Look, let's be honest—it is always a bit cheeky when a politician points out the industry's worst-kept secrets during a parliamentary audit and actually decides to do something about it, like pushing a bill to ban game BJ promotions.

During the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism parliamentary audit on October 12, Assembly Member Kim Jae-won of the Rebuilding Korea Party grilled Choi Sung-hee, the Content Industry Policy Officer at the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, and Chairman Seo Tae-gun of the Game Rating and Administration Committee regarding the ongoing controversy surrounding game BJ promotions.

It has practically become routine for game companies to pay streamers and content creators eye-watering fees to produce promotional content for newly launched titles. Critics have frequently likened this to chart manipulation in the music industry, pointing out that creators often recycle a slice of their promotional payout back into microtransactions, which subsequently distorts app store revenue rankings.

Assembly Member Kim Jae-won pointed out that when Netmarble's Sol: enchant debuted back in June and immediately shot to the top of the app store revenue charts, a creator receiving promotional backing dropped roughly 300 million won on in-game currency around the same time, leading the Korean Game Consumers Association to label the phenomenon as game industry chart manipulation. Meanwhile, Netmarble claimed the promotional funds were strictly service fees rather than a mandatory spending requirement, insisting any direct impact on rankings remains difficult to verify.

Assembly Member Kim Jae-won pressed further, highlighting the glaring fact that neither the Ministry nor the Committee had ever conducted proper fact-finding surveys or monitoring. Both entities ultimately admitted to the oversight, prompting Assembly Member Kim Jae-won to demand that the Ministry recognize the issue, launch an investigation, and submit a concrete institutional reform plan directly to the lawmaker's office.

In response to all this, Assembly Member Kim Jae-won is reportedly pushing to introduce a partial amendment to the Game Industry Promotion Act, which would explicitly outlaw practices where game publishers unfairly purchase in-game items or fund third parties to do so solely for the purpose of inflating revenue rankings.