Game Act Amendment Bill Passed by the National Assembly... Strengthening the obligation to designate domestic agents and probabilistic items

The user protection obligations of foreign game companies that have agents in Korea and service games will become more stringent.

The National Assembly held a plenary session on the 1st and passed an amendment to the Game Industry Promotion Act (Game Industry Act) containing these contents.

The bill specifies 'protection of damage and handling of complaints of domestic users' among the compliance requirements that overseas game-related businesses must adhere to.

In addition, if a domestic agent is not designated or the obligation to display information related to probability items is violated and a corrective order is not followed, the use of the information and communications network can be refused, suspended, or restricted.

Qualification requirements for domestic agents have also become more specific.

Previously, the qualifications for domestic agents of overseas game companies were specified only as 'a person with an address or place of business in Korea', but the revised bill carefully changed the designation requirements to ▲ a domestic corporation established by a foreign game company ▲ a domestic corporation where the foreign game company exerts a dominant influence on the composition of executives and business operations ▲ a corporation that can faithfully perform the duties of a domestic agent.

In addition, the revised bill also established a new provision allowing the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Game Management Committee to request business operators to submit relevant data to confirm violations of the law.

The revised Game Industry Act will be implemented after a six-month grace period after being promulgated through the Cabinet meeting.

This bill was proposed as an alternative by the National Assembly Culture, Sports and Tourism Committee merging the amendments previously proposed by Cho Seung-rae of the Democratic Party of Korea and Rep. Kim Jae-won of the Cho Kuk Innovation Party.

According to the Game Industry Act and Enforcement Decree implemented in October last year, overseas game companies that distribute games with sales of more than 1 trillion won in the previous year or with more than 1,000 average daily mobile installations must designate a domestic agent.