Interface News Reporter | She Xiaochen
The "anti-corruption storm" of Internet giants continues, and this time NetEase Games is the leading role.
On November 7th, according to Phoenix Technology, NetEase Games has recently launched a strict internal investigation into corruption, involving multiple executives in the marketing department. Xiang, the general manager of NetEase Games' marketing department, and others have been taken away for investigation. According to the report, most of the executives who were taken away this time came from the marketing department, and the amount of investigation into the incident may reach hundreds of millions of yuan. Affected by the incident, the screensavers of internal employees have been automatically replaced with compliance slogans.
On November 8th, NetEase's public relations department responded to Interface News, stating that NetEase's anti-corruption efforts have never stopped. At the same time, they mentioned that due to the ongoing investigation of the case, it is inconvenient to disclose specific information, and NetEase will report it at an appropriate time. The money laundering and other rumors circulating online are purely rumors. NetEase has arranged to report this to the police and called for "no rumors, no belief in rumors, no rumors".
An advertising industry insider who has long served the gaming industry told Interface News that what advertising agencies do for gaming products may involve many chains. From the beginning of the launch to preheating, and then to market research and media placement, there will be deep cooperation. Even if the game company has a "self investment" team, it will work closely with agents to complete game promotion and other tasks. The cooperation and payment cycles involved in this process are relatively long, which may provide more "space" for corruption.
According to information circulating online, the individuals who were taken away for investigation this time include five executives, including Jin from the channel center, Wu from the marketing department, Xiang, and Zhang.
Among them, Xiang joined NetEase in 2013 and was responsible for marketing products such as the PC and mobile games of "Journey to the West", "Wilderness Action Plus", "Minecraft", and "Battle! Peaceful Capital". However, according to 36Kr's report, the executives surnamed Wu and Zhang mentioned in the online rumors both posted on their gaming product related moments after the incident, implying their own "safety".
On the evening of November 7th, Zhang Haixing, who is in charge of the "Guangyu" product, was rumored to have posted a debunking message in the comment section of the original report on Phoenix Technology. He stated that he is doing well and hopes that everyone will pay attention to the game products that will be launched in the future.
Screenshot of official account of Phoenix Technology
The gaming business has been the backbone of NetEase for a long time. In the second quarter of 2024, the net revenue of games and related value-added services was 20.1 billion yuan, accounting for nearly 80% of NetEase's total revenue.
With such a huge revenue scale, the gaming industry as a whole is facing compliance challenges. In February of this year, the official official account of the Anti fraud Investigation Department of Tencent Group announced that in 2023, Tencent found and handled more than 70 cases of violating the "Tencent High Voltage Line", involving more than 120 employees being dismissed, and nearly 20 people being transferred to the public security organ for suspected crimes.
In January of this year, Lilith, one of the "Four Little Dragons" of Shanghai gaming, issued an internal notice stating that its employee Liu was summoned and under investigation by the public security organs on suspicion of illegal behavior. After interrogation, Liu admitted to having significant financial dealings with suppliers during his tenure and was criminally detained that night on suspicion of embezzlement.
In fact, it is not just the "money making" game industry. In the past few years, the Internet giants that have been moving towards stable development have been focusing on the internal and anti-corruption issues.
As early as 2017, JD joined forces with Tencent, Baidu, Lenovo, Meituan and other enterprises to launch the Sunshine Integrity Alliance. The Alliance said that it aims to fight against corruption, fraud, counterfeiting and shoddy goods and information security crimes through the Internet, so as to jointly improve the performance ability of the internal control departments of alliance members and the professional ethics construction of employees.
However, since 2017, it is just the time period for Chinese Internet companies to move from high-speed development to slow growth. China's Internet penetration rate has risen from 54.3% to 78%. At the same time, large companies have started a wave of layoffs in the past two years, and organizational management has become an equally important keyword as business growth.
In 2023, not only Tencent, Meituan, Tiktok Group and other major Internet companies announced their anti-corruption work summary in 2023, and their efforts are still strengthening. In the first half of 2024, Tiktok Group investigated and dealt with 125 cases of fraud violations. The Group also announced 8 cases transferred to justice in the first half of 2024 due to commercial bribery, fraud or job occupation, involving e-commerce, life services and other business sectors.