• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.277-301
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• 2020

This study surveyed 503 adults to examine the effect of gaming disorder classification, recently announced by World Health Organization(WHO), when it is applied to Korean game market. Considering the difference in respondents' background knowledge on gaming disorder, half of the respondents were randomly assigned to read an informative news article describing WHO's decision and its expected effect on domestic game industry. Based on previous literature of gaming disorder, we categorized respondents into a normal-use group and a potentially problematic-use group. As a result of analyses, it was found that the gaming disorder classification would yield overall reduction of game-related consumption in terms of gaming time(24%), game cost(28%), the number of games(22%), etc. The potentially problematic group showed higher willingness to pay for gaming than the normal group did, even if the game cost presumably increases due to the gaming disorder classification. A similar outcome was observed in those with high stress levels. This implies that the policy to solve game addiction problems may ironically lead to unexpected cost increases to the target group of the policy. Hence, problematic groups, especially, highly stressful people and the people with the lack of self-control, need to be considered when the gaming disorder classification policy is established. Furthermore, the informative news article had the preventive effect on the attitude and the intention of the people with moderate or high self-control capacity, but not to the people with gaming-additive tendencies, Again, this finding confirms the necessity of the tweezers policy to refine target groups by their characteristics and prepare for differentiated policies. When the gaming disorder classification is simply adopted with no consideration of domestic circumstances, irreversible loss could affect Korean game users, game industries, and related companies. This calls for urgent cooperation between academia, government, and industry to set up appropriate measures to deal with the gaming disorder classification.

• Journal of Korea Game Society
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.99-110
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• 2021

WHO passed the ICD-11 amendment in 2019, which included gaming disorder, and there are confronted opinions whether this should be listed in the revision of the KCD in Korea. This study explains the consent and opposition to the listing of gaming disorder, and then investigates the effect of the listing of gaming disorder and the adoption of gaming addiction tax. The results of this study find that the listing of gaming disorder and the adoption of gaming addiction tax could negatively affect the investment value and the global national competitiveness of the Korean game industry.

• 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.