Using an agent based model to measure industry regulations: A case of online games in Korea

As the online game industry in Korea exceeds $10 billion, social concerns of the industry in terms of policies and regulation areas are increasing. Specifically an enforcement ordinance activated by Korean government in the year of 2014 is told to result in reduced activities in the industry. However, quantitative approaches have been limited to understanding the post effectiveness of regulations. The lack of prior simulation efforts to game industry regulations yields to misunderstanding on optimal level for ruling out side effects. In this study, we suggest the application of agent based model or ABM as a smart service to measure industry policy effects. We review cases applying ABM in various domains with considering the possibility of using ABM in understanding the effectiveness of web board game regulations. We find that the ABM approach would be useful in areas such as analysis of regulatory effects that reflect a variety of characteristics and measurement of micro-regulatory effects and simulation of regulations. Considering the usefulness of ABM comprehensively, we proposes new directions including establishing a proactive measurement procedure of regulatory effectiveness and procedural a data-based quantitative analysis.