The "cyber-diplomacy" group VANK has now set its sites on world software companies producing games that contain what it views as distorted or mistaken information about Korea, according to the Segye Ilbo (Korean). Among the games it has taken exception with:
Risk (U.S.): Yes, they’re nonplussed that this Hasbro classic has made Korea part of Mongolia rather than a separate territory.
Porto Estado IV (Japan): This popular KOEI game apparently refers to the capital of the Joseon kingdom, Hanyang (modern Seoul), by its colonial name of Gyeongseong.
Han Dynasty and Rome (Taiwan): This RTS by Soft-world has a Han Dynasty mission requiring the Chinese side to wipe out Koguryo. The game depicts the Koguryo army as barbaric and weak, and their villages small and poor.
Dai Senryaku 2005 (Japan): SystemSoft’s strategic simulation contains scenarios in which the Japanese player must take Dokdo and occupy Jeju Island. Here’s the scenario page (and the Korean one in particular)–I don’t read Japanese, so I couldn’t tell you what’s on it. Some English info on the game here.
War in the Pacific (U.S.) and others: Apparently, labeling the East Sea than other name is a no-no.
In a related series from 2004, Lee Deog-gyu examined even more examples of distortions of Korean history in computer games, some of which were even produced by Korean companies. More on that piece later.
2 Comments
In Europa Universalis, a global conquest sim, there was no Korea, just China spreading out across the Korean peninsula. I remember my ex-gf getting pissed after showed it to her.
In EU2, they actually made a Korea country… though it was a hopeless country to play. There was next to nothing one could do when faced with China in the east and Japan in the west.
Brian
One might(!)- assuming one get get past their apparent utter humorlessness - have some sympathy for the self-appointed Korean truth commissioners - VANK and their guv’ners in the gummermint - in their quest to correct distortions of history, if they paid some attention to (a) items about NK human rights violations, instead of actively suppressing same (as per the follow-on report of the suppression of “Seoul Train), and (b) the even more elementary principle of freedom of expression. See also the knock-on entry.