Office for Government Policy Coordination (OPM) established a private-public council comprised of representatives from video game industry and medical industry and held the first meeting to discuss about current pending issues related to gaming disorder and revision process of KCD (Korean Standard Classification of Diseases (KCD)).
It will be interesting to see how the council will handle gaming disorder. Relevant industries are focused on whether the council will discuss about steps it needs to take to classify gaming disorder as an illness or reexamine the validity of classification itself from the beginning.
Stance of personnel from the video game industry is that the council cannot have a discussion while listing game disorder as an illness. It states that the council needs to have discussions while putting every possibility such as social conflict, protection of industrial value, and public health care on the table.
The World Health Organization’s International Classification of Diseases 11th Revision does not have forcibleness, but it is just a recommendation. KCD does not have to be exactly the same as International Classification of Diseases (ICD). Only thing that KCD has to follow ICD is ICD’s system for statistical comparison. Detailed information can be different depending on a country. Many side-effects such as excessive medicalization, inadequate diagnosis standard, and social labeling effect that can arise from classifying gaming disorder as an illness cannot be ignored as well.
On the other hand, the medical industry believes that investigation on present condition according to the new standard presented by The World Health Organization (WHO) and establishment of medical system based on severity of symptoms need to be materialized because there is clearly a clinical proof. Some also believe that WHO’s standard needs to be incorporated as WHO is a group with world-wide authority.
OPM that leads the council orders for discussions to take place assuming that South Korean Government is not going to classify gaming disorder as an illness. South Korean Government had been preparing the council ever since WHO classified gaming disorder as an illness in May. Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW) was the first one to push for a discussion about classifying gaming disorder as an illness. However, this caused a conflict between departments when Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism (MCST) strongly opposed MOHW’s idea due to various reasons such as shrinkage of the video game industry. The council was established afterwards with OPM taking the lead.
“We are going to look for smart ways to develop our video game industry while establishing a culture of playing video games safely after having plenty of discussions with representatives from various industries over the course of many years.” said Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon of South Korea.
Statistics of Korea, which holds the key to whether to classify gaming disorder as an illness or not, also agrees. Its stance is to create general statistics without leaning on a particular department or a policy. It is going to take a neutral stance on this issue while making sure that it is given an authority to revise and announce statistics according to Statistics Act.
WHO’s ICD 11th Revision will come into effect on the 1st of January of 2022. Revision of KCD will take place in 2025 at the earliest. Statistics of Korea is currently working on a draft and it is planning to finalize the draft by 2023. However because ICD 11th Revision has many illnesses that are newly included, there is a chance that ICD 11th Revision will be applied to KCD 10th Revision in 2030 if Statistics of Korea comes out with its draft after 2025. Statistics of Korea still has to prepare an arbitration plan, a tentative plan, and a final plan after gathering various opinions when it is done with the draft.
South Korean Government’s plan is to push for mechanical neutrality and continuous development of the video game industry. However, many industries especially the medical industry and the video game industry are raising their voices in order to grab more advantageous position.
Medical industry is approaching this issue with a mindset that amount of pain inflicted on patients and surrounding people due to video games needs to be lessened. It points out to health of teenagers and negative developmental effects that arise from excessive playing of video games.
“We need to find ways to protect patients and guardians while minimizing possible impact on the video game industry.” said a representative for the medical industry.
It also points out that professional help is necessary to make an accurate diagnosis and treatment while stating that parents are starting to take their kids to local acupuncturists because they feel uncomfortable taking their kids to mental health specialists just because their kids are playing too much video games. It is concerned that symptoms can become worse if kids are not accurately treated when they begin to show a sign of addiction.
It also emphasized that personnel from various associations and groups held an emergency symposium and that they support WHO’s decision to recognize gaming disorder as an illness. Some at this symposium strongly stated that MOHW needs to classify gaming disorder as an illness.
On the other hand, the video game industry focuses on ambiguous diagnostic standard for gaming disorder and whether playing too much games actually causes serious problems psychologically and neurologically. It is opposed against classifying gaming disorder as an illness while pointing out that this issue is an excessive medicalization. It warns that there can be side-effects as it sees series of processes of defining many aspects of lives as medical problems and treating them as an expansion of medical social control. It also points the fact that categorizing gaming disorder as an illness will only brand children as metal patients and it continues to state that its cultural industrial value needs to be preserved.
Outside fights between civic groups are causing more social conflict. Civic groups comprised of women, teenagers, Christians, personnel from the education industry, and parents are criticizing the position that MCST, which is responsible for promotion of the video game industry, is taking and are requesting South Korean Government to categorize gaming disorder as an illness as fast as possible.
On the other hand, 90 associations and groups from different areas related to video game are opposing having gaming disorder categorized as an illness.
“Development of our future society depends on how South Korean Government adjusts current conflict and sublimates it to a healthy conflict.” said a professor who requested anonymity. “I hope that this issue become one of many examples where it is solved wisely.”
Staff Reporter Lee, Hyeonsoo | hsool@etnews.com