It looks like we can put a W in the column for online gamers around the world – and especially in Korea.

The South Korean parliament has passed an amendment to a law on promoting the gaming industry. Based on this law, manufacturing and distributing programs that are not allowed by the game company and its Terms of Service are now directly illegal.

That would include aimbotters, hacking programs, scripters, or anything not allowed by the TOS.

The punishment? A maximum of 5 years of jail time or $43,000 in fines (50 million KRW).

Now gaming companies won’t have to rely on ‘indirect’ laws in order to sue and accuse hack/script makers and distributors – which should make life immensely easier for Riot Korea and Blizzard Korea.

Overwatch, in particular, has seen hacking run rampant in South Korea with Blizzard fighting back with bans against players utilizing the hacks. While the bans have stopped some players from playing, it’s good to know that they will have the weapons they need to fight back with the backing of the Korean government.

This is also good for players on servers around the world, as many of these hacks originate in Korea – meaning we’re likely to see far fewer of them on the market. There were many reports of Korean users utilizing VPNs in Korean PC bangs to use aimbots without fear – they would simply buy a new account on the NA server if they got banned.