Official News page 5

REAL LIFE NEWS: VIDEO GAME MATCH FIXERS

by Hazed

When sport became big business, players began to be accused of fixing the matches - here in the UK we've had scandals around soccer matches, and currently the sedate, gentlemanly sport of snooker is in the spotlight for possible match fixing and bet rigging.

Now match fixing has hit South Korea, but it's not sport that is the subject of the corruption - it's video games. Police are investigation claims of match fixing by professional players of StarCraft, a sci-fi themed strategy game made by World of Warcraft developer Blizzard.

The game is hugely popular in South Korea and there are leagues of professional players who complete in televised tournaments. They receive coaching and sponsorship - this is big business. But now, some players and officials are alleged to have accepted bribes from gambling websites to fix the games.

Charges were filed against individual players and coaches in March, according to the Korea Times website, but the country's mainstream media has given this little coverage. When the BBC asked the Korean Embassy in the UK about the story they were told that there had been no official statement but they did confirm that "an incident had been reported to the police".

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