Gacha Gamers Unknowingly Unearth Corruption

GRAC (The Game Rating and Administration Commission) of Korea has found itself in hot water after unhappy gamers unknowingly trigger an investigation that unearths corruption within the company.

GRAC is a government game content rating board that rates and informs audiences on the content within every game released in Korea. This sometimes means a game will receive an age rating like “15+” or “18+”  depending on the content. 

They are infamous for leaking the release of games that are trying to fly under the radar. This has happened as recently as the Red Dead Redemption leak and Quake 2 Remastered just last month. While Rockstar Games has not confirmed the remake of Red Dead Redemption, there’s very little reason to re-rate a game that came out in 2010. (Fingers crossed!) Although this might be inconvenient for game companies, it is nowhere near as serious as the corruption charges they might be facing in light of recent events.   

The journey starts innocently enough when the committee changed the rating of a mobile game with gacha mechanics called Blue Archive, developed by Nexon Games. The game received a change in their rating from 15 to 18+ from the GRAC due to the mature content within.Gamers were not happy with this rating and feeling that it was unjust, they launched a petition in October 2022 that received nearly 5,500 signatures.

This grabbed the attention of politician Lee Sang-heon of the People's Republic of Korea who went on to order a public audit of the Board of Audit and Inspection regarding the 'suspicion of corruption in the rating classification system construction project.’ It only takes 300 signatures to request a public audit, and the hefty 5,489 was more than enough. In 2017 the Game Committee set out to establish a 'self-rated game integrated follow-up management system' and was granted 5 billion won in taxes from the councilor's office for a computer network system. Upon visiting the site, Lee reports that no function on the site was working normally. So, where did that 5 billion won go? Lee also argued that “when Sports and Tourism discovered insolvency in the project in 2020, the Game Management Committee's audit team falsely wrote an audit report and ended up only receiving a three-month salary cut.” Lee’s argument suggests that there has been illegal activity going on in the committee since its creation. 

Well, the audit went through, at it did not come up empty-handed. The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism has found evidence of corruption. According to the report, “it was revealed that the Game Commission had committed structural misconduct, such as making payments before completing tasks or creating false data in the process of promoting a service project.”  Essentially meaning the money was certainly gone, but likely not to the right places. Findings have reported that “700 million won of national blood was wasted.” This converts to $541,942.52 for those of us in the US. The Ministry plans to “file criminal charges against the service provider and the person in charge and to recover the amount of damages from the national treasury through a lawsuit for damages” as well as restructure the organization. Three department heads have resigned in light of the events and it wouldn’t be surprising to see many more drop out as the restructuring and criminal charges commence. 

Lee Sang-heon didn’t hold back as he released a statement on his personal blog about the findings. (Machine translated to English) he writes, “The Game Management Committee, which was consistent with conservative game censorship and regulation, The inside of the organ was festering and rotting. And the resulting damage had to be fully borne by the game user.” He also goes on to suggest that his interest in the situation has not waned after getting the results he expected, but rather that he plans to see it through to reform. “This audit is not the end of corruption, but the beginning of change. “We need to lead the Game Rating Management Committee to make sweeping innovations through bone-chilling reforms.” 

We can't be sure of what the future holds for GRAC, and we certainly have no idea if any of these reforms will include any reform to leaking unreleased game information, but if there were ever a time for game companies to advocate for this, it would be now. Let’s all hope that the reforms and restructuring are effective for GRAC and that this display of justice goes on to represent what gamers and the public can achieve, even if it is still unclear whether the rating for Blue Archive will ever go back down to 15+. 

What do you think the changes within GRAC will look like? What's your take on their infamous leaks? Let me know in the comments!