- Pay is average for the industry and few opportunities to get promoted.
- Lack of work-life balance. Overtime is expected and normalized here, and you will be viewed as a slacker if you try to enforce your boundaries. Expect 996 culture here.
- Upper management lack direction and vision, and have no idea where they are going with their games. They’re still riding the high of Genshin’s success in 2020 and don't know how to properly globalize their games while other devs are catching up.
- A lot of nepotism and office politics as bosses and senior managers will only give important projects and tasks to their close friends and favourites rather than those who can actually get the work done well. There is no trust in anyone working remotely outside of Shanghai, and most Shanghai-based teams will refuse to divulge any information that may impact their KPIs. This makes pushing any processes extremely difficult.
- There is a lot of tension within teams too. I have experienced being yelled at, bullied by seniors, being deliberately left out of important work chats, and having my work stolen at the last minute by senior team members. HR cannot help you either as the disconnect between Shanghai and Singapore HR essentially means your complaints go nowhere.
- Layoffs are still happening frequently, but they are doing it under the table and in such a way where they can avoid paying out severance or giving employees what they are due after years of working at the company. There is an incredible lack of professionalism and many violations in the way hiring and firing is done in this company, and the company has come under fire by the manpower ministries many times for violating work pass limitations. Be aware that if the company is hiring many interns and fresh grads that you are simply there to pad their work visa numbers, and you will be easily replaced when they no longer need you.
- TLDR; If you are not from the Shanghai office, you will not gain equal access to opportunities here. Even if your Mandarin is excellent, you will not be treated the same. Don’t be blinded by the cool IPs and brand name; Hoyoverse has proven year after year that it does not respect foreign talent or ideas and will do anything in the name of profits and keeping central power at HQ. The founders pay a lot of lip service to globalizing and being more “international-minded” but keep falling back on the same outdated formula and mindset. I cannot in good conscience recommend any fresh grads to work here, as you will quickly be disenchanted with the gaming industry and your own abilities when in reality, it is the company that is toxic and sets you up to fail.
