Account boosting is a criminal activity in South Korea

Account boosting has been a popular service around the world ever since 2010 when Dota 2 and StarCraft 2 became mainstream Esports games.

South Korea, as one of the most active Esports countries, has produced many businesses whose main service is account boosting. For a moderate price, a semi-professional player can rank up your account for bragging rights and ability to play versus stronger players. These actions produce a negative environment for mid-tier players, who often get an enemy or a team member of a much lower skill level.

In a 5v5 game boosting is good for 1 player and bad for the other nine

Any esports (and sports) coach will tell you that the best way to become better is to compete vs. stronger opponents. This means that a booster who has lost 10 matches against someone of a much higher skill level will grow up faster than if he were just playing against players of similar skill. Unfortunately, this blade cuts both ways, and those stronger opponents don’t benefit from wasting their time against a week player.

It goes without saying that the teammates of the boosted player are also involuntary victims of the crime.

Blizzard and Riot Games contributed to the new anti-boosting law of South Korea

South Korea has passed a law, which makes account boosting straight up illegal.

According to Dot Esports, the leading developers of esports games took part in the drafting of the new law which was first proposed in mid-2017. Players guilty of boosting may be fined to $18,000 and get a two-year suspended prison sentence. The law will take effect in 6 months.

The grey industry of account-boosting will probably never go away, but the new law might put a dent in it and force some of the biggest service providers to move their operations from South Korea to other countries.