Felix Falk, CEO of USK, the German Entertainment Software Self-Regulation Body

Expert hits Korea for controlling gaming addiction

By Cho Mu-hyun

Gaming addiction has always been a hot-button issue in the Korean industry, with game companies usually taking the blame and being slammed with strong regulatory and financial restrictions.

However, Felix Falk, CEO of USK, or the German Entertainment Software Self-Regulation Body, said addiction was not considered a problem in his country, which has one of the largest and most established game industries in the world.

“In fact, this issue is not too big in Germany,” said Falk in a recent interview with The Korea Times at Koelnmesse, Cologne.

“They (the possibility of excessive game use) are generally not taken into consideration when it comes to the evaluation for rating or publishing games.”

In Korea, the issue of game addiction has caused the government to put sanctions on game makers, and Internet cafes called ``PC bangs’’ here. Some titles require the publisher or game developers to put in warning signs that automatically pop up on screens telling the user of their login time or sometimes contents are nullified. Cafes must partition game rooms into separate areas for adults and youths.

Due to violent crimes such as infanticide or murder perpetrated by game junkies in recent years, politicians and parent groups have usually used game companies as the scapegoats in their blame games.

Falk said that the decision came after “a lot of evaluation” to not put regulatory restrictions on games prompted by fear of excessive use. It is difficult to establish a criteria of what constitutes as elements that will likely lead to addiction.

“The existence of reliable characteristics in games encouraging pathological gaming behavior which can be defined as addictive is disputed scientifically, just as is its applicability in the context of youth protection,” Falk commented.

Korea industry officials agree with him that any criteria in rating or limiting games based on its “addictive qualities” is unscientific. In the long-term, these government regulations that are almost puritanical, thwart the path of the domestic market expanding abroad.

“What the government asks us to do is contradictory: on the one hand, they blame us for making games too ‘entertaining’ causing game addiction among teenagers. Then they ask us to put more effort into making better games to increase our reputation in the world,” said an official of a large domestic game company based in Seoul, on condition of anonymity.

“How do they expect us to compete against conglomerates such as Sony or Activision Blizzard, when they put so many regulatory restrictions on us?”

The CEO noted Korea’s game industry as “an interesting and very professional market” with “its own focus for example on the community or in-game items.”

“We can notice in the online sector there is a higher increase when it comes to licensed online games especially, MMORPGs (massively multi online role-playing game) from Korea.” Acknowledging the strong e-Sports league here, he compared it with its German counterpart Electronic Sports League (ESL).

There are also similarities between the two countries’ rules too, however: Germany also limits games with gambling characteristics that have the danger of involving real money. Blizzard Entertainment’s Diablo 3 is without its controversial auction house system, which allows subscribers to trade in-game items for cash, because of this.

Obviously, violence is debated across the globe, and Germany, like Korea, is no exception. Due to its sensitive past, German authorities are especially picky about war games: German criminal law prohibits the promotion or glorification of Nazism.

“In Germany especially violence and war are cultural issues when it comes to youth protection. Most of the publishers know these criteria and accept these cultural characteristics in Germany as they do with cultural based criteria in the US, UK or Australia,” said Falk.

Germany has one of the largest game markets in Europe, worth $2.49 billion last year, and growing at a rapid pace due to the increasing popularity of multiplayer online games. Korean game giants Nexon and NCsoft are targeting Europe, with Germany, France and the United Kingdom noted as the largest and most lucrative.

The USK has 2,700 procedures in rating games and reviews over 1,500 titles annually. The number reflects the growing importance of games in society. “Games also get more and more important for the culture – not only in everyday culture. We also have an ongoing discussion about the impact of games in art,” Falk enthused.