“[Digital Daily Reporter Moon Dae-chan] In 2024, the percentage of game industry employees experiencing crunch mode decreased compared to the previous year, but the maximum weekly working hours increased.”
The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, along with the Korea Creative Content Agency (KOCCA), released the “2024 Game Industry Workers’ Labor Environment Survey” and the “2024 Global Game Policy and Legislation Research” reports on the 3rd.
These two reports provide insights for strengthening the competitiveness of the domestic game industry through an in-depth analysis of the labor environment of domestic game industry employees and an analysis of global game industry policies and legislative trends.
The labor environment survey was conducted with 1,510 domestic game industry workers. According to the survey, the percentage of people experiencing ‘crunch mode’, characterized by long hours of work in the period before deadlines or during urgent times, decreased by 3.9 percentage points to 34.3% compared to the previous year.
However, the maximum weekly working hours during the crunch period increased by 4.5 hours to 56.1 hours compared to the previous year, and the average working hours of all employees stood at 44.4 hours, showing a difference from the desired 40.3 hours.
Regarding the flexibility of the 52-hour workweek, 58.7% evaluated it positively, but suggested that preconditions such as establishing a clear compensation system for working hours (45.0%) and abolishing the comprehensive wage system (42.9%) must be met first. Currently, 69.9% are subject to the comprehensive wage system, especially exceeding 90% in small businesses with fewer than 50 employees.
The Global Game Policy and Legislation Research report selected five major countries—Singapore, Taiwan, Brazil, Australia, and India—to investigate local laws and considerations necessary for the export of domestic games, including standard contracts, rating classifications, terms of service, privacy protection, payments and refunds.
The results showed that Singapore and Brazil have organizations such as the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) and the Federal Government Ministry of Culture playing central roles in regulating the game industry and promoting its growth.
Conversely, in Taiwan, Australia, and India, without dedicated organizations for the game industry, issues like consumer disputes and fair trade are managed by sector-specific organizations.
Taiwan introduced legal regulations on probability-based items for user protection starting in 2023, while Australia has applied an M rating (recommended for adults) from September 22 last year to games containing paid probability-based items. Brazil does not have sales regulations, but has introduced a bill in 2019 demanding disclosure of probability information and a 2022 bill banning the sale of probability-based items to minors.