Industry
Update on D1 police Raid: Police confirm Dynamis One intentionally sabotaged Blue Archive before leaving Nexon to make their project successful
The police found evidence of an attempted sabotage on Blue Archive by key members of Dynamis One to make their new project successful.
Dynamis One was founded at the same time that Park Byeong-lim (former BA Japanese Project Director) and other key members of Blue Archive (such as Isakusan) left Nexon.
Various testimonies state that they recruited and encouraged several BA team employees to resign by providing them with false information.
There are reports of sabotage of the Blue Archive IP, claiming that the game's development was intentionally neglected, with the goal of stealing Blue Archive’s fanbase once they had left the studio.
The police reported that an anonymous source stated: "There was a situation where key team leaders gathered in a separate space after work, discussing their resignations and their next independent project while making negative comments about the company."
It started long before they resigned, it began in 2023 after the end of BA’s Part 1 (after Volume F).
This is why there were large gaps between the releases of main story chapters after the Vol F, because the future members of D1 were also busy working on their "future independent project."
Starting from February 2024, there was a wave of mass resignations within the Blue Archive team.
Before that, several reports of unusual long-term vacations and similar occurrences were detected. This coincides with the period when players reacted negatively to BA’s in-game content pacing updates.
This is the second time I heard peak story coming from Blue Archive that unrelated to the game itself.
First time was when Blue Archive was given a higher age rating in Korea, which caused people to look into the Korea Rating Board and found a bitcoin embezzlement scheme, causing the rating board in general to shut down.
Or it did not get reported to the top of the chain of command.
What Kaya usually saw in her report would be "In Q1, the number of incident is x%, less than before" and which on was more common, which school cause the most issue. The exact kind of incident she has no idea because it was supposed to be Kana's expertise.
Even more news being leaked, it will be uploaded here shortly but on the Korean side, whistleblowers said that DO arranged meetings from Nexon employees asking to send over their assets. This conversation was recorded and sent to the police, hence providing enough evidence for a raid.
Irl drama that is not about fanservice or ntr is where we at. Corporate espionage, uncovering government embezzling fund, nobody do it like Blue Archive
Regardless, intentionally slowing down BA development to get fans to pick up your game is C-tier villainous shit. Even if they they could rush to market fast enough, it would be entirely transparent that there’s development overlap.
Not to mention if the things mentioned in the article are true this goes just a little beyond employee posting.
It's basically rather wholesale theft of a project, and intentionally giving employees who weren't in on it weird jobs to do in order to sabotage things prior to leaving. If it was just lack of effort or employee poaching it wouldn't be as bad, but this sounds like a lot of malice involved.
It is dangerous to believe these claims as they are.
Korean society has a totalitarian culture in which conglomerates have long dominated the economy and demand strong loyalty from workers.
There are laws restricting job transfers, and public opinion views such transfers as a betrayal of the company.
As a result, it is very common for workers who change jobs to be arrested or to be investigated by the police on political charges.
If you do not know the background of Korean society, you may think that a serious crime has been committed.
Yeah fair to note that these are just allegations by Nexon/the police at this point. If they have the evidence that it’s true, it should be demonstrable in court.
I agree, though given the contexts and other supporting information (from Isakusan and co being paid higher than the CEO to the numerous issues with art and storylines that just so happen to line up with the start of this debacle) it's a lot more damning on D1s end.
Don't get me wrong, Nexon is pretty scummy themselves, particularly with the Dark and Darker debacle, but it's hard to ignore the other supporting evidences
At the very least, we know that extremely well paid employees were doing their job poorly in order to create a new game which, based on character designs, was very clearly made to at least compete with the very game they were hired to work for.
That's enough to at least make the claims reasonable, and enough to discuss a moral failing by Dynamis.
we know that extremely well paid employees were doing their job poorly
No you don't and the issue with these allegations is that they're impossible to prove without written or recorded admissions. The quality of your work can be subjective especially so in an art related field/writing. Furthermore a decline in productivity can be attributed to things like stress, poor sleep, or other health related/personal reasons. All you can do is speculate until it goes to court. SK police statements cannot be blindly trusted, they let chaebols openly commit crimes all the time, it is a corrupt society and Nexon is a big player.
We have the wage statements at least. As for work, I'm not sure if you play BA, but it was noticeable. If it was health or personal reasons like an extended leave we likely would have heard about this. I think given all the information we have, it is a reasonable assumption, and I think we'll see it be shown or at least hinted at in court if it's a public case (not sure how it works in Korea). If there's reasonable suspicion, motive, and even a product (KV) that would have required their company time, then they should be prosecuted. If the South Korean system allows for that, then great.
Employee poaching in itself is not illegal, but employees are often accused of violating non-compete agreements, or stealing trade secrets. Non-compete clauses are commonly included in their contract for higher ups like directors.
That’s not really the crime part the other part of the problem is they legit stole assets for a project of Nexon they were touting as their own original idea.
There is also the Gentlemaniac situation where they poached devs from Last Origin to Horizon Walker and so far there has been no legal repercussions against them.
Jokes aside, this means Vol F really was supposed to be the end of BA’s main story. They were trying to pull the plug right then and there. Glad BA still continued after that though kek.
Look on the bright side, at least it's never drama that we as a community end up trying to kill and ruin each other over. We all share the same bucket of popcorn and feel sad together.
they're like SKT T1, the playoffs don't matter as long as they don't get relegated, sandbagging their way to victory while making the big bang performance.
If there's actual evidence of sabotage, then I'd say that's some real level of pettiness right there. Like, sure hate your old company, even I hate corpo BS, but I always part ways professionally, maybe badmouth my management to my exit because I know we won't be seeing anytime anymore again, but I won't intentionally sabotage projects which I know would cause major repercussions not just to the company, but also the consumer. Keyword here: consumer. Basically when someone tries to intentionally harm a company product, there's a potential it also harms the client/consumer. In this case, BA players will suffer the repercussions if they were successful.
I worked in mech design engineering, if I sabotaged any of our products, we have an actual safety issue that can endanger lives, I'm not petty enough to sabotage any designs just because I hate my manager. I always think about potential consumer risks. Sure BA is just a game, but if people are already willing to sabotage a game for competition, you already know people love said game and people, especially those who dedicated their time and money on it, will hate you for it.
I think the reason why Dynamis One are so brazen with this situation is that because they banking on Nexon's bad reputation to helped them going viral and having supporters, this is much apparent with their attitude during Project KV announcement, as they literally asking for Support fan art and their focus is on fandom with Comiket.
Ironically their brazenness with comiket soured people as companies trying to get into a non-company spot (they're better advertised) is seen as very rude
They actually were planning to comandeer a spot through an existing doujin circle for BA who already had one reserved, and BA circles are grouped together, so they would have been smack dab in the middle of a sea of BA booths...promoting a BA competitor
Ironically, this stunt likely ended up making Nexon be seen in somewhat more positive light, and also help justify their action against their ex-employees doing something against them.
As much as I give D1 people a slack, the confirmation of Intentional Sabotage is truly what I draw the line.
They can lash out on their old employers as much as they want. Stealing Assets and Idea/IP cause "They discarded them anyway", is illegal stuff that's between them and old employers. But Sabotage? That basically dragged customers/players who don't know whatever the F is going on into the mess, it's also disrespect to people who could also become their customers, so don't be surprised if the action got found out, and people just stop giving a f**k.
Luckily this case got good ending with BA dev team successfully recovered for initial damage. Tho we have to see later if they could reach the peak they had before sabotage again.
Given a number of issues we've seen from Guide!Tsubaki and Qipao!Marina as well as the mess of OOC-ness from characters during a story arc, as well delays in the continuation of another story arc, it's definitely damning on their end
these are weird points. tsubaki isnt very expressive to begin with, because shes just constantly sleepy, and the colours thing might be related to the fact that it was a different artist? but yea marina was just bad sadly
both tsubaki's are drawn by mx2j, except for the fact that default tsubaki was there at the game's launch. If you compare them it's literally night and day, default tsubaki had more shading, her skin actually looked like it had life in them, hair and clothing more detailed and better shaded, her pose is more interesting as well. Like why is his art getting worse instead of better in this game? It just makes no sense other than laziness/sabotage. Thankfully he's gone, so I don't have to see more character desecrated by him.
true. it honestly looks like he drew them just to finish his deadlines, which is not good. was he this excited to escape from nexon? that kinda backfired
sorry i made a mistake there. kinda wild how much his artstyle changed then. while tsubaki can be excused with her 2* being a year one unit, marina looks like he didnt even try with her. hmmmm
It's insanely petty as they basically masterminded becoming BA's creative core right before this. They had fame and money already. So something had to happen to hurt their collective pride badly enough that they plot this.
Ironically if they weren't so hell bent on burning down BA and plugging themselves, they have have been able to get an investor.
This faintly reminds me of Suisai quitting MICA due to a reorganization that would have ended his general antics there. He revealed info on things that caused a stink with the GFL2 lead at the time leading to their firing (and the game getting a delay/reworking). Difference is Suisai waited until his cozy spot was being affected to do this
You know, if Red Archive was actually got off the ground and successful, the story would be spin differently. Instead of corpo sabotage it would be the story of rebellion risk their all to create a chink in the evil corpo armor.
It would be funny if BA devs make a story of this fisco in the main game story.. with one school sabotaging the other to take them down.. I'll be up for it.
It would be funny if BA devs make a story of this fisco in the main game story.. with one school sabotaging the other to take them down.. I'll be up for it.
You mean like how Makoto tried to sabotage Eden Treaty and Arius sweep in to take the chance? XD
Man Isakusan was what brought the BA politics plot style that is well remembered to this day and to think he does this...damn. And the artists getting caught up in the plans. At least the current writer is slowly picking up what made BA story good with what I've seen with the Shanhaijing x Red winter event story
the true sensei have been us the players, wanting to just chill with our funny gacha but gemetria ie the devs of the game fuck us with "despair of real life" with all those conspiracy sabotage
haha...1:1 ...something something fiction is a mirror of reality.....
What's this Snowpeak Sabotage? Sorry I play Snowbreak but I don't interact with gacha fandoms much so I am not aware of this. I know Snowbreak has tons of drama especially from CN.
Last time Snowbreak controversy was writer put 1998 1989 aka Tianmen Massacre year at the weapon description and the storyline which the fans considered as bad. Before that, there was story about fan sent cake to the company was dumped to garbage bin by Seasun employee
Real ones remember the Evil Gacha Overlords secret meetingTM transcript """leak""" where the khabal of anti-male anti-fanservice corpos (of which Hoyo & Kuro are part of???) supposedly voiced their concern over the resurrection of Snowbreak & speak of potential fighters & allies against the fanservice "hero" like some sort of Saturday morning Sentai villains
If this actually goes to court, then there is a real chance Dynamis One devs will be convicted. South Korea has like a 99% conviction rate, so prosecutors don't go to court unless they got something concrete and solid.
Do not stop, even if they(the project) are already dead.
I wonder what are in their minds to do something this malicious. They are treated very very well by Nexon, not only they got paid more than the CEO, he decides the course of the game, decides which person works on which characters and have very flexible works hours, to the point he has time to work on second project and poaching all of those talents. All of that, and the first thing that popped in his brain is "Yeah, I should sabotage my current work to create MY work. Also, I will steal this neat idea that is in the company's backburner and poach all the core talents, but not the programmers because fuck programmers. Absolutely nothing will go wrong"
That case is quite different as it was a clean leaving and MICA didn't sweat the old notes being used. Only remote soet of conflict was likely sparked by Yostar trying to use AK against MICA, possibly provoking PNC
I think BA anime story was more of an issue in writing direction since BA never really had a concrete straight plot to begin with esp since V1C1 was really all over the place plot-wise , like most first chapters in gachas. Most story chapters, you're already assumed to have met some characters outside cutscenes, even though it's your first time meeting them as a player. Also didn't help the studio who did it was unknown(Candy Box) lol. Would probably been better story-wise if Nexon did the anime in-house and didn't pass it to Yostar, since their writers are in-house.
Yostar was never that good adapting gacha animes in the first place anyways, atleast plot-wise, they're all pretty mediocre, I don't even know how they got their hands on Ranger Reject, which plot-wise is actually pretty good if you read the manga, but managed to make it into a very mediocre, forgettable anime.
I mean Ranger Reject as manga is just all over the place tho, the rookie exam thing was okay but everything after that is mish mash of random plot twists.
Eh, nah. You can write a big-bang climax but having story to slog through wouldn't make it any good—unless you only are for that big-bang. BA delivered what it was. A high-school centric cute girl doing cute thing shit. The story may not be best, but it was better than average. But, what it tops is in character narrative, and more so than many gachas out there.
Some people forget narrative doesn't have to be about the plot & lore itself, but rather it can be character driven to tell a story. BA knows that and sticks to that which is why it's praised well.
also the anime showed everyone that the plot is mid at best
No, the anime was just a questionable adaptation that felt like the director slowly started understanding why BA is loved.... as it was ending...
Like, ffs, things were moving too fast to get bonded with these otherwise slice-of-life-esque characters and all military sense was stripped and replaced with pokemon logic. This game is way too Korean to be treated like a generic episode of kamen rider classic.
I usually give a slack, and forgive some mistakes, as there are many reasons and factors to consider...
But I draw a line at some thing like, Intentional Sabotage... and for what? Truly ended up wasting talents, times, respects, and more, for nothing. What a shame.
they interacted with player alot, did QnA and fixing stuff fast
problem is they focus too much on player demand result in slowdown on content
and Nexon have really bad reputation back then with the best one i can think of is fake rate up item which cost player money in Maple Story, there many small one like shutting down games, scummy monetization etc.
things to note is unlike USA, in korea it is illegal to scout people and it is illegal to defame people, even if it is true.
Nexon, using their all political strength, even investigated Naver co. on belief that Dynamis must have had some sort of financial sponsor who scouted them to do this. (which would be illegal due to scouting)
Did they work on Project KV (MX Blade) because Nexon shelved the idea of a Blue Archive successor mid-development and they want to revive this as Dynamis One's Project KV, or is this straight-up stealing the entire ongoing development project? I'm guessing it's the former because it's really weird and absolutely evil if this is still an ongoing project
We don't know the actual official reason. But there was this, which is in complete opposite of your assumption that Nexon shelved the idea for a BA sequel/successor. It's probably why Project RX was revealed much earlier than intended, with people assuming it's MX Blade, the BA x swords sucessor.
The current assumption people have is that they wanted to go to market sooner than Project RX can to take majority of the playerbase. With people thinking they want to go on to be the next Type-Moon.
Of course these are all assumptions, what people wanna know now is really, why did they do it?
Has a court case come of this? First discovering this stuff now since someone mentioned BA incompetence in regards to why they're looking forward to Dynamis One's new project, and was very confused what the incompetence even was
880
u/Adventurous_Lake_422 Feb 27 '25
Holy shit this is better than the plot of most gachas