S. Korea to ease rating rules for mobile games

SEOUL, July 4 (Yonhap) -- South Korea will introduce a softer rating system this week for smartphone and tablet PC games in a bid to stimulate the local mobile game market, government officials said Monday.
Starting Wednesday, game applications for smartphones and tablet PCs will be exempted from ratings by the Game Rating Board, which assigns ratings to all computer and video games before they are published in South Korea, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism said in a statement.
Under the upcoming revision, game software developers and operators of application market places, such as Google Inc. and Apple Inc., can classify their games based on their own sets of rules, the ministry added. Market operators are advised to discuss the criteria of classifications with the Game Rating Board, which is a government agency.
Mobile game applications listed under the game category of the Android market and the App Store are closed off from South Korea's 14 million smartphone users because of a standoff between the U.S. companies, which are trying to not have applications censored by the Korean agency, and the Game Rating Board, which has been sticking to its rating system.
The standoff left South Korean mobile users deprived of internationally popular smartphone games. Global hit games like "Angry Birds" were made available to a limited number of South Korean mobile users through partnerships between mobile vendors and Rovio Mobile, which agreed to pre-install their mobile phones with the game.
Apple spokesman Steve Park declined to comment on whether the move will kick-start App Store's game category, one of the largest sources for mobile applications, in South Korea. Google spokeswoman Kate Park said the company is in talks with the Korean government about making Android games available for South Korean users.
ylee@yna.co.kr