The key legal requirement to issuing online gaming points in Taiwan is that the gaming point issuer must adopt one of several regulator-approved measures to ensure that users can receive refunds for unused points. For example, the regulator has approved a bank guarantee that user points will be refunded.

Failure to obtain a bank guarantee or to adopt another approved method may result in an order from the regulator to take down the online game.

Until recently, this requirement applied only to online gaming software. The Taiwan Industrial Development Bureau defined online gaming software in a nonbinding 2006 guidance as “software that allows a player to play a game concurrently with multiple other persons over the internet through a server maintained by the gaming operator.” A typical example of online gaming software is World of Warcraft.

However, the Industrial Development Bureau is now inclined to consider all gaming software published via application (app) platforms as online gaming software even if the software does not allow players to play concurrently.  Consequently, foreign game publishers whose payment structure requires the issue of gaming points need to ensure that an approved method for securing refunds is in place regardless of whether they publish traditional multiplayer online games or the newer single-player games popular on mobile app platforms.