The third-in-second-second-level third-person shooting-place-type game, Victory Goddess Nikki, developed by SHIFT UP, Korea, has recently been on the line for the third anniversary, but the official commemorative drawings have provoked controversy among Korean players. SHIFT UP recently released a special developer interview video to discuss future planning of the game and to respond to the questions and concerns raised by the players.
According to the Korean video game media ThisIsGame, Nikki’s team made a clear statement on the air against “hate speech” in the game. The Director General of the Games, Hyungsuk Yoo, said: “We will not tolerate anyone who intentionally embeds hate speech in Nikki or engages the game with such a mentality.” He also mentioned that the studio had recently taken steps to strengthen the internal quality review process and the project management system to prevent “similar problems from recurring”. Although the developers did not specify what was said, this statement was probably in response to a controversial event in August this year. At that time, SHIFT UP, in celebration of the 1,000-day commemorative illustration of the game, the gestures and placement of the two characters in the picture once again stinged the sensitive nerves of Korean male players and triggered a wave in the playing community.
This “crab hand” gesture, which has no special meaning, is highly controversial in Korea because of its association with certain radical feminist groups, which are seen as “anti-male” groups that have used it to sarcasticize the physical defects of Korean men. Over the years, the sharp confrontation between radical Korean feminists and anti-feminists has made the gesture extremely sensitive to the public. Korea’s special social environment has made game companies particularly cautious, even though there are many games in Korea where gender-related symbols cause public relations problems. In June of this year, the same hand gesture problems arose in connection with the national RPG ‘ s Moot with South Korea ‘ s popular brand YoGoods; Necon painters had received death threats for being suspected of “hidden feminist propaganda” for a single frame of animation; and Krafton ‘PUBG, under the banner of the female role body model, had been forced to adjust because it was too realistic, and Steam platform had been in dispute over the forum ‘ s face.
The extreme sensitivity of Korean society to gender symbols is not limited to the game industry, but is the projection of its deep social contradictions in the virtual world. In the previous period, the apples had been launched with the smallest iPhone in history, and the Air Series had been dealt with in Korea because of its propaganda gestures. In 2024, a female member of the Reno Car staff was drawn to male disputes because of the same gesture.
Following the fermentation of the incident, the Niki development team issued an official apology explaining that the painting had been outsourced from an overseas studio, without any metaphoric agenda or hateful intentions, and subsequently released a new, modified version of the gesture. SHIFT UP also compensated for the distribution of internal props to the game, but the dispute was still unsettled, as seen in the August apology announcement and in the anger comments from the latest interview.
