Nintendo Korea 'Mob' Claims Flare

The receptionist gave me directions over the phone, and I arrived in the area…only to find myself smack in the middle of a no-holds-barred red light district. I was in a maze of tight alleys lined on either side with nothing but glass windows and scantily-dressed twenty-something girls waving at me to come in for fun and games. Luckily, they didn’t actually come out and and physically try to take me in, which happened the last time I got lost in such an area. I found a neutral zone, called again, and the girl guided me to the Daiwon building…which ended up being right there among the brothels. Shady, shady, shady. And the building itself was pretty dingy. Whatever. I wasn’t there for the sights, I was there for answers.

I found my way up to Mr. Jung’s ‘office’, if you can call it that. The place turned out to be a total hole. His room is home to a staff of four…and I came to find out that they, most unfortunately, are all that exists of Nintendo of Korea at this point. One guy with this truly awful bleached hair looks like a wannabe Korean pimp in his late twenties, and that’s not a good thing. The rest look anything but professional, and the workspace is a dump. Not a cool, gamer’s dump. Just a dump. A 'we don’t give a care' kind of dump.

So I start talking with Mr. Jung and friends, asking some questions about what exactly they’re doing for Nintendo, how they’re representing the company, etc. I’m basically met with blank stares. I bring up the customer service complaints and other bad reports that are making the rounds about Daiwon, and ask them what they have to say about these things. At this point, Mr. Wannabe Pimp With Bad Hair got really, really angry, and for no apparent reason. “We’re not Nintendo!”, he shouted. “Did you see Nintendo written on this building?! We don’t ****** care about that ****!” He spoke like an uneducated thug, I kid you not. Mr. Jung was now visibly uneasy, and just stood there not knowing what to do. He didn’t want that to happen. I looked at him, laughed a bit, and told him I was shocked. I asked him, rhetorically, what he thought the big shots at Nintendo would do if they knew what their people in Korea were really like. He apologized, but didn’t take anything back. At this point, I shook my head and walked out in amazement.