“Honestly, I can’t’go away’. I was going to do it, but I really can’t. You can see how much affection the account owner was. Let’s see some trucks.”
On the night of the 8th, a streamer on the Internet showed me one account of a user of the mobile game’Fate/Grand Order’.
It took place with users of the Fate Grand Order serviced by Netmarble, a KOSPI listed company.
On the same day, the streamer received a request from the account owner (account owner) and logged in to check the account. Afterwards, he said that it was difficult to delete his account, and he ended by persuading the account holder to subside the excitement.
Around the same time, videos that condemned Netmarble were uploaded on YouTube and elsewhere. In the community, ‘bulpan’ was held in poetry.
Unpaid users are basic, and even nuclear-charged users who have invested more than tens of millions of won into the game are inundated with Galgal and certifications to disclose all of the characters and equipment in the game.
The Internet’s’galgal authentication’ is the most obvious protest a user can make to a game company. It is an act of removing everything that has been elaborated over a long period of time and revealing that it will never come back regardless of the existence of the account.
Even users who have invested hundreds or tens of millions of won or more, who are full of affection for the game, are angry, changing characters, and closing the game.
Why are users getting angry since the new year?
◆ Emergency suspension of the Happy New Year event, pulling the trigger
The direct cause is the 2021 New Year’s campaign, which began in January of this year.
The’Happy New Year Start Dash Login Bonus Campaign’ is a content that doubles various bonus gifts depending on the number of login bonus days during the holding period.
For all users, if they connect only from the 1st to the 18th, it provides a login bonus equal to twice the amount of the existing Start Dash.
Up to 192 items that can be received by logging in for 14 days are up to 192 Seongjeongseok (paid in-game goods), 40 Hobu (Gacha use items), 1782 Foresight (Experience item), 64 Golden Fruit (AP recovery item) , Friend points 56,000 points, 4 million QP (in-game currency), etc.
When you log in, you pay a large amount of rewards such as paid goods, game money, and game items.
Many users of course participated, but the campaign was stopped with a sudden notice on the 4th. It says that the campaign is temporarily suspended due to an internal problem.
The content of the announcement was added the next day. A detailed information guide is being prepared, but the review is time consuming.
On the 6th, a day later, similar content was added. On the afternoon of that day, a long letter of apology appeared at the official cafe. It is explained that the target of the Start Dash campaign was applied differently than intended, which caused confusion and inconvenience to users.
Although it was not directly mentioned in the complicated and lengthy apology, this explains that the Start Dash campaign was originally intended for’new users’ only, and existing users were not subject to the event, but they were giving it wrong for three years.
It is said that the Start Dash, which was paid to existing users for three years after the service was implemented in Korea, was’wrong’ for several years.
Users initially assumed that the game’s developers and operators, such as Delight, Anyplex, and Sony, ignored the publisher Netmarble and put pressure on it to stop it.
This is because I discovered that a Korean user on Twitter tweeted in Japanese and wrote with the nuance that the game company was overly spreading to Korean users. This article received over 4,000 retweets and over 10,000 likes. Seeing this, requests from Japanese Fate Grand Order users to stop discrimination on Delight Twitter, etc.
In general, publishers have great power in the operation of the game, but Fate Grand Order is a very successful game, so it is presumed that Netmarble was dragged around without using power.
In fact, users thought,’Isn’t a large Korean company kneeling down to a Japanese SME?’
It is only one moment that user opinion has changed. As the case became an issue, the media started covering it. As a result, Netmarble said that there was no external pressure on some media, and it was their decision to stop the event.
Users exploded on the report. This is because if there was no external pressure, Netmarble’s decision would result in an oppressive policy on users.
Users who were angry began to act directly.
Galgal and authentication are basic, and I went to the App Store and lowered the rating of the Fate Grand Order game app to 1.1 points. This is a lower score than the Military Manpower Administration application (1.4 points). It is unusual for game apps to score as low as this.
Accordingly, there are even cases that the Fate Grand Order application is classified as a’low reliability app’ and cannot be downloaded. So far, no game has been able to see the phenomenon.
The’truck’ mentioned above is also part of the protest.
At DC Inside Fate Grand Order Minor Gallery, they raised money to protest against Netmarble’s behavior through a demonstration truck for a month.
Naver Café, Ruri Web, Hungry App, Twitter, Aka Live, and other Dish galleries. Usually, the game community has many cases of checking and slandering each other while playing the same game. These are truly united.
A user’s remarks about renting a truck to protest collected more than 10 million won in just two hours. Accordingly, it took into account the donation-related laws and even returned some of the funds collected.
Until then, there was some controversy, but it was a notice posted on the 8th that made all users’perfect’ unity.
On this day, Netmarble said ‘[안내] Good morning. Netmarble Fate/Grand Order Management” said, “The Start Dash campaign was originally intended for new users only, but the targets and guidance were’incorrect’ for a long period from launch to 2021.”
In addition, it sympathized with the confusion and disappointment of users, and announced that 30 Sungjeongseoks were paid as a sign of apology.
The amount of Seongjeongseok that was originally decided to be paid at the event was 192. Even if the event was stopped on the 4th day, only 22 were received. Netmarble’s attitude that it only gave 30 instead of 170, and that there is no future at all, had the effect of fueling angry users.
◆ Why do users not stop anger
The reason users exploded with the announcement on the 8th is that Netmarble’s official response failed to resolve any user complaints, and furthermore, it lost trust.
When converted into cash, it is a paid product that costs only 100,000 won. If you don’t give it, there is no reason to change accounts that have cost tens of thousands of won or more.
The truth is that we are tired of frequent lies and incomprehensible operating policies.
Fate Grand Order users have never thought strangely about the paid goods paid in the Start Dash campaign.
This game has been around since it started serving in Korea.
Although overseas is small, goods are often paid through various events. In Korea, instead of not holding small events, I thought it was to collect them and give them at the beginning of the year.
Nevertheless, there were many items and goods that were not paid, and the event was not conducted at all. This can also be seen as discrimination, but this fact has not been greatly emphasized in Korea.
For example, foreign countries make and release games that can be played on the same day on April Fools’ Day. In addition, events such as paying for paid goods are held every year in line with this.
Last year, even two games were released amid the distancing fever caused by the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19, Corona 19).
Although it is natural in Korea, not only the translation but also the game was not released. It goes without saying that many of the related equipment (equivalents) were not paid.
Regarding the controversy over the omission of the campaign in the announcement, Netmarble said, “In situations that are difficult to realize in Korea, such as external events or broadcasting commemorative campaigns, we have tried to provide rewards and contents to masters through various campaigns such as video sharing and the release of Caldea magazine.” Campaigns, rewards, and conceptual preliminaries that have not been carried out will be carried out according to the service situation as much as possible.”
Indeed, it was not revealed how much compensation and contents were paid from overseas such as Japan, the United States, and China, and to what extent was paid to Korea.
As a result of comparing users themselves with overseas services, it was confirmed that at least 100 paid goods were paid’lessly’ compared to overseas services.
To this day, many of the courtyards paid through various events were not given in domestic services. At the beginning of the year, the Start Dash campaign was the one that could narrow the gap in paid goods payments a little, and it stopped.
It is not only because of this case that the users are holding up.
Although this approach was’a level that I don’t understand in common sense’, there have been countless problems since before.
Netmarble has been running a fate grand order and regularly’lie’ to users.
Even the controversy over the payment of four-star options at the beginning of the service is true. Netmarble did not provide the only 4-star character option on servers around the world. As the controversy became controversial and the complaints of users poured out, the payment was made quietly after a while. Starting with this, various errors and controversies arose.
In 2018, there was also a case where a gift card promotion was implemented and the period was falsely said to be August 31 (actually, the promotion only applies until February 21).
In the summer of the same year, a character that did not appear on the Korean server appeared, causing controversy.
Netmarble initially claimed that it was a test player account, but the account became controversial as it turned out to be an account that was’actively active’, such as writing material farming articles at an official cafe and seeking friends.
Accordingly, Netmarble said, “There was a negligence in managing the test account,” and “We have completely deleted the test account and suspended all business related to the fate grand order of the person in charge.”
After that, various errors and bugs occurred, and each time Netmarble seemed to quietly bury them. Of course, it was caught by users every time.
Eventually, in July 2019, they posted a long apology containing apology and promises to prevent recurrence and improve communication structures.
Nevertheless, in July of last year, the server exploded at dawn with a new pickup of a popular character.
Netmarble has officially replied “It’s not a bug” to bugs that continue to occur since then. Of course, users confirmed that the bug was correct through comparison with overseas services. In the end, there are not one or two cases of acknowledging this and posting an apology.
In the meantime, steadily, uniformly, and steadfastly, Netmarble has been deceiving users and lying. It can be said that users who are tired of this have finally exploded.
There is even a request for Netmarble to abandon its publisher and transfer the service to the United States or Japan.
In addition to the current truck protests, users are actively moving forward with group activities at the shareholders’ meeting.
Netmarble is quietly spending the weekend after posting an announcement at 10:33 on the night of the 8th, when truck fundraising continued.
The attention is paid to whether Netmarble will be able to endure casually even after users start the offline protests in earnest.