Culture, Sports and Tourism Minister Choi Hwi-young said the ministry is holding talks with the Ministry of Economy and Finance and the Ministry of Employment and Labor on key industry demands, including a production-cost tax credit for games and the introduction of a discretionary working hours system.
Choi made the remarks at the third gaming session of the Culture and Arts Policy Advisory Committee, held on the 20th at the Seoul branch of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Jongno District, Seoul.
"The production-cost tax credit still has not been extended to the gaming sector," Choi said. "It is important to bring this into public debate and build social momentum by showing how urgently the industry needs it."
The Ministry of Economy and Finance currently applies the production-cost tax credit to only two content sectors, film and video and webtoons. Games, the largest segment of the content industry, and popular music, one of the fastest-growing, are excluded, drawing complaints from the industry.
Choi also said the ministry is in close discussions with the Ministry of Employment and Labor, which oversees the discretionary working hours system.
"The discretionary working hours issue is still tangled up, but we are continuing to talk with the Ministry of Employment and Labor," he said. "We are gathering a range of views in order to create a more flexible working environment suited to the competitiveness of the gaming industry."
Choi also pledged to push for Korean-made games to be adopted as competitive events at domestic and international sporting competitions.
Responding to a request from Kim Young-man, chairman of the Korea e-Sports Association, who argued for making Korean games with domestic intellectual property into official sporting events, Choi said: "We saw esports events expand sharply at the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games. We need to move quickly to have our own games adopted as competitive events."
He added, "I will speak with Korean Sport & Olympic Committee President Yoo Seung-min and make sure the policy and budget are properly handled."
The session also included a briefing on the 2027 budget for the gaming sector. Choi said 6 billion won has been newly allocated to a "global frontier production support" program aimed at discovering next-generation Korean games, and 1.6 billion won to a project to build an automated blocking system for illegal and harmful game content.