By Yoon Ja-young
Online games can be considered the cash cow of the information technology (IT) industry. But local gaming businesses, which once succeeded in taking a huge slice of the pie in the global market, fear that they may lose competitiveness due to government regulations. They say the government plans to impose a curfew and the pre-release reviewing system on games result from outdated stigmas.
While the governments of other emerging countries like China support the Internet gaming industry, businesses here are experiencing stronger regulations.
The government plans to impose a curfew on online computer games past midnight, aiming at curbing game addiction among children and teenagers, is drawing criticism. The compulsory shutdown will automatically sever connections to the games from midnight until 6 a.m. for those under 16.
Game firms say the measure would erode industry competitiveness. “To start the shutdown system, it needs increasing server space to store personal information, as well as other additional costs to verify whether the users register with their real names and tighten security. It will weigh on small- and medium-sized game companies,” the Korea Internet Corporation Association said. “This will be reverse discrimination to local businesses as there is no way of regulating games that operate with servers overseas. It will devastate the local online game industry,” the association said.
Critics doubt the legality of the bill and validity of the regulations. A survey of teenagers shows that they will seek other ways of playing games, such as borrowing their parents’ resident registration numbers to open a game account, even when the shutdown system is initiated.
The government has also been criticized for an outdated pre-release screening system of smartphone games. Apple shut down the games category on its App Store content platform for Korean iPhone users, refusing to go through the pre-release screening, and most Korean iPhone users opened up fake overseas accounts to download games for their iPhones.
The regulations only hurt the local mobile game businesses. According to Apple’s policy, content should only be uploaded in one category of its App Store. As Apple has no “Game” category on its Korean App Store they have to give up the domestic market if they are to upload their games in the “Game” category of overseas App Stores.
The Legislation & Judiciary Committee at the National Assembly approved the revision bill last month to exempt smartphone games from the pre-release screening, but local mobile game businesses lost the chance for a head start.
The regulations stem from negative views on gaming held by the government as well as society. This is likely to damage competitiveness of the local game firms. Ryu Sung-il, a researcher at KT Business & Economic Research Center, said in a report that the gaming businesses marked around $1.6 billion in exports last year. The country had a $1.2 billion surplus in the gaming market, which represented 4.14 percent of the total current account surplus. While the game industry is making a considerable contribution to the country’s current account, they are likely to fall prey to negative views as comic books did. “In the 1960s and ‘70s, the whole country made efforts to get rid of comic books in the country, which included campaigns to burn comic books on Children’s Day each year. As a result of this and other factors, comic books struggled to survive here, and the industry eventually died,” Ryu said.
He points out one shouldn’t forget that some things don’t just disappear no matter what oppression they face. “The comic and animation industry proves it. The society which drove Korean comics to extinction, now laments over the success of foreign comics and animation,” he said.