South Korea to block Play-to-earn mobile NFT games

Dimapur, Dec. 30 (EMN): The South Korean government looks set to block play-to-earn (P2E) mobile games in the country and has requested Google and Apple to remove existing games from their platforms.

Play-to-earn games have seen a significant rise in popularity as of late with increasing adoption of cryptocurrency around the world. These games attract consumers with the promise of income in the form of crypto tokens or Non-Fungible Token (NFT) items. Games like Axie Infinity, Splinterlands, The Sandbox, Decentraland and Gods Unchained have taken the crypto world by storm with Axie Infinity, in particular, creating headlines like the sale of a plot of digital land on its platform for 550 ETH (around US$2.3 million).

Gamers typically have to either buy an NFT to start playing these games or create a crypto wallet like Metamask to receive in-game rewards including cryptocurrencies. However, in South Korea game prizes that are worth more than a few dollars are banned by law.

The Game Management Committee (GMC) in the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism on Monday requested the tech giants to block any such games that require in-app purchases to play the game, according to a report by Coin Telegraph.

South Korea has strong regulations concerning gambling, gaming, and age ratings and the GMC is apparently clamping down on these play-to-earn NFT mobile games.

“It is reasonable to keep P2E games from getting age ratings under the current law because cash rewards in games can be considered prizes,” a government official told Coin Telegraph.

Although, these moves by the South Korean government cannot be considered as an outright ban on NFT games, however, the regulations imposed on developers of these games will serve as a massive hurdle towards adoption of play-to-earn games in the country.