South Korea doesn’t want you to play to earn

The Future. South Korea is doing everything in its power to ban play-to-earn video games in the country because it views earnings as prizes (which is looked down upon), as opposed to a legit form of income. With play-to-earn games being a key aspect of metaverse adoption, South Koreans may find themselves held back from a technological revolution if the country gets its way.

Games for free
South Korea is not a big fan of people making money by playing games.

• The South Korean government has asked both Apple and Google to remove play-to-earn (P2E) games — such as Axie Infinity — from app stores in the country.
• Additionally, it won’t allow new P2E games to be released anymore.

Tightening restrictions even further, Seoul’s Game Management Committee (GMC) said that any games that require an in-app purchase before playing should also be banned.

Lose the winnings
The big question here is: what gives? Essentially, the South Korean government doesn’t see P2E games as a legit form of income. Instead, the earnings from these games are considered by Seoul as “winnings” or “prizes” for which the legal limit is only 10,000 Korean won (a measly $8.42 USD).

So, the country’s workaround to ban the games is to bar the Game Rating Administration Committee and the Game Content Rating Board from age-rating P2E games (a game being rated is required for games to be released).

This is a blow to P2E game developers, especially considering that South Korea is the fourth largest game market in the world — 70.5% of the entire population plays video games.