Samsung is being fined in South Korea over Galaxy S21 and S22's gaming performance

The Korean Fair Trade Commission (FTC) sued Samsung over misleading marketing regarding the Galaxy S21 series, S22 series, and the Galaxy Tab S8 series, and the court decided to fine the tech giant. The reason is a marketing claim that the devices deliver "the ultimate mobile gaming experience," but fails to disclose that the so-called Game Optimizing Service (GOS) throttles the performance. Samsung’s GOS automatically throttles the CPU and GPU performance on the said devices when playing demanding games.

The throttling "feature" led to freezes, lags and lower graphics quality,… Samsung is being fined in South Korea over Galaxy S21 and S22’s gaming performance. The throttling "feature" led to freezes, lags and lower graphics quality, sparking unrest among some Samsung users and forcing the FTC to intervene.

According to the FTC, Samsung engaged in deceptive marketing practices by hiding the preset limits. In response, Samsung has introduced an update that addresses the issue and lets users remove the limits imposed by GOS. The company also argued that this is a safety feature and that it ensures stable gameplay during long gaming sessions.

Samsung has to pay up for promising "ultimate" gaming performance, then throttling phones. Samsung faces fines for throttling Galaxy gaming performance.

Scott Brown / Add on Google: Preferred Source Google Discover TL;DR Samsung found itself in trouble a few years ago for throttling phone performance when certain games were running. The company has already faced legal challenges over the throttling, including a class-action lawsuit.

Now the Korea Fair Trade Commission is getting involved, issuing Samsung what amounts to a multi-million-dollar fine. Have you ever felt like your new smartphone didn’t live up to expectations.

Manufacturers sure seem to promise the moon with each new generation, and inevitably, not everything that’s being hyped is going to nail the landing. And while that’s far from uncommon, how often is it that we actually see a phone maker experience consequences for over-selling a device.

Of course, Samsung will appeal as it believes it has done nothing wrong, especially since the GOS update was pushed shortly after release, back in March 2022.