miHoYo Allegedly Buys Sponsored Posts on Genshin Leak Subreddit That Bar Owners Cannot Delete — Ads Shoved Directly Into Users' Home Feeds

miHoYo has officially dropped all pretense — the company allegedly purchased sponsored posts on Baidu Tieba's 'Leaker Bar' (内鬼吧), a subforum dedicated to game leaks and insider info, filling them with uncritical character hype and force-pushing them into users' home feeds. The bar owner? Can't even delete them.

The whole thing came to light when a user posted about it on NGA, showing evidence that miHoYo had placed commercial/sponsored posts (商单贴) in the Leaker Bar — posts that mindlessly shill for in-game characters. What makes it extra spicy is that these posts weren't just sitting in the subforum; they were actively pushed to other users' Baidu Tieba homepages via the recommendation algorithm.

Here's where it gets truly absurd: when players went to the Leaker Bar to verify, the small moderator (小吧主) reportedly confirmed they couldn't do anything about it. These sponsored posts appear to be protected by Baidu's official ad system — meaning the entire mod team is literally powerless to remove them. miHoYo didn't just buy a post; they bought a post that the local community cannot touch, period.

Eagle-eyed players also spotted that the guerilla marketing extended beyond just the Leaker Bar — these posts were pinned at the Baidu search level too, suggesting a full-scale SEO and content push, not just some casual forum post.

The NGA comment section went absolutely feral. One user wrote 'Holy sh*t, miHoYo really isn't stingy with the marketing budget,' while another said they'd 'never heard of sponsored posts (商单贴) being a thing on Tieba despite using it for years.' Veterans quickly educated them — commercial posts have always existed. The old mods of Math Bar (数学吧) literally got removed by Baidu for deleting one.

Some users pointed the finger at NGA itself: 'So is NGA still banning leak content as a joke?' — the implication being that miHoYo is openly running marketing ops on Tieba while NGA volunteers are doing free content moderation for the company. Pretty embarrassing.

Digging even deeper, players found that the leaker community channels (likely Bilibili-based leak info accounts) had also purchased ads for the latest game version. miHoYo was apparently running a full-court press across every platform — not even the leak community's traffic was safe from being co-opted.

One commenter's burn was particularly scathing: 'With this kind of money, couldn't they just optimize the game mechanics?' Another offered a more philosophical take — 'Don't treat miHoYo with business logic. Think of it as them using every trick to lure users in, then slapping them in the face with full-on cringe once they're hooked. miHoYo isn't after money; they're after the satisfaction of forcing their marketing down everyone's throats.' Harsh words, but the underlying sentiment — money spent on marketing instead of product — resonated with a huge chunk of the community.

As of now, miHoYo has not officially commented on the sponsored post situation. Baidu Tieba has also stayed silent. Meanwhile, the NGA comment section has moved from anger to full copium mode: 'The more miHoYo spends on censorship, the happier I am. Posting is free, but deleting posts costs money. I can waste miHoYo's budget with free speech and feel like I've won.' Looks like the real winners of this marketing disaster might be the players who spent nothing while making the company spend everything.