Google Play under investigation by South Korea's FTC over market abuse

Google Play is under investigation by South Korea's Fair Trade Commission after claims that the mobile marketplace used its position to pressure local game developers into initially launching titles through the Google Play platform only. 

As reported by The Korea Herald, the FTC began interviewing local mobile game studios to determine whether they were asked by Google to either “launch their games only through specific app marketplaces,” or to “not launch their games via other app marketplaces.”

The app marketplace ecosystem in Korea is dominated by Google Play, where more than 90 percent of the population use mobile devices that run on Google’s Android operating system.

According to the Korea Mobile Internet Industry Report 2017, Google Play accounted for 60.7 percent of all mobile app content sales last year.

Because of the tech giant's influence over the market, Korea's FTC is also investigating if game companies were punished if they did not launch through Google's platform.