Blizzard offices raided on back of Diablo III refund refusal

It seems that some South Korean gamers are less than pleased with Blizzard’s rocky Diablo III launch. So much so that they are demanding refunds.

Blizzard has refused however, citing sales contract terms.

South Korea’s Fair Trade Commission (FTC) sprung onto action, and it is reported that on Tuesday (29 May 2012) the FTC raided Blizzard’s South Korea offices to secure evidence and documents needed to ascertain if the company has violated the country’s laws on e-commerce and commercial contracts.

While I like to imagine a black ops style assault on the building, complete with helicopters, dramatic escape attempts, desperate Blizzard employees trying to flush documents down toilets, and a small explosion, it’s more likely that they just sent a bespectacled Kim from accounting to go round and ask nicely for the relevant documents.

“We have received many complaints from Diablo 3 users,” said Kim Hyung-bae, a spokesman for the FTC, speaking to The Korea Times. The publication reports that he admitted that an investigation into Blizzard is underway, but refused to elaborate.

The FTC is apparently investigating whether Blizzard sold Diablo III on an unfair contract that leaves buyers unable to claim refunds in the event of problems with the game. The FTC may hold Blizzard liable for “ill-preparation” for the traffic surge that crippled their game servers at launch.

Despite Blizzard’s best efforts, in the weeks and days that have followed the launch of Diablo III, their servers have experienced intermittent downtime, meaning that players could not log in and enjoy the game.

According to the Wall Street Journal, about 10% of the now over 6-million sold copies of Diablo III were from South Korea. Gametrics, a South Korean PC game research firm claimed that on Tuesday, 29 May 2012, more than 35% of online PC gaming traffic in the country was generated by Diablo III players.

Diablo III certainly is serious business in South Korea.