Lawyers in South Korea have filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of more than 230,000 victims of identity theft in an online game.

The suit will claim damages of about $1,000 for each plaintiff whose identity was used to register new accounts in NCsoft's popular games, Lineage and Lineage 2, according to media reports. 

Most of the identify thefts took place over the past six months as underground gaming syndicates stole victims' official Korean ID numbers in hacking attacks and used them to register hundreds of thousands of Lineage accounts.

As reported last week by vnunet.com, the new accounts were then 'farmed' by low paid workers in Chinese gaming sweatshops to generate 'gold' and other game-world items that could be sold for real world cash.

NCsoft has claimed that it registered the bogus accounts in good faith, and has denied responsibility for the initial theft of ID numbers that made the crime possible.

As well as Lineage, which claims millions of players worldwide, NCsoft operates popular games like City of Heroes, City of Villains and Guild Wars in Europe and the US, and plans to release the much-anticipated Auto Assault this summer. 

The company earned pre-tax profits of $86m last year on revenue of $346m. Staff who answered a call to NCsoft's office in Seoul declined to identify themselves or to comment on the identity theft case.