Throwaway because I aint for the hell of me going to get blasted from MGTOW incels and Feminazis screaming down my inbox on my main account.
I know some of you are probably sick of KR drama but the game is made by Nexon Games, and whether you like it or not, the KR community probably has the most influence on the game (I'd say on par with JP). And its clear that KR users are the main customer base Nexon Gaming caters to for obvious reasons (player base, revenue, practicality of public promotions, obvious lack of language barrier to name a few).
Blue Archive is one of only two recent Nexon title that had commercial success and its the only one that was acclaimed both critically and commercially (The other game being HIT2, a Lineage clone that came out this year - it didnt do so well critically but was smashing hit commercially). And believe it or not Nexon actually cares a lot about its image within South Korea (SK) and SK gamers. (2014 article about how Nexon started its G-Star - Korean E3 - presentation with "we want to shed our image of being greedy: https://m.thisisgame.com/webzine/nboard/12/?n=56946). So yeah, imo Nexon, not just Nexon (NAT) Games, cares a lot about KR players and public opinion of Blue Archive.
The other related post on this subreddit was pretty good with the timeline, but poor in explaining why this is a big deal to KR players. Don't get me wrong, it started with a pissing contest between misogynists and misandrist and part of it is still about that. But there are real implications of this decision that will definitely affect KR players and might bleed over to global.
One other thing I want to get straight is that DCinside (DC) and Archivelive (AL) communities of Blue Archive are not part of BA community within SK, they are the communities for BA in SK. Frankly even Archivelive pales in comparison with respect to size and activity of DCInside (it does have its audience and cross-membership due to R-18/NSFW posts being prohibited in DC while allowed on AL). Also note that DC and AL are exactly like reddit, its lots of different communities about different subjects bounded together as single websites. So when I'm talking about DC and AL, Im talking about the BA gallery and BA channel of these websites, respectively.
So unfortunately, its not really weebs being caught in crossfire of pissing contest between two gendered hate parties. The main BA community within SK is one of them - they have incel tendencies and traits to begin with. And while other non-otaku/otaku related communities might not be so 'incel-ly' in comparison, most male-dominated online space in SK are at the very least anti-feminists (I'm excluding 'public non-anonymous sns' like Instagram when I say this). I'm not excusing or supporting any of this, I am simply explaining to you what internet space is like in SK. Gender conflict is extremely high and worrysome. It is, and has been, causing shit ton of issues online and off-line.
I just want to clear few more things before I get to what I really want to talk about:
- While it is speculated that PRSK (a gacha rhythm game) drama is one of the main reason why coordinated mass reporting to GRAC (ESRB equivalent in SK) from hygall (feminist online community within KR) took place, BA communities within DC and AL had nothing to do with PRSK. As I've said, there are many communities within DC and AL, and the whole situation didnt need to involve Blue Archive to begin with
- It is archived that coordinated reporting to GRAC from hygall took place, targeting few subculture games. These include Blue Archive, Girls Frontline, ArKnights and Fate Grand Order (https://archive.ph/ZphWa - Archived coordination post from hygall, dated Sept 25, 2022). This is important as it shows that hygall indiscriminately attacked four main subculture games KR gamers enjoy, and that it was not about some beef between BA community and PRSK community, such beef never existed before all this.
- In fact, it is only a speculation that PRSK drama prompted hygall's mass reporting, and even if it did, PRSK had nothing to do with BA communities (and other game communities) within DC. It was really more of infighting between genders within the PRSK communities. So BA communities were completely blindsided when they were struck with 18+ rating news
- Right now, mods of BA gallery within DC is removing any 'hot' posts that only mention hygall or are misogynistic focused. (https://gall.dcinside.com/mgallery/board/view/?id=projectmx&no=3564074&exception_mode=recommend&page=6; https://gall.dcinside.com/mgallery/board/view/?id=projectmx&no=3563697&exception_mode=recommend&search_pos=-3552428&s_type=search_subject_memo&s_keyword=.EC.97.AC.ED.98.90&page=1) the main focus of the community shifted solely to dealing with GRAC and trying to get them to revoke their decision. Yes individual members of the community tried to mass report some other 'female-audience oriented' gacha game, and tried and successfully shut down hygall (we don't yet know if this is temporary or permanent) but these sort of actions are now discouraged as they were deemed to dilute the main focus. So things are way past 'gendered pissing-contest' right now.
So finally to the main question, why does 18+ rating matter? There are several reasons why its a big deal to KR:
- As I mentioned above, Blue Archive has done several public promotions within SK, during its launch and several others for later events. Heres a imgur gallery of few of these promotions: https://imgur.com/a/Smwxki1
- The main worry regarding 18+ rating is its implication on such public promotions. There are conflicting sides to this worry. Some say because the game will be split to 'Teen' and '18+', they can do public promotions for the Teen version. Some say association with 18+ rating will just prohibit all public promotions.
- One thing for sure is that Blue Archive has been a target of coordinated online/offline attacks, as mentioned above, and '18+ game advertising in public space' is going to be a silver bullet thats hard to ignore within South Korean culture space.
- There's actual legal implications in SK
- One of SK's criminal law focuses on sexual exploitation of minors
- 99% of this specific law is universally praised. The controversial 1% clause defines sexual exploitation as "a person or expression that can be clearly recognized as a child or juvenile appearance"
- As it included 'expression' as means of exploitation, the law defines the word as "a product in the form of a film, video product, game product, or an image or video through a computer or other communication medium that expresses the contents."
- There were lots of discussions regarding whether or not this law can be used to persecute any fictional work, 2d or 3d. One of the common belief around this law is that it can be applied to any medium that feature school uniforms, regardless of whether or not the featured actors are fictional or real, and regardless of actors actual age.
- Although it is not widely known, this specific criminal law has not once extended to fictional 2D media, and no sentencing has been made for any consumers of 2D material with respect to this specific law, up to 2021 (distribution is a different story because distributing pornography is a criminal offense in SK).
- And many would disagree that Blue Archive is explicitly sexual to begin with, and thus would think this law would not apply to BA at all. However, the GRAC has stated that the 'smoking gun' for 18+ rating for Blue Archive was the Swimsuit Izumi L2D memorial, which they have described as 'sexual'.
- There's also the problem of media attention of '18+ game that features characters in school uniform' due to this criminal law, and fear of mass reporting by outside parties. There were posts in hygall, before it was shut down, pledging to mass report the game and its users under the criminal law mentioned above after 18+ version of the game is launched.
- While I said there were no recorded criminal sentencing, people have been arrested for possession of 2d fictional material that were reported a violation of the law. Even if its not going to stick, you'd understand why some KR users would want to quit the game all together over this
- Also INAL, so my claim that this law would not be used to criminally persecute KR user in SK is based on like one wiki page. I am certainly not going to encourage any KR users not to worry and keep playing because I think the law probably, maybe, I dont fucking know, won't affect them.
- Korean gamers hate the GRAC to begin with
- the GRAC is notorious for having no employee actually play the games they rate. 9 out of 10 high ranking officials within the department have no experience in gaming industry or even as a gamer
- the GRAC is a government department within SK, while the equivalent in other countries are self-regulatory groups (like the ESRB). Attach this with the point above, leads on to KR gamers in general thinking the department is waste of tax payer dollars
- GRAC had several sexual molestation scandals way back in 2013~2014 (https://www.gamemeca.com/view.php?gid=508557), while it is long time ago, its not the best thing to come out of a group judging whether or not a game is 'sexually appropriate'
- There was a scandal in 2020 that claimed GRAC was attempting to ban all games that they did not rate from Steam Marketplace (which would be like 99% of all games on Steam). While GRAC explained that this was a misunderstanding of GRAC attempt to communicate with Steam regarding future game rating, a lot of gamers are skeptical and believe GRAC had backdown after a huge backlash.
- One of the employees of GRAC was caught mining bitcoin using office computer recently (https://www.techm.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=102031, article dated Oct 4, 2022), not too important but sort of hints to the group's incompetent nature
- Some hate the fact that the game is getting 18+ rating and splitting to begin with
- The games not a well-oiled-machine by any means today, with just one app client. But now Nexon Games has to support two. Looking at how much maintenance it needed just updating pyroxene shop recently. The two client system doesnt look too promising.
- There's worry that splitting up the team to support two separate apps will hinder future development of the game. If true, this will affect all global servers as well as JP.
- Some people just hate the game they are playing is changing due to outside influence.
- Some people just hate censorship.
For all of us global folks, the public promotion thing will be small if not at all an issue. The actual 18+ rating itself would not matter, as our versions will remain at current rating.
But the implication of the criminal law mentioned and pledged mass reporting could spark into trouble with KR server operations. The criminal law and the fact that GRAC pointed SIzumi L2D as 'sexual' may very well influence Nexons Game to further censor or restrict their future content, even within the 18+ version. It may shake the very foundation of the game as it would be impossible to revise the game away from its school focus. Again, whether or not the criminal law would actually stick and the laws influence in SK public discourse are two separate things, and INAL, I am probably wrong.
And even if you care for none of these issues, like I said, the game is jumble of buggy mess right now, imagine what it'll be when Nexon Games has to support two versions of the game.
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