Audit Data Shows Korea Game Rating Workload Up 29.2% as Monitoring Budget Cut

At the 2026 National Assembly audit of the Culture, Sports and Tourism Committee, lawmaker Kim Seung-su disclosed data showing that the number of games rated in South Korea reached 2,019,426 in 2025, up 29.2% from 1,563,112 in 2024, according to inven.co.kr. Of the 2025 total, 2,018,659 titles — 99.9% — were processed by 11 self-rating businesses, including Google, Apple and Epic Games, and by private rating agencies.

Epic Games' user-generated content alone accounted for 1,052,542 cases, or 52.1% of all games rated in 2025. Meanwhile, the committee's monitoring capacity has been scaled back: the 2026 online game monitoring project budget fell 19.9% to 3.9 billion won from 4.87 billion won the previous year, and the home monitoring team budget dropped 44.7% to 1.085 billion won from 1.963 billion won, with its personnel cut from 205 to 103.

Rating appropriateness monitoring of self-rated games totaled 119,934 cases in 2025 but only 40,980 cases by the end of August 2026, 34.2% of the previous year's figure. Related administrative measures fell from 6,978 to 2,531 over the same period. The committee conducted three planned investigations of UGC games in 2026 and increased its rating appropriateness advisory group from 10 to 20 members.

Relief Center Records First Results

The committee's total budget was 16.378 billion won, up 1.0% from the previous year, with 905.1 billion won allocated to project costs. A budget of 1.71 billion won was newly added for operating the Probability Item Damage Relief Center, which the committee opened in February 2026 under the revised Game Industry Act that took effect in August 2025. The law holds game companies liable for damages when they fail to display or falsely display probability information, with up to triple damages if intent is proven.

The center received 737 damage consultations by the end of August, of which only 25 (3.4%) became formal filings. Relief recommendations were issued in 6 of the filed cases, 4 were resolved through agreement between game companies and users — including the first case of overseas game damage relief — and 4 were self-closed. 15 cases under investigation are concentrated on two games, and operators of two other games voluntarily offered about 650 million won in compensation to all 2,233 affected users.

Corrective orders reached 31 by the end of August 2026, already exceeding the 22 for all of 2025. Corrective requests, the first-stage measure, numbered 1,226, or 77.0% of the previous year's 1,592, while domestic distribution restrictions numbered 5, fewer than 7 in 2025. The committee received 2,783 complaints by the end of August 2026, 81.1% of the 3,430 for all of 2025, with unresolved complaints reaching 97, 3.3 times the 29 for all of 2025.

The Korea Creative Content Agency received 2,936 complaints as of August 30, already exceeding the 2,537 for all of 2025. The agency said it would expand overseas market participation from 3 in 2025 to 5 in 2026 and introduce localization support based on overseas user reviews for 30 games, and that it would continue pursuing an amendment to the Restriction of Special Taxation Act containing tax credits for game production costs.