Smilegate apologizes for Lost Ark content mixup

Game publisher Smilegate apologized for mixing up content for a foreign server with that meant for the Korean server of its titular game Lost Ark, amid growing disappointment from users worldwide. Last Wednesday, an update made to the Korean server..

Poster for Smilegate's MMORPG Lost Ark [SMILEGATE]

Game publisher Smilegate apologized for mixing up content for a foreign server with that meant for the Korean server of its titular game Lost Ark, amid growing disappointment from users worldwide.

Last Wednesday, an update made to the Korean server of Lost Ark, a once-popular multiplayer online roleplaying game (MMORPG) and the publisher's biggest title, resulted in extreme changes in the appearances of certain monsters. "Undead" characters such as zombies and skeletons were changed into live people, a change that had not been made before.

Smilegate announced that the monsters will be updated, but the radical makeover resulted in users suspecting that the content made for the Chinese server was uploaded to the Korean server instead.

The Chinese server for Lost Ark is set to open on July 20. China strictly censors gaming content related to physical violence such as skeletons and dead bodies, resulting in game companies designing new content specifically for the Chinese version of their existing games.

“An update which was supposed to have been applied to a foreign version was included in the update for the domestic version by mistake,” Smilegate’s Chief Creative Officer Geum Kang-sun explained in a statement he uploaded on Saturday. “Our foreign game service is traditionally separated from the domestic version and is updated separately based on local sentiment and culture.”

New updates will be made on Wednesday, Geum said. The company also promised to hold a live session with users to answer their questions, address complaints and clarify its plans sometime this week. An exact time has yet to be announced.

Launched domestically in 2018 and globally in 2022, Lost Ark remains Smilegate’s flagship title. It earned the grand prize at the Korea Game Awards in 2019.

But Lost Ark has been bleeding users since last year, with peak concurrent users falling below 40,000, according to Steam data on Friday. In February 2022, the user count hit 1.3 million on the PC gaming platform. Although the figure leveled down from this peak, the title retained between 200,000 and 300,000 users until last year.

Users have been complaining of late updates and a lack of communication from developers. Lost Ark has been running without a director, which has also been a source of discontent for users. Geum was the former director until June last year when he stepped from the position citing health issues.

“I am sincerely sorry to have caused so much trouble to the Lost Ark users," Geum wrote. "In the upcoming livestream, I'll explain in detail about Lost Ark's plans for servers overseas and why we are without a director."

BY LEE JAE-LIM [lee.jaelim@joongang.co.kr]