Every problem is unique, and they all have their own solutions.

On the note of the refunds, Blizzard followed the protocols that they themselves set in place. If those protocols need to be changed, so be it, but “raiding” them? That’s a little over the top. Why not contact them first?
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Magus-Hrist/100003601604634 Magus Hrist
  
  Raiding is standard practice to prevent a company from destroying evidence. Blizzard aside, you expect all companies suspected of wrongdoing to come clean when asked?
- Old Ben
  
  > I think it’s ridiculous that The Korean FTC acted so fast.
  
  Yeah, it’s ridiculous to have a judicial system that actually operates efficiently instead of waiting months or years until all the documents have been destroyed, and then concludes that it can’t do anything due to lack of evidence.
  - jayremy
    
    Hahaha
http://www.facebook.com/Rookie918 Steve Hunter Robinson

I just think it’s shocking that a massive company like Blizzard didn’t anticipate the amount of traffic their servers would have from D3. The diablo series has millions of followers and even now, 2 weeks after the games release, I’m still getting error 37 messages when I try to log in (Live in the UK).
- http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
  
  Looks like Korea was especially bad, sounds like players from China used proxy servers to access the game in Korea.
  - Kagitaar
    
    Which complicates matters significantly and gives Blizz an easy out if it gets to that point.
- Nathan Hulse
  
  They may have anticipated the load but decided not to roll out a contingent large enough. This is Blizzard we’re talking about, after all.
Revanhavoc

Glad Mike B didn’t die in some freak Indy Car accident.

And the only kind of all male SWAT team that maybe went into to those offices would have been the kind with tight short shorts and Euro-Pop music if you get what I’m sayin…
http://www.facebook.com/markince Mark Andrew Ince

nice to see Mike B back!!
http://www.facebook.com/jason.jenkins.73 Jason Jenkins

if i was blizzard i think i would turn my jerk mode on and make up the excuse that due to the raid they now have to shut off all product servers in korea inculding wow and starcraft and there is no date on reactivation
- Old Ben
  
  I’m sure that would do wonders for Blizzard’s sales and public image, and really help their case when they have to face a class action suit.
  - jayremy
    
    On top of reduce revenues to a complete zero in those regions, because they cannot get away with that MORE SO when they don’t even allow the product available period.
- Kagitaar
  
  That is a terrible idea, and you are a terrible person for making me agree with Old Ben.
http://twitter.com/Deadalon Deadalon

I suggest Gamebreaker goes to the EU and US forums to see how horrendous things are on Diablo servers.

EU servers have been down for 2 days now more or less. Only 1-2 k ppl seems to be online and rest has 37 and 73 errors.

Alot of ppl are calling for refunds at this point.

And Mike B…. we are NOT ok with the contstant online feature because we CAN NOT GET ONLINE !
- http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
  
  Past the first day and maintenance periods, I’ve never had a problem with D3, I’m not even seeing any disconnects.
  - Kagitaar
    
    Same here, barring about 10 minutes of 37 after the new patch.
http://profile.yahoo.com/THJWE4XEXAMAPW3CUGPFYCUDHE Prime

At least FTC in Korea care about customers
in the USA the players complaining were told FU
http://profile.yahoo.com/THJWE4XEXAMAPW3CUGPFYCUDHE Prime

I think Companies in the USA are out of control as far as responsibility to customers.
- jayremy
  
  ”Corporate America” for you. How about lets get rid of the “corporate” side of our country for a while and actually see things progress. People are so worried about crap like socialism coming to the country, but ignoring the fact how fascist we’ve become and laws with government backing the businesses, not people.
http://profile.yahoo.com/THJWE4XEXAMAPW3CUGPFYCUDHE Prime

How about a STRICT -> I deserve to play my damn GAME when I buy it policy?
http://twitter.com/Kiba_Mikazuki Kiba

Blizz already has refunded people for D3, myself included. At least the digital version. They have a 30 day refund policy on the terms of service. They just remove the key from your account.
Randy McRandom

Welcome back Mike B.

I am not a Diablo guy so never will play it anyway. If the company policy is no refunds then sorry. I am not supporting Blizzard but if you buy it and then want to return it (regardless of why) then you may be SOL. If I was Blizzard I’d say fine, we wont sell Diablo 3 in Korea then. Enjoy not being able to play it.
http://profile.yahoo.com/THJWE4XEXAMAPW3CUGPFYCUDHE Prime

DRM doesnt work…people arent paying for a game and not own it….its complete BS
Avan Gore

Biggest annoyance for me is the lack of easily accessible, proper and swift communication from Blizzard. Dropping random blue posts on their forum which I can maybe pickup with some luck with various third party bluetrackers is a bit unprofessional.

During the last two days the situation appears to be like on launch, and all Blizzard seems to communicate is: “some users might get error 37, we are looking into it”. LOL.
http://twitter.com/Deadalon Deadalon

Diablo – Lord of (t)ERROR
1970Hendrix1970

Glad to hear this happened to Blizzard they deserve it. The whole you paid for this game and cant return it even though it doesn’t work but will wait till we fix it thing has permanently turned me off their shit games. Eveyone in America who experienced launch day knows all about this crap and the constant server issues and now the almost sony level crap where accounts are getting hacked and Blizzard is denying there are security issues all adds up to a bloated conglomerate that has lost touch with the fans. I feel like Ra’s al ghul got it right. Sometimes Rome needs to burn because the corruption gets too thick. 60 bucks for play when we get around to fixing it is total BS and Blizzard deserves every fine and loss that is incured upon them. There have been so many triple A games with larger fan bases that didnt have these issues it is obvious that Blizzard just launched it knowing it was not done and figured they would patch it later. The Koreans were not amused.
- Kagitaar
  
  You should probably go take your meds.
- jayremy
  
  All those people touting how awesome Blizzard is and “all their products are #1″, no they are just popular and charge people the most they can get out of them. They were great until WoW showed them how much of a cash cow the company can be. I read some things about employee interviews/reviews at Blizzard (former and current). Though few are positive, a majority were talking about how bad it was there especially their management.
  
  The lower levels never get a say and have very little upward mobility held down by in house management. They may have some integrity left and good people but they have been all mixed up and around with the management of their company, which is said to have some conflicting ideals.
  
  As always I have always favored the lax, not-so-politically correct, imaginative, crazy, non-formal game developers and companies, not the “suit and tie” businesses so many major game companies have become. The industry used to feel more unique until you have people just using it for easy money/jobs.
1970Hendrix1970

I would return this flaming piece of shit in a heartbeat if I could and go buy a real game like Max Payne 3 and so would alot of other people that bought it if they could, that is the only reason that Blizzard are beign dicks.
http://twitter.com/TheOneMafu TheOneMafu

It is borderline fraud selling a product you can’t get access to.
http://twitter.com/Virg_Ilio Virg_Ilio

I would return the game. Blizzard should really be ashamed by launching such a bad product.
http://www.facebook.com/wendy.doddcoppersmith Wendy Dodd-Coppersmith

Games should have a free to play before buying to try it out. If you can’t try it then why buy it?
http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr

This is a real bad PR hit for Blizz. But, if a player “beat” D3 on normal mode, can they get a refund if they are still having connectivity issue?
http://profile.yahoo.com/A25YQ3HO7U4LIHIHWSLG63WCYI Nisarg Shah

Serves them right for putting such atrocious drm.
http://www.facebook.com/kaj.udanga Kaj Udanga

For a while now, whenever I think of the rules and regulations regarding and surrounding the protection of intellectual property, I can’t help but think to myself, “they have the same concept of ownership as Rowling’s Goblins.”
http://www.kaiketsu.enjin.com/ Corey Jenkins

Sheesh blizz…what did activision do to you? lol. on a Side note Q, you should spend that 60 bucks on GW2 instead lol.
Jado Cast

My gut told me not to buy this game after beta, and I’m so glad I listend to my gut. Thank you gut!
http://profile.yahoo.com/JPKVUT4ZZQWDV7DRQWZSU5BO6Q James B

there has always been a no refund on games with registration codes…once u use it it cant be used again….yea ill load it up use the code and then get d3 free while i take it back to the store..and get my cash…blizzard would have to kill accounts or strip d3 off them causing more issues….
- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1260066056 Steven Diaz
  
  That doesn’t make sense… They could just deactivate the key attached to that box.
- Old Ben
  
  What companies write in the EULA and what they’re actually allowed to do under the law are different things. It’s trivial for them to disable any given game key, and if a game doesn’t work people are legally entitled to a refund.
  
  What’s more (and I bet the raid is related to this), if there’s evidence that Blizzard _knew_ there would be login issues and still chose not to increase server capacity or warn its users, they could be looking at a pretty big fine, because they’re basically defrauding their customers (promising something they knew they couldn’t deliver).
Freetheinternet

Ah Bliz, what happened to ya ? You were so good to us back in the day…
tehixe

That’s what it looks like when a democracy is owned by the public, not corporations. Corporations play fair or they get pwned.
CCLemon77

Good.
http://www.facebook.com/xXGrizzlyAdamsXx Adam Colquitt

If I was Blizzard. I would refund all the money for all online games Koreans paid for…and then take the games away. Teach them not to QQ about everything. It’s just a case of, I want money syndrome.
Anyway, take SC2, D3 and WoW away from them. See how they feel about it after.
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Jason-Caswell/631559369 Jason Caswell
  
  They’re not asking for a refund and to be able to keep access. Did you even think before you posted your comment?
- pc11
  
  They will play any other of the hundreds of games they have which provide better service and are not a money grabbing scheme? They are asking for the money back and returning a shitty product which means they dont want to play it.
  
  Get it? Probably not…
- http://twitter.com/Milennin The Milennin
  
  Because that’s the real sensible thing to do as a company…
  
  Not. /facepalm
Kagitaar

So much misdirected bitterness.
jayremy

S Korea +1 x 1000! At least their country has their backs not their necks.
pc11

Blizzard’s premise for Diablo3; after noticing how players were crazy about loot they thought up the real money auction house then built a game around it that relies on pure item grind. Result? Insta millions.

I loved Diablo 2 and was really sceptical for D3 and so happy i didnt buy it. I tried my friend’s guest pass for a weekend. In just one weekend my account had 3 hack attemps resulting in it being blocked 3 times! When I played single player I had instances of lag?!!!! Also people are starting to report the story is sub-par and not well written (the main atraction for me). Normal mode is not even challenging and the gear sucks forcing you to go on to the grind game after.

Yet they sold 3 millions on day one. It is jsut like Mac products, fanboys will eat any shit thrown at them…
http://www.facebook.com/malek.toumi1 Malek Toumi

What does Mike mean when he says gw2 won’t have any CDs? how do you “buy” it from a store then? I would really hate to end up having to download the entire thing.
- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000267765226 Vegas Steve
  
  I see your point about CDs, but you will still have a pretty big D/L on release due to manufacturing to actual release date. Lol, I still have the original WoW CD’s… those babies are pretty worthless!
- http://twitter.com/CamAHutchison Cameron
  
  There’s no proof that it won’t have CD’s. Just the current way they’re selling beta access as “pre-purchases” is without a CD. (Why would you have a CD for a beta?)
- http://profile.yahoo.com/ITHF7XKYGVXFAPCDMDJTKHLBBU Lian Wan
  
  Well that depends on which version you bought. Digital and Digital Deluxe are obviously not going to have disks. There is also a second disk next to the sound track CD that they didn’t mention in the CE unboxing video, but there is also no mention of needing a Blu-Ray drive or DVD drive in the system requirements.
  
  You can also start downloading the game now if you want.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000267765226 Vegas Steve

Unfortunately, this is exactly why companies need regulation. One could argue in the ‘old days’, not allowing returns of opened/used products deterred casual copying/stealing. But the always online requirement negates that. Blizz had a lousy launch and should have done the right thing by allowing returns to dissatisfied customers, and deactivate their key. What makes them any different than any other seller of goods? Nothing!
Men_In_Tights_Too

no wonder Blizzard were offering D3 for free if you resubbed to WOW for a year. :/
http://profile.yahoo.com/ITHF7XKYGVXFAPCDMDJTKHLBBU Lian Wan

I don’t think it’s so clear cut that you should be able to return it just because it’s digital. Bandwidth isn’t free but that aside, what is the cut off point? If I have finished all of normal mode should I still be able to get a refund? Partial refund?
http://www.facebook.com/david.eames.75 David Eames

This is why I personally will never ever buy another blizzard game, they’re just pure evil!!!
http://profile.yahoo.com/TOKKAXPNBONQ2PDLN36QTB32LQ stephen

You guys are insane. Cmon ok if they can shut down the account with the product key then ok return it if not then screw you. I quit buyign blizzard product awhile ago but wanting a refund because server were down the first few days..cmon I general expected that when I bought the wow x-pac

I am surprised Korea has the balls to do this. Activision can certainly buy a few senators and if the USA leaves with its forces south korea can say goodbye and hello to becoming a part of Best Korea

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