South Korea's Games Rating and Administration Committee (GRAC), basically their local equivalent to PEGI or ESRB, is in turmoil right now, and it's all because they decided to fuck with gacha enthusiasts last year. 

Blue Archive, a turn-based FtP mobile RPG published by Nexon, is a particular gacha game that's extremely popular in Japan and South Korea. Since its launch in 2021 it was rated 15+, but for some reason last October the GRAC decided that semi-nude waifus were actually lewder than they once thought, and gave Nexon an ultimatum: censor the game to keep its current rating, or have it increased to 18+. In the end, Nexon decided to do both; they kept the "main" game at 18+ and released a seperate, censored version that was 15+.

Fans weren't happy at all, responding with a petition for a public audit into GRAC's operations led by Korean Democratic Party politicial Lee Sang-heon and the National Audit Office. The petition got over 5,000 signatures, and the GRAC was indeed audited. A report detailing the findings of the audit came out at the end of June, published by the South Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, and boy, I doubt any of the 5k+ signatories expected to find what they found.

Turns out there were some GRAC employees that were complicit in a large-scale embezzlement scheme to the tune of ₩700 million, or about half a mil in USD, swindled directly from taxpayers. It seems some were supposedly funnelling the stolen funds into bitcoin mining as well. On top of that, the NAO found there was a general culture of falsifying and exaggerating data in reports and ignoring procedure at will.

Since then, several GRAC higher-ups have resigned and the organization's name has been tarnished. The Ministry of Culture plan to completely overhaul the way the GRAC is run and holds those responsible for the conspiracy accountable. Lee Sanh-heon, on the other hand, thanked the 5k+ gamers who signed the petition for their help in unearthing the corruption, and now has the support of gamers on his side if and when he faces an election any time soon. Moral of the story? Don't fuck with gamers and their waifus.

What do you guys make of the GRAC corruption scandal? Sound off below!