South Korea lifts ban on Luck be a Landlord
But developer had to reclassify mobile game with "ridiculous" 17+ age rating
One-man studio Trampoline Tales has successfully been able to lift the ban against its mobile title Luck be a Landlord in South Korea, although the game remains unavailable in 12 other countries.
Luck be a Landlord is a roguelike deckbuilding game about earning money to pay rent using a slot machine where you can change the symbols to create different outcomes. However, the developer has always maintained the game does not simulate gambling, or contain any real-world currency gambling or microtransactions.
Last year, the game was banned in 13 countries by Google for violating its gambling policies, with Apple later following suit. South Korea was among the markets in which the game was pulled from app stores, where developer Dan Dilorio said in a blog post "a decent percentage of my game's mobile revenue comes from" making it his top priority when it came to lifting the ban.
To rectify the issue, Dilorio paid for a reclassification from South Korea's Game Rating and Administration Committee (GRAC) with the organisation granting it a 12+ rating, which enabled it to return to Google Play in January 2024.
Dilorio was informed by Apple support that the game would be relisted on the iOS App Store in South Korea if he uploaded the new GRAC rating to Apple's backend. In his blog post, the developer said the relevant options would only appear if he changed Luck be a Landlord's global rating to 17+ for all regions.
"I find this stipulation ridiculous, but frankly, I'm done fighting this," he wrote. "I've complied with Apple and GRAC and now the game is once again available on the App Store in South Korea."
He later added that the situation is "so horribly backwards" given the use of real-money microtransactions and chance-based mechanics in titles such as Genshin Impact and Madden, which don't have a higher age rating than 13+.
"[Meanwhile] games that contain no actual real-money gambling like Balatro have an 18+ rating and have to go through all this garbage, simply because someone on a ratings board saw a screenshot of a poker chip and said 'Hey! That looks like gambling!'" Dilorio concluded.
"I'm sick of this, my next game won't have any gambling themes whatsoever. Congratulations ratings boards, you've successfully stifled creativity. Good thing you're doing such a great job protecting kids who are literally developing gambling addictions from loot boxes. Disgusting."