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The recent controversy around Samsung‘s Game Optimization Service (GOS) may take the company to court. According to the Korean media, the country’s antitrust could launch an investigation into the matter soon. The South Korean Fair Trade Commission (FTC) has reportedly received a formal complaint alleging Samsung of violating the advertisement law.
GOS, as the name suggests, is an app that optimizes the performance of the device while gaming. This is to preserve the battery life and keep the device from overheating, at least that’s what Samsung claimed. But in reality, it does something inexplicable.
For one, GOS doesn’t limit this so-called optimization to gaming apps. It extends to several other popular non-game apps as well, including Instagram, TikTok, and Netflix. Worse yet, the optimization is so aggressive that it prevents apps from running at their full potential. This performance throttling effectively ruins the user experience. Even though their device is capable of providing them with a much better experience, Samsung’s GOS doesn’t allow that.
For example, the Galaxy S22 series boasts 120Hz displays, which allows for smoother animations and transitions on the screen. This elevates the gaming experience with motions much closer to real life. But thanks to GOS, users don’t get to enjoy that experience. And there’s no way to disable the service.
Another important insight into this controversy is that Samsung didn’t include benchmarking apps such as Geekbench and 3DMark in GOS’s radar. So when someone tests the affected devices on these platforms, they explore the full potential of the device and show results accordingly. But users don’t get the same level of performance with most apps because GOS doesn’t allow that.
This is false advertising from Samsung and infuriated consumers are looking to hold the company accountable for it. They say the Korean firm lied when it claimed “best performance ever” on the Galaxy S22 series. That isn’t true since the firm itself is knowingly limiting the performance in the name of battery life and thermal management.
Samsung has promised a fix for the GOS issue
Soon after the discovery of this artificial performance throttling, Samsung responded with a statement explaining its side of the story. The company also promised to set things right with an option to turn off GOS. An upcoming software update will introduce such a setting, though it’s unclear whether the setting will apply system-wide or users have to enable/disable it on an app-by-app basis. We don’t even have a timeframe regarding the rollout of the said software update.
Meanwhile, Samsung may require to appear in court over this saga. The South Korean FTC is expected to launch a preliminary investigation into the controversy soon. We will keep a close eye on this development and will update you as and when we have more information.