The Korean Fair Trade Commission confirmed on April 21, 2025 that Gravity, the company behind Ragnarok Online, and WEMADE, the developer of NIGHT CROWS, have been fined for misrepresenting pull rates for items in their games. As spotted by Game*Spark, the two companies will pay a fine of 2.5 million won (approx. $1,756 USD) each for their offenses.
According to the Korean Fair Trade Commission, from 2017 to 2024, Gravity has committed the offense of falsely advertising the pull rates for three paid probability-based items in Ragnarok Online – the items in question being Costume Enchant Stone Box 32, Booster Amplifier and Sealed Boss Card Quick Box. When it comes to Costume Enchant Stone Box 32, the company inflated pull rates by a minimum of 1.8 times to a maximum of 8 times. As for the Booster Amplifier, pull rates for rare items were depicted as 5 times higher than they really were. Furthermore, Gravity lowered the drop rates for the components of Sealed Boss Card Quick Box from 2.5% to 2.27% without informing players about the change.
As for WEMADE, the drop rates for the item Splendid Element Extraction of Harmony in the game NIGHT CROWS were advertised as approximately 1.7 to 3 times higher than what their original drop rates were.
The Korean Fair Trade Commission has thus raised concerns about the problem of deceitful marketing of probability-based items in games, urging companies to establish more efficient measures to prevent similar incidents from happening. It is important to note that, according to KFTC’s sources, as much as 75% of Korean gaming companies’ revenue comes from selling gacha and lootbox based items.
As both companies willingly corrected the issues of their items being falsely advertised and reimbursed all affected users, instead of having their business suspended, they were only fined 2.5 million won each. The KFTC warns companies that they will be monitoring the gaming market and implementing stricter sanctions in order to prevent similar incidents from happening again.
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