Korea Eliminates Required Government Ratings of Mobile Games

As reported by Bloomberg, customers in South Korea will soon be able to download Rovio Mobile Ltd.'s best-selling "Angry Birds" on their iPhones. Korea scrapped rules yesterday requiring developers to have mobile games rated by government, said Yi Ki Jeong, a manager at the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism in Seoul. The rule clashed with internal policies at Apple and Google Inc. (GOOG) enough for the companies to shut their mobile-game stores in the country, keeping Rovio and other developers from offering their products in Korea, Yi said. “A new chapter is opening in the Korean smartphone-game market,” said Jang Woo Jin, an analyst at NH Investment & Securities Co. “With the rule out of the way, we can now expect Apple and Google to throw open games in Korea.”