BrownDust2 developer GAMFS N and publisher NEOWIZ have found themselves in hot water this weekend after a slew of proposed content changes were received extremely negatively by the game’s playerbase.
After an urgent live stream, the game’s leadership issued an apology to everyone and said it will not alter existing character designs, costumes, or remove in-game content.
This happened roughly a month after the studio publicly scrapped its planned Steam release, citing an unresolved conflict with the platform over some of the content. Back then, the company stated: “We considered multiple options to make the release possible, but in order to preserve the game’s core direction and overall quality, we came to the conclusion that making the necessary adjustments at this time would not be appropriate.”
What sparked the latest controversy was an announcement that was largely interpreted as the beginning of a broad ratings-safe approach to content within the game. The changes were going to be made to multiple skill cutscenes and costumes, several scenes, as well as the “Slap! Slap! Pop!” minigame, and character age related delays.
The playerbase of this gacha game received these changes extremely negatively. Many were asking for refunds for the content they had previously purchased, while others were calling the company out for breach of trust.
While the developers framed many of the changes as their own decisions, the way the whole announcement was worded left it unambiguous that the company was facing external pressure. Players saw these censorship-oriented changes as caving and letting people who had no interest in the game control its content.
As a consequence of this widespread backlash, the company held an urgent livestream, where Jun-hee Lee, project director of BrownDust2, made a statement that all of the announced plans are now off the table. The statement claims there will be no design changes to the characters and costumes that had been discussed, and that no content will be removed, including the “Slap! Slap! Pop!” minigame.
He reiterated that this is not a temporary decision and that this is the company policy. He lamented his lack of courage and inability to brush off the ambiguous demands of the external parties.
The game must follow the restrictions of every country it operates in, and therefore, there is pressure to alter or censor content, and the game developers feared that any suspension would have a cascading effect. So, to address this, moving forward, BrownDust2 will adopt a country-specific approach instead of content moderation:
From now on, our one clear principle will be to provide country-specific service, not modify content.
If, due to specific country or platform requirements, it becomes impossible to maintain service without requiring changes, we will not alter character designs.
Instead, our service policy will be to apply country-specific restrictions, suspend service, or provide an adapted build as needed for that country.
Jun-hee Lee also acknowledged that the initial communication damaged trust, calling it a mistake to float something that felt like censorship to players, and framed the policy shift as a commitment to protecting the version current users are already paying for and playing.
This leaves BrownDust2 back to square zero content-wise, but with a severely damaged reputation and breached player trust. The developers claim that they’re committed to rebuilding it. The question is, will the current state of the industry allow them to do it?
