South Korea's Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) has imposed a preliminary fine of 20 billion won on Samsung Electronics. That works out to roughly $15 million, with some sources citing $15.1 million. The fine concerns advertising for the gaming performance of the Galaxy S21 and Galaxy S22 smartphones and the Galaxy Tab S8 tablet.
The $15 million fine and gaming performance: what GOS did
The devices ran the Game Optimizing Service (GOS), which manages temperature during gaming. According to the KFTC, however, it was not just about protection against overheating. GOS limited the performance of the processor and graphics unit when demanding games were launched, regardless of whether the device was heating up. Gamers could therefore encounter freezing, lag and worse graphics.
Mashable reported that GOS throttled the processor by up to 50 percent and avoided benchmarks such as Geekbench and 3DMark. Benchmark results therefore did not match real long-term gaming. The same outlet wrote that the restrictions applied to roughly 10,000 apps that are not benchmarks.
Ads promised a 5-nanometer chip and a 120Hz display
According to the Korea Times, ads from 2021 to 2022 mentioned a 5-nanometer chip and a 120Hz display. The KFTC claims that such messaging prevented consumers from making a reasonable purchasing decision and violated the fair labeling and advertising law. The Korea Times also quoted the KFTC as saying that in 2021, when Samsung began running the ads, the market for high-performance mobile devices was developing rapidly and demanding PC games were shifting to phones.
The KFTC said in a statement: "Gaming performance was one of the most effective indicators to demonstrate the capabilities of premium smart devices through fast screen transitions and elaborate graphic effects."
Samsung disagrees with the verdict. It said GOS was meant to let users "enjoy games stably for longer periods of time." The company intends to fight the ruling in court. In March 2022, Samsung released updates that allowed users to turn off the limits. The Galaxy S21 came to market in 2021, the Galaxy S22 and Galaxy Tab S8 in 2022. According to Mashable, the investigation took approximately four years.