Domestic Agent System for Overseas Game Companies Labeled as Ineffective from the Start

Designation Criteria Like "1 Trillion Won in Sales" Out of Touch with Reality
Possibility of "Ghost Agents" Highlights Limits in User Protection
Min Hyungbae: "Will Push for Supplementary Legislation Including New Qualification Requirements"

Min Hyungbae, member of the Democratic Party of Korea.

The "Domestic Agent System for Overseas Game Companies," implemented by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism (MCST) on October 23, has been mired in controversy over its effectiveness from the outset, with concerns about impractical bureaucracy and "ghost agents." Critics argue that despite the potential for significant harm to domestic users, the system has inherent limitations in achieving its intended goals.

According to audit materials submitted by Min Hyungbae, a member of the Democratic Party of Korea representing Gwangsan-eul, Gwangju, on October 29, only 95 overseas game companies currently operating in Korea meet the designation criteria of either annual sales of 1 trillion won or an average of at least 1,000 daily mobile downloads. By country, these include 22 from China, 19 from the United States, 12 from Singapore, 10 from Japan, and 8 from Hong Kong.

The issue is that this designation standard applies to only about 28.3% (36 companies) of the 127 overseas game companies that have been subject to corrective action for violating the mandatory disclosure of probability-based items. This means that many small and medium-sized overseas game companies that may cause user harm can still operate outside the regulatory framework, raising concerns about a protection gap for domestic gamers.

Furthermore, the current enforcement ordinance does not specify any qualification requirements for domestic agents, such as capital, personnel, or expertise, leading to criticism that it enables the appointment of "paper company" agents to evade responsibility. In fact, under the Information and Communications Network Act, global companies such as Nike, Temu, and Zoom have previously registered single-person corporations as their agents, which sparked controversy.

Min stated, "The 1 trillion won sales threshold is far removed from the core purpose of user protection, and unqualified agents are ultimately meaningless. Since this is the first implementation, I will work with the MCST to push for supplementary legislation, including the introduction of qualification requirements for domestic agents."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.