miHoYo Denies Issuing Sky-High Year-End Bonuses

Shanghai-based game company miHoYo on January 12 denied rumors that it had been issuing extremely high year-end bonuses, with some employees that receive a monthly salary of 8,000 yuan ($1,184) taking in a 864,000 yuan bonus ($128,150).

In addition, a gift list from the annual company meeting shows that the highest prize is 1,600 months’ salary, while the second-place prize is a villa in Shanghai’s upscale Xuhui District, which was also denied by miHoYo.

In fact, after producing a number of successful games, such as the Honkai Impact series and Genshin Impact, miHoYo has become one of the leading domestic game manufacturers. According to a list of global mobile game revenue in 2022 published by Appmagic, among the top five games, apart from Tencent‘s “Honor of Kings” and “PUBG Mobile,” only “Genshin Impact” is created by a domestic game manufacturer. Revenue obtained from the game in 2022 reached $1.562 billion.

The new games “Honkai: Star Rail” and “Zenless Zone Zero” also started testing one after another last year. In addition, miHoYo invested in brain-computer interface, nuclear fusion, commercial aviation and other fields.

However, at a summary meeting at the end of 2022, firm CEO Cai Haoyu firm President Liu Wei reflected on the previous radical expansion strategy to all employees for the first time. According to Cai Haoyu’s resumption, one of the problems of Project SH, which was rumored to be dissolved, is that too many people were recruited before the project direction was fully thought out. One person who participated in the project commented that, although many colleagues recruited with high salaries have strong abilities, the final decision-making and implementation will go out of shape because of their different backgrounds and work habits and the lack of clear standards.

Liu Wei said that all departments were frantically recruiting, which plunged the company into an organizational crisis. The problems pointed out by Liu include insufficient communication between leaders, many new employees’ poor understanding of the handbook, and a failure to focus on work culture.

SEE ALSO: Shanghai-Based Games Publisher miHoYo Accelerates Global Expansion

As China’s major Spring Festival period approaches, there are rumors that miHoYo has closed its recruitment channel for experienced talent. According to a report by media outlet Game Grape, headhunters and insiders at miHoYo said that the recruitment channel has not been closed, but the firm’s headcount has indeed started to tighten. One recruitment employee lamented, “There is basically no need to spend energy on miHoYo in 2023.”