[Asia Economy Reporter Buaeri] Neople, a subsidiary of Nexon, announced on the 17th that it has dismissed an internal employee who committed cheating in 'Dungeon & Fighter (DNF)' and filed a criminal complaint with the police.
No Jeonghwan, CEO of Neople, informed this fact and issued an official apology through a notice.
Previously, in DNF, an internal employee abused their authority to create accounts and generate items through abnormal methods, causing outrage among users.
CEO No stated, "We are conducting a thorough investigation with a repentant heart," and added, "The employee involved has been dismissed, and disciplinary actions of 'suspension' have been taken against supervisors including team leaders, directors, and division heads."
'DNF' Super Account Controversy
A super account refers to an account used by operators in the game. Usually, operator accounts are marked as such, but super accounts are characterized by having no indication and appearing like regular users.
The details of the incident are as follows. The account named 'Gungdaengiman-dan' held multiple job characters in the game. This account possessed high-level items enhanced to +12 or higher, and some top-tier items were enhanced up to +14.
The problem occurred in the timeline of this account. In DNF, the acquisition or enhancement of high-level items can be checked chronologically on the official website, but the acquisition path or enhancement information for this account’s items was not displayed. This led DNF users to raise suspicions of cheating by an internal employee, sparking controversy.
It was revealed that the 'Gungdaengiman-dan' account belonged to an internal employee. The employee is suspected of abusing authority to illicitly generate items and leaking them externally for sale.
Investigations found that when tool work tasks occurred, the employee added their own account and the items to be generated to the tool work list. Tool work refers to tasks that directly and collectively modify data information such as warehouse and inventory (item storage space).
The employee later deleted the misuse records from the tool work logs to prevent other employees from noticing the misconduct.
Among the items generated and leaked externally by the employee were many rare items in the game, including 40 '90% +12 Equipment Amplification Coupons' and 50 '90% +11 Equipment Amplification Coupons.' DNF users estimate the value of these items to be around 50 million KRW.
It was also confirmed that the employee was involved in the pre-leak incident of the enhancement chaos event that occurred last January.
Neople Takes a Hardline Stance
As user dissatisfaction continued, Neople took a hardline stance. CEO No explained the reason for the criminal complaint, saying, "In a situation where users' trust has been damaged, we judged that a more transparent and thorough investigation by investigative agencies is necessary."
He added, "We will reorganize all work processes of the game service to ensure that such cheating never occurs again."
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