Consumers’ distrust increases due to excessive speculation, avoidance of disclosure of composition probability, and suspicion of manipulation of probability that is unfavorable to users.
Rep. Ryu Dong-soo (Deputy Chairman of the Democratic Party Policy Committee, Incheon Gyeyanggap) made sure to accurately disclose the composition information of probability-type items, and banned the sale of so-called’complete gacha’ products that were banned in Japan due to excessive speculation. In addition, a partial amendment of the Act on the Promotion of the Game Industry was proposed, which contained the provisions of penalties for deceived consumers by disclosing and giving investigation authority to the Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism.
Many game companies are using’probability-type items (=random box, gacha, etc.)’ as their main business model (BM), which acquire some of the products designated in the form of’drawings’.
However, there is no provision in the current law to disclose detailed configuration information and probability of appearance of this probability item, so consumers cannot accurately know the expected utility of the probability item they purchase.
Game companies are releasing probabilistic items, including products that can increase the convenience of game progress or gain an edge in competition among users, to increase purchase desire.
And most of the products that are’first prize’ that users actually want to pick appear with a rare probability.
Naturally, consumers are forced to repeat purchases until they pick them out with a low probability to get the desired product, or judge the amount they have spent so far as sunk costs and give up.
Accordingly, consumers have criticized the excessive speculation of probability-type items and have demanded that accurate probability information be disclosed with a minimum right to know, and game companies have also disclosed probability information through self-regulation.
However, even if game companies unilaterally disclose probability information as much as they want, they can receive a self-regulatory compliance mark, so users can exclude information that users truly want, such as Maple Story’s cube, or put another probability item in the probability item. Self-regulatory self-regulation has been made famous by making a complete gacha with a speculative nature.
In particular, self-regulation does not have any deterrence as no sanctions exist even if the information disclosed by the game company is correct or not, and even if it is confirmed that the information is incorrect.
In fact, in a series of famous games such as’Maple Story’ and’Mabinogi’, suspicion has been raised about whether the probability of item appearance has been manipulated in a direction that is’unfavorable to consumers’, and consumer confidence in game companies has collapsed. to be.
When this issue became an issue, the position sent by the Game Industry Association also contained an answer that it was difficult to disclose even game companies because they could not know the exact probability of composition, so they admitted that the current self-regulation is not accurately implemented.
Yu’s analysis is that effective consumer protection is no longer possible with self-regulation alone.
Accordingly, in this amendment, Rep. Yoo stated in the law that the exact composition probability or expected value of probability-type items was disclosed in the law, prohibiting the sale of’complete gacha’-type products criticized for excessive speculation, and game companies manipulating the probability for their own gain or incorrect probability. In the case of presentation, a penalty penalty of up to three times the profits obtained is included.
On the other hand, even if the probability announced by the game company in consideration of the characteristics of the game industry was different from the actual applied probability, it was not intended to deceive users to obtain unfair profits, but to prevent overregulation by including exceptions for cases caused by simple technical errors.
Rep. Ryu Dong-soo said, “As regulations on the speculative nature of probability-type items are beginning around the world, if we cannot fundamentally modify the BM of game companies that focus on short-term profits because they are buried in probability items, the Korean game industry will become a galapagos and the global market. He pointed out that there is no choice but to be eliminated from the.
He added, “I believe that as many game companies are pursuing to acquire plates for entry into China, which have stronger legal regulations than ours, they will not show a betrayal behavior that neglects consumer protection only in Korea.”
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