Arc System Works Website Was Likely Hacked

Guilty Gear Developer Website Down For Maintenance After Apparent Hack


Published: January 19, 2021 2:33 PM /

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Arc System Works website cover

The Arc System Works website appears to have been compromised by a hacker. A web page on the site for the Guilty Gear and BlazBlue developer has strange references to a "gay dating app" and leads to a similarly-strange page on another site.

Arc System Works is a Japanese game developer and publisher that's been around for well over 30 years. While it has a robust back catalog of games, it's best known for serving as the creators of the Guilty Gear and BlazBlue fighting game franchises. Now, a rather odd web page has been discovered — the apparent result of malicious action, likely by an unknown third party.

Arc System Works website likely compromised page
This text is included on an apparently compromised page on the Arc System Works website.

What's Wrong With the Arc System Works Website?

A thread on ResetEra highlights a particular page on the Arc System Works website. The page is titled "Gay dating apps for 13 year olds" and contains strange usage of the English language.

It's likely that this web page was created by a hacker recently. The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine has several captures of the page recorded today, so it's likely that this is a very recent development.

Is this hack a troll or an attempt to get users to install malicious software? This odd web page on the Arc System Works website contains a single link to another site and I went down the rabbit hole, only discovering that things get a lot stranger from there.

Realty Group International likely compromised website
A link on Arc System Works' website leads to a similarly-compromised page on a realty group, of all things.

Realty Group International Website Also Compromised

The strange web page on the Arc System Works website leads to a page on rgico.com [Archived], the website for Realty Group International. At first glance, this appears to be the legitimate web page for a realtor.

While the Arc System Works web page focuses on gay dating apps for underage teens, the Realty Group International web page might be even stranger — it contains a mix of English and Danish, with headers on the page advertising dating with married women, Russian women, and African women.

This second web page on another site, however, contains no links to anywhere else. The source code of this particular web page doesn't appear to contain anything malicious, either.

What was the point of this hack? It seems less like a prank and more like a malicious hack with the ultimate goal of leading someone to a particular web page or app. However, the trail goes cold after only two hops, so this may be a mystery that we never get an answer to.

The Arc System Works website has gone down for maintenance in the course of writing this article. We've reached out to Arc System Works and Realty Group International; a receptionist at Realty Group International could not provide substantial answers at the time of writing. We'll update this article when we receive a reply.

What do you think happened to the Arc System Works website? What do you think was the ultimate intended purpose of this apparent hack? Let us know in the comments below!

Have a tip, or want to point out something we missed? Leave a Comment or e-mail us at tips@techraptor.net


A photograph of TechRaptor Senior Writer Robert N. Adams.
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One of my earliest memories is playing Super Mario Bros. on the Nintendo Entertainment System. I've had a controller in my hand since I was 4 and I… More about Robert N