Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism(MCST) is working on an administrative guideline to regulate speculative game items. The detail of the guideline will be introduced in November at latest.

KiJung Lee the director of Game Content Industry of MCST explained “So far we have let the industry manage the issue autonomously. While some have followed the self-rule some have not. Therefore we need to define a certain official guideline based on feedback from the companies, even if it would be still the same, for them to follow otherwise the autonomous rule will be fizzled out as time passes or new companies would not recognize the rule at all.”

Define the Probability Range of the Jackpot Items

MCST first asked the game industry to suggest the guideline in favor of them by this October. If MCST does not like the offer it will work on it directly.

“The guideline for the probability is needed. The jackpot item is getting popular among the industry and its range of probability is sometimes up to 100 times which encourages speculation badly,” said Lee. “The jackpot item must feature whatever that increases the probability with one’s effort. Simple draw for miracle is defenately speculative.”

GRB Will Use the Guideline

If the administrative guideline comes out, it could affect rating review of Game Rating Board(GRB) because GRB would use it as a criterion for the speculative aspect.

GRB normally review all the modified contents of games, simply patches or updates, in order to see if they are appropriate for the current rating. If not appropriate, it proceeds re-review of the game.

Hand In the Data

In order to clearly judge if the company follows the guideline, GRB needs to see the exact data of the probability of the jackpot item. However the industry has refused to file the data for reason of business confidence. So MCST is trying to make them hand in the data to GRB.

At the game law enforced last July, GRB added a few lines to its goal of foundation to embrace the role of preventing possible speculation induction or encouragement and have right to request any required data.