Age rating for games in Korea

Korea is one of the few markets where the age band is a statutory permission and not advice to a parent. The Game Industry Promotion Act says a game must be rated before it is produced or distributed, and it names who may do the rating. Everything else on this page follows from those two sentences.

The four bands

All ages, twelve and over, fifteen and over, and a band juveniles may not use at all. Arcade machines are a separate case: there the law allows only the first band and the last.

Where the application goes

Games carried by a platform

Operators designated by the culture ministry rate the games they distribute under a brokerage contract, and their decision counts as the committee’s own.

Games in the adults band

Designated operators may not rate these. The application goes to the Game Rating and Administration Committee, and so does anything the committee decides to take back.

Arcade machines

Cabinets for youth and general arcades are rated by the committee only, and a technical review for gambling-like behaviour can be run on top.

What the filing needs

A description of the content, video and stills of the main progression, a runnable build with its files, an account that opens the online part, and a document setting out the content information. The committee can ask for more, and it checks every application for gambling-like behaviour first.

What it costs and how long it takes

The committee has fifteen days from the application to decide, and where it cannot it must write to you with the reason and the date it expects to review. The fee is a base amount multiplied by three coefficients: whether the game uses a network, which genre group it falls in, and whether the build is in Korean. The base is KRW 360,000 for a personal computer or online title, and less for a console or a small downloadable game. A non-Korean build costs half as much again.

Odds for paid random items

A separate duty applies to online games with paid random items: the types and the supply odds for each type go on the game, its website and every piece of advertising. Very small studios are outside it, by a revenue threshold. What the duty means for a build, and which screen the odds belong on, we work out in a loot box review. Ratings elsewhere in the world come from one questionnaire and one age rating evaluation. Everything else we do before a launch is in publishing and gamedev.

Sources: rating duty, the four bands, the arcade rule, the twenty-four hour report and the seven-day re-rating notice — Game Industry Promotion Act, art. 21, 21-2, 21-5, 33; fifteen days to decide and the filing list — ministry ordinance no. 615, art. 9; odds threshold — decree no. 36220, art. 19-2; fees — the committee.