games

By Amber V

South Korea’s Game Rating and Administration Committee (GRAC) says Valve agreed to cooperate in taking down a mod that “distorted historical facts” related to the Gwangju Uprising, a pivotal event in the country’s history (as reported by ThisIsGame).

The mod in question is a fan-made total conversion mod of the hit strategy RPG Mount & Blade: Warband, originally uploaded to the game’s Steam Workshop page. Titled “Gwangju Running Man,” the mod transformed Mount & Blade: Warband’s medieval setting into a modern depiction of Korea’s Gwangju Democratization Movement.

The Gwangju Uprising was a series of student-led pro-democratic demonstrations that took place in Korea in 1980. These protests are known to have been violently suppressed by the military, resulting in a massacre of civilians, but the mod depicted protesters as armed and violent criminals (according to YNA), thus framing the military regime’s brutality as justified. Additionally, the mod brandished the image of military dictator Chun Doo Hwan as its cover.

South Korean press speculates that the uploader may have been Chinese, based on reviews by the account being written in Simplified Chinese. However, users online argue that these may be a “cover,” as denial of the Gwangju massacre is more likely to come from Korea’s own far right groups than from abroad. In response to reports, GRAC initially had the Mount & Blade: Warband mod blocked in South Korea, but subsequently teamed up with the Korean government to ask Valve to have the mod suspended worldwide.

Valve complied, and the Gwangju Running Man mod was deleted from Steam as of June 12. Valve commented that it recognizes the importance the historical event has for Korean people. This is a somewhat rare instance of the platform taking acting upon local political and historical sensitivities.