North Korea, no go for Seoul Pokemon fans

South Korea is the world’s fourth-biggest gaming market after China, the US and Japan, according to Amsterdam-based research firm Newzoo, potentially representing a big opportunity loss for Nintendo and publisher Niantic if it can’t be officially rolled out. The augmented reality game where players walk around neighbourhoods in real life, searching out Pokemon to catch and train, relies on Google Maps to work. But in most of South Korea those functions have been limited by the government, which is technically still at war with North Korea, for national security reasons.

“Due to government restrictions on maps data, it’s impossible for Pokemon GO to work well using Google Maps in South Korea,” a source said.

Nintendo’s first venture into mobile gaming has only been officially launched in the United States, Australia and New Zealand with other countries such as Japan slated to see a launch soon.