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The Seoul High Court said Tuesday it recently ruled against Netmarble in a suit which the game company filed to annul fines imposed by the Fair Trade Commission.
In its online board game Modoo Marble, the company sold special characters in 2016 as part of events the occasions of Halloween and Christmas and under the theme of "world tour." At the time the company said the special characters were on sale on limited offers.
However, Netmarble sold the characters at other times ― selling the Christmas-only characters, which were initially sold from Dec. 22 to 27 in 2016, again in January and May the next year, and offering the Halloween-only characters, which were available from Oct. 21 to 25 in 2016, at other times until the following May over 26 times.
The commission imposed 45 million won ($39,900) in fines on the company, saying it was an act to entice customers by spreading false information or through deceptive means.
Netmarble filed the suit to annul the fine, but the court ruled the commission's decision was fair.
"With advertisements that say 'limited-edition characters' or 'event-only items,' customers would mistakenly believe that the items are available only during the designated period," the court said. "It is unlikely for customers to predict the items would be available in other events in future."
It said such limited-edition characters usually increase the users' chance of winning the game. "If ads say such rare characters are available during a specific period, they affect game users' decision whether to buy them or not."
Netmarble claimed the fine was too grave given that it compensated the users, who had bought the characters during the event periods, by offering game money or other benefits that could be used for the game.
But the court did not accept the claim, saying the game money and the benefits only gave the users a chance to buy the characters again and thus these were not proper forms of compensation.
