A bill amending the Game Industry Act was introduced on 27 August 2025 by Rep. Kim Jae-won and 11 co-sponsors and has been referred to the competent committee. It targets foreign game businesses that are already required to designate a Korean domestic agent — those above the existing size threshold with no Korean address or place of business — and would rewrite what that designation has to look like and what happens when it fails. The bill has not passed; it is a proposal at the committee-referral stage, and no effective date has been set.

What the bill would change

  • Mandatory user-harm and complaint duties added for the publisher. A new compliance item (draft Art. 28(7-2)) would require game-related businesses to address protection of domestic users from harm and to handle their complaints — a duty on the publisher itself, not just the agent.
  • Your own Korean corporation, if you have one, would come first. Under draft Art. 31-2(1)–(3), a foreign publisher that has established a Korean corporation, or one over which it exercises dominant influence, would be required to designate *that* corporation as its domestic agent rather than an unrelated third party. The agent would also be obligated to actually carry out domestic-user-harm-protection work, not just receive notices.
  • Management, supervision, and no swapping mid-distribution. New Art. 31-2(4)–(5) would require the publisher to manage and supervise its agent's work, and would bar suspending or arbitrarily changing the agent's designation status while the game is being distributed in Korea.
  • A corrective-order and business-suspension chain tied to agent failures. Under new Art. 38(9) and (12), if the agent does not meet its obligations, the regulator could issue a corrective order to the publisher; if the publisher does not comply, business suspension could follow until it does.
  • A new data-submission demand power. New Art. 39-3 would let the regulator require game businesses to submit materials to verify whether the domestic-agent designation meets the criteria.
  • New penalties. Under revised Art. 45 and 48, failure to comply with a corrective order would be subject to criminal penalty, and an agent's failure to meet its compliance obligations would draw an administrative fine (amount not specified in the bill text as summarized).

What this means for you

  • If you have a Korean subsidiary or a Korean corporation you control, and you currently use a third-party agent (law firm, individual, or otherwise), flag this bill now. As drafted, it would require you to switch your designation to that in-house entity rather than an outside party.
  • If you have no Korean entity at all, the third-party-agent route would remain available — the priority rule targets publishers that already have a controlled Korean corporation to designate around.
  • Review your current agent arrangement for whether it actually performs user-complaint and harm-protection work, since the bill would make that a live compliance point rather than a formality, backed by a corrective-order and suspension chain.
  • This is a bill at committee referral, not law. Track its progress rather than acting on it yet — committee stage is where bills stall, get merged into other revisions, or advance, and the practical requirements (thresholds, exact fine amounts, effective date) are not yet fixed.

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