Growth for mobile games in Korea is foreseen following government deregulation in the mobile gaming industry.

According to a Korea JongAng Daily report, the growth of mobile game business in Korea has been quite slow. The main reason was strict government censorship. Games had to go through the Games Ratings Board before reaching the market.

Korea has around 10 million smart phone users, but mobile game services have not been easily available to game enthusiasts until now.

"This has prompted companies like Apple and Google to simply not offer any games to Koreans. The companies that operate the App Store and the Android Market closed their game category for Korean users last year," adds the Korea JoongAng Daily report.

Open Market Law

The good news is that things are changing with the National Assembly passing of the "Open Market" law in March this year. This move towards government deregulation, which took effect in July, has resulted to dramatic growth in the mobile gaming sector.

"For the last two years that the reform proposal was pending at the National Assembly, the growth of Korea's mobile game business has halted, as well. So while it is good news, there's a lot of catching up to do," said an industry analyst.

While Apple and Google are expected to reopen the game category, IT start-up companies are the ones being seen active in taking advantage of this development.

Samsung Electronics and a U.S. game publisher "ngmoco" have come together to preload a game platform called "Game Hub." This is available in the foreign version of the Galaxy S II smartphone. This year KT is said to launch its own game platform, codenamed "K-park."

"We are ready to respond when the game category opens in application stores in Korea," said a Samsung official.

Other game publishers are also launching their projects. Nexon is planning to release 30 mobile games this year. NCsoft has the mobile version of "Might and Magic Heroes Kingdoms.

Even with government restrictions, the game applications were downloaded a lot by Korean smartphone users.

"Korean mobile game market was worth just 424.2 billion won ($390 million) last year but will surge to 487.8 billion won this year and to 536.5 billion won next year. And that is excluding the game categories of Apple and Google," said the Korea Creative Content Agency, Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Sports.

"Should Apple open a game category at the App Store for Korean users, the predicted market size could be double or more what it is," said Shin Pil-su, Policy Director, Korea Association of Game Industry.