Blizzard offices raided over Diablo 3 refund policy after Error 37 strikes Korean gamers

It seems like the start of a joke, “Did you hear about the company whose DRM was so bad it’s illegal?” There’s a sour punchline for Blizzard. Tim sends word of a report in the Korea Times stating that Blizzard’s Korean offices have been raided by the country’s Fair Trade Commission. By “raided” we don’t mean they formed a geared up 24 man team of healers tanks and DPS specialists to battle security. Instead some Very Serious Men turned up and seized a bunch of documents looking to secure evidence against the company.

It all began when Korean gamers, like most gamers, had difficulty logging into Diablo 3. Many of them became so frustrated that they contacted Blizzard and demanded a refund, but the company operates a strict no refunds policy in Korea, and refused to give gamers back their money. That’s when the FTC got involved. Hundreds of gamers lodged formal complaints with the body, who responded launching an investigation.
The FTC will sort through their seized documents to see if Blizzard have broken any South Korean commercial laws. It’s uncertain how the case will turn out, The Verge claims that South Korean law guarantees a refund of any product within seven days if the fault is not caused by the customer, but the courts will have to decide whether whether server problems constitute a faulty product.
Patch 1.02 for Diablo 3was aimed at improving client stability and disconnection problems, but many are still experiencing intermittent issues with Error 37.