A man tried to assassinate two of miHoYo’s co-founders

• A man was arrested for an assassination attempt aimed at two of miHoYo’s co-founders, Liu Wei and Cao Haoyu
• The man’s motives for his crime is still unclear, but various sources from Chinese media claim that it was because of miHoyo’s treatment of their players regarding Honkai Impact 3rd, miHoYo’s other online mobile game.

Disclaimer: This is an on-going investigation regarding a recently revealed murder attempt aimed at two of miHoYo‘s co-founders, the studio behind the massively popular online game Genshin Impact, and its previous entry Honkai Impact 3rd. Many details regarding this incident are still being discussed as of this posting. Any updates on this situation will be posted as soon as possible.

Gamers and consumers have several ways of expressing their dissatisfaction over video games that they have sunk many hours and resources to, such as posting their vents online in forums, message boards, or social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, or even Youtube. There’s also simply declaring that they no longer want to be involved with the game by quitting it and swearing to never play the game or support it ever. However, some gamers have took levels of dissatisfaction to the extreme by attacking and attempting to kill the game studio’s founders. In this case, a Chinese man allegedly tried to attack and kill two co-founders of miHoYo, the studio behind the massively popular Genshin Impact, and its previous game Honkai Impact 3rd.

Some information regarding this incident has been posted in various Chinese media outlets such as Baidu, Weibo, Sina, among others. Here are the details of said incident based on what was reported.

miHoYo’s Attacker

On the evening April 24th, a man snuck in to miHoYo’s headquarters in Shanghai. Armed with a knife, he tried to kill both miHoYo’s co-founders, Liu Wei and Cao Haoyu, before he was apprehended by security and was arrested. Thankfully, no one was harmed during the incident. According to the reports, the man wanted to kill miHoYo’s co-founders then himself as an “act of vengeance”.

miHoyo’s Official Statement – Removal of Bunny Girls

The unidentified man’s reasons for attempting commit murder on miHoYo’s co founders was because of recent updates in Honkai Impact 3rd, one of miHoYo’s previous games. Said recent updates gave the playable characters, which all of them are female, bunny girl costumes and a video showcasing the girls dancing in said bunny girl costumes was uploaded to youtube before it was deleted. Chinese players found the bunny girl related designs and content added to Honkai Impact 3rd to be offensive and “out-of-character”, so those costumes, materials, and related in-game events were removed from the game, and both the Chinese and International players were compensated by miHoYo.

On April 22, 2021, miHoYo’s Honkai Impact 3rd issued this official statement on Twitter. Two days after that statement, the incident occurred.

Official Statement pic.twitter.com/AsAnabEJGm

— Honkai Impact 3rd (@HonkaiImpact3rd) April 22, 2021

However, as of this posting, it is still unclear what the attacker’s actual motives for trying to kill miHoYo’s co-founders are. Many of these claims about the attacker are only speculated or based on hearsay. Some people claim that the man who tried to attack miHoYo’s co-founders was because of the inclusion of the bunny girl outfits and the events related to them, or the removal of said outfits and events from the Chinese server. Some people have speculated that the assailant wanted to kill miHoYo’s founders as an act of revenge for mistreating the Chinese playerbase in favor of the international players.

Unfortunately, people attacking studios and their personnel due to perceived dissatisfaction and hatred has been an unfortunate occurrence. In July of 2019, a man set Kyoto Animation’s studio on fire via an arson attack, which killed 33 people and resulted to a lot of lost properties, which was a heavy setback to Kyoto Animation because of the tragedy. For miHoYo in Shanghai, fortunately no one was harmed during said incident and it only resulted with one man being arrested for the attempted murder of miHoYo’s co-founders.

This is an on-going investigation.