Kim Jae-won, a member of the Rebuilding Korea Party, sits on the National Assembly's Culture, Sports and Tourism Committee. He is pursuing an amendment to gaming law after citing a large in-game purchase by a YouTuber with a promotional contract. The concern is that promotional payments to streamers could be spent in-game and counted toward app marketplace sales rankings.

Kim identified a massively multiplayer online role-playing game released this year by a game company as a representative case. The game reached No. 1 in sales on both major app marketplaces on launch day. A YouTuber contracted to promote it purchased about 10 million in-game diamonds that day, worth roughly 300 million won at package prices. The purchase's actual effect on the rankings has not been established.

Game companies use promotional arrangements in which they pay streamers to play games or create related content. In a June 25 statement, the Korea Game User Association raised concerns that in-game purchases made with promotional payments could distort sales rankings. The company said its promotional payment was compensation for marketing services and that its contract did not require in-game purchases or reuse of the payment. It also said the purchase's effect on sales rankings was difficult to determine.

Kim's office asked the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Game Rating and Administration Committee whether they had investigated or verified the matter. Both said they had conducted no related investigation or monitoring and had separately verified no facts. The committee said current gaming law does not require separate disclosure of promotional payment amounts or how they are used. It said disclosure of financial relationships between advertisers and streamers is a matter for applicable advertising laws. It added that it had not considered a separate promotional-payment disclosure requirement after rules on probability-based item information took effect.

Current gaming law has no provision directly barring improper purchases of in-game products, including purchases arranged through others, to increase sales. Music industry law, by comparison, prohibits improper purchases of albums and similar products, including purchases arranged through others, to raise sales figures. Kim is pursuing an amendment that would prohibit game companies from improperly buying in-game products to increase sales. Kim's proposed amendment would also prohibit game companies from having third parties make such purchases.