Most foreign game firms violating probability item disclosure rules are Chinese

2024.07.22. The Fair Economy — Most foreign game companies found to have violated the obligation to disclose probability-type items are Chinese firms.

Rep. Kim Seung-su of the National Assembly's Culture, Sports & Tourism Committee said on the 22nd that an analysis of the 'Probability Item Disclosure Violation Detection Records' submitted by the Game Rating and Administration Committee showed that from March 22, when the system took effect, to June 30 this year, 96 game companies committed a total of 261 violations, of which foreign game companies accounted for 158 cases by 59 companies, or more than 60 percent.

A check of the corporate locations of the 59 foreign game companies found 22 in China, 14 in Hong Kong, 7 in Singapore, 5 in Japan, 5 in the United States, 2 in Vietnam, and 1 each in Switzerland, Canada, Turkey, and Israel. Even when the official corporate location was Hong Kong or Singapore, many were in fact Chinese companies.

The average correction completion rate for these foreign game companies was 77 percent. Excluding Switzerland, where not even one of four correction requests was addressed, the correction completion rate was lowest in China at 70 percent (35 out of 50 cases), followed by Hong Kong at 72 percent (25 out of 18 cases) and the United States at 72 percent (19 out of 26 cases).

When violations are detected, the Game Rating and Administration Committee directly requests game companies to comply with probability disclosure rules, but among foreign game companies, there were four cases (two in China, two in Hong Kong) where contact was not even possible.

On this issue, Rep. Kim Seung-su said: "Of the 1,251 total monitoring cases, only 500 targeted overseas game companies, a smaller proportion, yet the number of violations by overseas firms is far higher. Among overseas game companies, some are unreachable even when relevant agencies attempt to request corrections, raising concerns that gamers' rights may be infringed. To prevent blind spots in the probability-based item monitoring system, effective regulatory measures, such as requiring overseas game companies to designate domestic agents, need to be introduced swiftly."