People will be able to enjoy games on their handsets at any time of the day as the government decided not to include mobile games on the list of those prohibited from play from midnight to 6 a.m.

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family announced Monday that they would exempt mobile games from applying the online game curfew.

According to the notification, online games for personal computers, Web-based games and PC package games are currently subject to the online game curfew banning children under age 16 from accessing them during the first six hours of the day.

“We found out through research that mobile games were not the main reasons for game addiction, which is why they were not included on the complete list,” said an official at the Culture Ministry. “As a result, we came to an agreement with the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family to take it out of the so-called ‘shutdown’ list for the next two years.”

The new law will take effect from May 20-May 19, 2015 following an advance notice period running until Feb. 13.

In September of last year, the government said it would evaluate the gaming material for smartphones and tablet PCs as a follow-up to its introduction of the online game curfew.

The government implemented a law that banned those under 16 from logging into online game sites from 12-6 a.m. in a bid to fight teen gaming addiction on Nov. 20, 2011.

The law exempted console games and mobile games at the time of implementation, stating that it will expand it into those categories following a test period.

The policy, however, drew fierce protest from the country’s online games industry, which argues that the new regulation will most likely hinder the country’s fast growing game market.

“We welcome the announcement that mobile games have been taken out of the list for now,” said an industry source. “It’s definitely good news for us considering that the regulation that would have applied to us in the next couple of months has disappeared.”

The government also said that it plans on offering focused and continued support in the mobile gaming industry for it is meeting “explosive” demand.

“We can’t say there won’t be any side effects, but we will give more support in this industry because we believe it could lead the entire industry and continue its growth,” said the Culture Ministry official.

By Cho Ji-hyun (sharon@heraldcorp.com)