[2022 National Audit] Game Culture Museum 'Establishment Adrift'... Korea Creative Content Agency Did Not Even Apply for Budget

Assemblyman Lee Gae-ho: "Poor Initial Research Report, Basic Plan Budget Not Reflected for 2 Years"

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Heeyoon] Discussions on the establishment of a Game Culture Museum, which have been mentioned for several years, have been confirmed to be drifting without securing even the budget.

On the 13th, Lee Gaeho, a member of the National Assembly's Culture, Sports and Tourism Committee from the Democratic Party of Korea, pointed out that the Korea Creative Content Agency (hereinafter referred to as KOCCA) has not reflected the basic plan budget for the establishment of the Game Culture Museum in its budget for two consecutive years.

Furthermore, it was revealed that KOCCA did not even apply for the related budget in next year's budget proposal.

Lee said, “In 2020, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism (hereinafter referred to as MCST) promoted the establishment of a Game Culture Museum that collects the industrial value and history of games, but there has been no progress after the related research service.”

Previously, MCST announced plans to build a Game Culture Museum to have a complex cultural space utilizing games, including exhibitions, education, and gameplay, by spending 100 million won on research service fees. The reason for the establishment also included the purpose of systematically collecting, researching, and preserving game-related materials.

Through the research service, it was estimated that the museum construction would require a site of about 5,000 pyeong in the metropolitan area, with an expected project cost of approximately 50 billion won. Accordingly, the game industry and academia welcomed the plan, expecting it to enhance the cultural status of games and improve awareness.

However, KOCCA, the main agency under MCST, did not reflect the new project budget of 200 million won for the basic plan and feasibility study in the 2021 budget. It was also found that 300 million won was not reflected in this year's budget.

KOCCA has not even applied for the budget related to this for next year. There are criticisms that the budget was not reflected because the initial research service result report was inadequate.

Lee said, “Although a research service report was published with 100 million won, it was a sloppy report that contained factual errors and did not properly express annotations,” and “It was wrong from the start to apply for follow-up budgets based on poor research service materials, and rather than hoping for budget allocation through improved materials afterward, the budget has not been reflected for two years, and this year KOCCA's position is that they did not even apply at all.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.