Overwatch is a popular game all over the world right now, but even more so in Korea. Some of you might be familiar with the high levels of competitiveness that comes from Korea when talking about video games and E-Sports specifically. The Blizzard first person shooter is one of the competitive games Koreans are very attracted to at the moment, and it’s not that hard to believe that some would throw sportsmanship out the window for a chance to be considered the best.
You might be thinking how is this problem related to Korea in particular, as people tend to cheat regardless of their geographical location. Well, Korea is a country that puts a heavy emphasis on E-Sports and computer related stuff in general. They even have something referred to as a PC bang, which is basically a cyber café. It is part of their pop culture to spend a lot of time in these cafes, and it’s a regular way in which a lot of people play games like Overwatch.
So what’s Blizzard going to do about it?
- One of the more standard initiatives Blizzard will take is to pay extra attention to what’s happening and what the latest ways of cheating are. Hacks, codes or other cheats will be on Blizzard’s radar in much more accentuated manner.
- The company also announced that come February 17, they will be making some changes to their policies. Specifically, players will only be able to play Overwatch if they own a copy of the game in their Battle.net account. The account has to be appropriate for a player’s region also. In Korea, Battle.net accounts are linked to social security numbers, meaning that it would be highly unwise for a Korean player to cheat/hack using a Korean account. Most create an account in another region.
- The Overwatch developer did not shy away from stating that it will be taking legal action against those who continue to act in detriment of the game’s integrity, so hackers and cheaters as well so the developers that enable them through providing software and tools are prone to legal repercussions.
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