Educational Games, Thorough Review a Problem? ... Korea Creative Content Agency's Defense

Kim Yoon-duk's Criticism: "Reconfirmed Operation in PC and Mobile Environments"
"Development via Unity Cannot Be a Reason for Disqualification"
Disqualified Company Refuses to Return Project Funds Despite Request

The Korea Creative Content Agency (KOCCA) has systematically refuted the criticisms raised during the National Assembly’s Culture, Sports and Tourism Committee audit regarding the commissioned work on educational game content. On the 19th, KOCCA released an explanatory document reaffirming that the educational games operate on both PC and mobile environments.

This is a clarification related to the educational platform 'Itda,' developed with a budget of 5.8 billion KRW in collaboration with the Ministry of Education. On the 17th, Democratic Party lawmaker Kim Yoon-duk criticized KOCCA during the audit, claiming that the platform was unusable in educational settings and did not operate on mobile devices, accusing KOCCA of wasting taxpayers’ money. These claims are unfounded and based on a lack of verification. The platform runs smoothly on smartphones and tablet PCs operating on both Android and iOS. KOCCA stated, "It runs properly on Galaxy Tab 6 or newer models, which are primarily used in schools." Furthermore, KOCCA added, "More than 3,000 accesses to educational game content across three subjects (Humanities, Science, Creativity) occur on 'Itda,' and over 240,000 accesses happen on 'G-School' (KOCCA’s operated platform), demonstrating active utilization."

To enhance the quality and usability of the games, KOCCA conducts teacher training, pilot education sessions for students, and conferences. Satisfaction levels among students and teachers are relatively high. A survey conducted in September last year with 4,234 students showed that 99.4% responded that they were 'satisfied.'

Lawmaker Kim’s claim that the contractor for the educational game content failed to comply with the request for proposal (RFP) for the commissioned work is also groundless. Although he criticized the use of the Unity engine for development, the RFP did not specify that development must be done exclusively in HTML. It only stated that "related standards and technologies (HTML5, responsive web, etc.) should be followed to ensure the same service is available across various web browsers and screen resolutions." Unity is a widely used development engine for mobile game development and is effective for 3D mobile games. KOCCA stated, "Using Unity for development cannot be a reason for disqualification."

Lawmaker Kim also alleged that KOCCA demanded the lead researcher responsible for the 'Effectiveness Verification of Educational Game Content' research project to revise negative content. KOCCA explained this as a misunderstanding caused by the difference in timing between report submission and verification. "Verification was conducted from September 5 to 15 last year, and the report was submitted on December 12 of the same year," they said. "Just before submission, on December 16, we requested a late revision of some wording to reflect improvements made." They added, "The research team decided whether to incorporate the revisions into the report."

The claim that KOCCA ordered the company producing arts and physical education subjects to build a separate server costing hundreds of millions of KRW, and that the company was disqualified in the evaluation for refusing this, was also inconsistent. The server cost was not an additional demand but was included in the task instructions at the time of the commissioned work announcement. The contractor intended to divert the server costs for other purposes. KOCCA did not approve this because, due to budget shortages at the Korea Education and Research Information Service, the 'Itda' server could not be used, and an outlink method was agreed upon, necessitating individual server costs. A KOCCA official defended this, saying, "This was included in the existing scope of work and contract terms, so it was not an unfair demand."

According to KOCCA, the contractor did not follow the task instructions during the evaluation by the review committee. The contractor failed to produce deliverables that met the requirements and was also evaluated as having low game quality, resulting in disqualification. The official explained, "There was a two-month opportunity for improvement after the first evaluation, but the same issues were pointed out again in the second evaluation." Regarding legal advice received on this matter, KOCCA responded, "It was for future administrative procedures, such as determining the scope of claims for refund of advance payments." The contractor is currently refusing to comply with the request to return project funds following contract termination. KOCCA is pursuing litigation to recover the national funds.