• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.19 no.10
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• pp.364-371
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• 2019

The World Health Organization (WHO) announced the 11th International Classification System (ICD-11), which classifies game addiction as a disease in 2018. Sin stocks are defined as the companies that have negative addictive properties and are taxed on social costs. If a game disorder is listed in the disease classification system in Korea, it is highly likely that Korean game companies may be considered as sin stocks that causes negative addictive properties and social costs such as the game addiction and the game addiction tax. This suggests that game companies could be newly included in the scope of sin stocks in Korea. In this study, we examine the effect of the inclusion of game companies in the scope of sin stocks on the job preferences of game companies. We found that there is a high level of opposition to the opinion of the listing sin stocks of game companies, and a high degree of addiction and gambling was suggested as the cause of the game companies being classified as sin stocks. We also found that firm value and job preference would be decrease if a game company was classified as sin stocks. The study is meaningful in that it suggests that game companies can be perceived negatively as sin stocks due to the disease code of game disorder, which has recently emerged as a social issue. Also, this study will contribute to the academia and market participants by reporting statistically the effect of the classification of sin stocks in game companies on job preferences for game companies.