Seeking cash for its weak economy, North Korea has partnered with Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. to develop cell phone-based video games, including one based on the film The Big Lebowski.

 

The strange bedfellows partnership came about after News Corp. purchased the parent company of Ojom GmbH, which worked with programmers from North Korea’s General Federation of Science and Technology to create the Lebowski-inspired bowling game, as well as another mobile phone game based on the film Men in Black: Alien Attack.

 

Contracting with North Korean companies is legal under United Nations sanctions as long as it doesn’t involve military sales, according to Bloomberg News.

 

Among News Corp’s many other holdings are the Fox News Network, MySpace, The Wall Street Journal, the New York Post and Hulu.com. In August, News Corp donated $1 million to the Republican Governors Association to help in 2010 election campaigns.

-Noel Brinkerhoff

 

Kim Bowls for Murdoch Dollars with Korean Video Games (by Matthew Campbell and Bomi Lim, Bloomberg)