Source: Game Rating and Administration Committee (GRAC)

The Game Rating and Administration Committee (GRAC; Chairperson Seo Tae-geon) has been implementing a comprehensive response system to foster a healthy and fair gaming culture. Following the announcement last month of successful on-site crackdowns on illegal gaming materials conducted in cooperation with the police, the committee has now disclosed the current status and results of its efforts to eradicate illegal private servers and illegal programs online.

Notably, the GRAC has incorporated the blocking of sites related to illegal private servers and illegal programs into its institutional performance indicators, setting the eradication of activities that disrupt the gaming ecosystem as a top priority and launching an intensive response.

Furthermore, since February of this year, the committee has been working with the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism to establish and implement a comprehensive response system to eliminate illegal private servers. It is enhancing the effectiveness of these efforts through multi-faceted measures, including: #1 introducing expedited procedures for blocking illegal sites; #2 researching legal amendments to strengthen penalties; #3 expanding requests for investigations; and #4 strengthening blocking networks through cooperation with CDN providers.

The effectiveness of the GRAC's efforts to eradicate illegal private servers was clearly demonstrated in the first half of 2026. Of the 46531 total administrative actions taken during the first half, 32930 (70.7%) were focused on eliminating illegal private servers and illegal programs. In particular, the committee further strengthened its response to illegal activities by promptly blocking 1450 illegal private servers and increasing investigation requests to 49, a 14-case (40%) increase compared to the same period last year.

This demonstrates the GRAC's firm commitment to holding perpetrators accountable, moving beyond simply blocking illegal sites to linking these actions with investigations and judicial proceedings against operators of illegal private servers.

In addition, the GRAC is going beyond mere investigation requests by actively supporting the recovery of damages for the gaming industry caused by illegal activities. Since last year, the committee has been providing judgment information from investigation-requested cases to rights holders to assist them in filing civil lawsuits, providing such information for a total of 5 cases in 2025.

As a result, recent cases have seen rights holders win first-instance rulings in damages lawsuits, proving that support for damage recovery from illegal private servers is yielding tangible results.

The GRAC plans to continue monitoring the effectiveness of its rights-remedy support, such as providing judgment information, and will gradually expand its support system to protect the rights and interests of the gaming industry and facilitate damage recovery.

GRAC Chairperson Seo Tae-geon stated, "Since the beginning of this year, the committee has worked closely with the relevant ministry to establish a comprehensive response system to eradicate illegal private servers, and we have been pursuing this with high intensity." He added, "In particular, if the proposed amendment to the Game Industry Promotion Act, which includes stronger penalties for illegal private servers, is passed by the National Assembly, we expect it to further strengthen the deterrent against illegal activities and provide greater momentum for policies aimed at fostering a healthy gaming ecosystem and protecting the gaming industry."