While today is a great day for Droid Gamers and our contest and everyone else seems to be having a great day, Android users in S.Korea, especially the game loving ones, got some bad news today. The Android market will NOT include games in S.Korea! This is a ‘compromise’ basically because the Android market had a possibility of being blocked in S.Korea.
Instead it was worked out that S. Korea would not have access to games via the Android market. Why? Because the Korean Game Rating Board decided it would be impossible for them to go over every single game that is already out to apply a rating to it as well as be able to rate every new game that came out. Instead of the entire market being blocked, Google took this route because Google found it was “impossible to have all games sold on the Android market rated by a local regulator.”
The change should take place in about a month and access of more then 4,400 games will be taken away from S.Korean Android lovers and gamers. I could understand not wanting any Aroma Planning type games to be accessible but to decide to exclude an entire population from Android games is a bit much just solely based on the fact you can’t rate them all. I don’t think Google had much of a choice, either the entire market is blocked or get rid of the games section.
Ironically, Apple did the same thing and removed the Games category from the Korean App Store however some developers were publishing them under the entertainment category to get around it. Also lots of iPhone users ended up setting up secondary accounts outside the country so they could access the Games and although Android users could do that, we have the luxury of 3rd party markets as well that thankfully has a decent amount of games available for Android users without access to paid apps just yet.
Either way this is sad for Android gamers in S.Korea and even sadder for game developers as this eliminates an entire country from accessing their game and potentially buying it or earning ad revenue. Stand strong fellow gamers, there is always a way to get your Android game fix!
Source: YonhapNewsAgency via Telecomskorea
