NIKKE Dev Shift Up Reportedly Fires Two Feminist Employees — Chinese Community Roasts Sunborn's Yu Zhong: 'He Can't Fire Himself, Can He?'

Shift Up, the Korean studio behind the mega-popular gacha shooter NIKKE: Goddess of Victory (胜利女神), reportedly fired two employees over their feminist activism. But when this news landed on China's NGA gaming forum, the comments section went completely off-script — instead of debating Shift Up's management decisions, users collectively turned their sights on Yu Zhong (real name Huang Chong), the head of Sunborn Network and the man behind the Girls' Frontline franchise. The roast session was absolutely brutal.

The original post shared a Bilibili video by the channel '老猫游情报' (Old Cat Gaming Intel), titled 'Rejecting Political Correctness: Did the Stellar Blade Studio Fire Feminist Employees?' — linking to b23.tv/YUfAWlM. The NGA post title simply read 'Yu Zhong, take notes' (羽中好好学学), with the implication crystal clear: look at how the Korean studio handles things, now look at yourself.

The comment section turned into a full-blown roast session. The first reply delivered a devastating one-liner: 'He can't learn — you can't fire yourself' — implying Yu Zhong IS the core feminist figure at his own company, so firing feminist employees would be self-termination. Reply #2 doubled down: 'He can't fire anyone because he IS the ringleader' (钕拳, a derogatory slang for radical feminism in Chinese internet culture). Reply #3 used a classic meme format: 'He can't exactly fire himself and his slaves (星奴, slang for loyal followers), can he?' — suggesting the entire Sunborn crew shares the same ideological DNA.

The top-voted comments went even harder. Reply #4 used heavy sarcasm: 'Yu Zhong-ge would only think there aren't ENOUGH feminists. If the entire company were feminists, wouldn't this whole mess just go away?' — pushing the logic to its absurd extreme. Reply #5 offered an unhinged but wildly popular suggestion: 'Huang Chong should keep hiring more feminist employees and push out all the normal ones — that way he's both talent-exporting to competitors AND collecting all the trash in one place. I'd call it the industry's Demon Sealing Pagoda (锁妖塔).' This metaphor — borrowed from Chinese mythology — resonated massively with upvotes, perfectly capturing the frustration certain players feel toward Sunborn's internal culture.

Users also dug up old receipts. Reply #6 referenced a well-known controversy: 'Yu Zhong liked Yang Li's Weibo posts' — complete with a '.jpg' suffix as if presenting evidence. Yang Li is a Chinese stand-up comedian famous for her 'men are so ordinary yet so confident' joke that ignited a massive gender war online. Yu Zhong publicly liking her content has been weaponized by critics as 'proof' of his ideological leanings, and it gets brought up every single time a related controversy surfaces.

Reply #8 quoted the earlier comment and fired back: 'Why doesn't he just go make otome games?' (乙游, romance games targeting female audiences) — implying that if he loves feminism so much, he should make products for that audience instead. Reply #9 made a surprisingly nuanced point: 'Honestly, if Yu Zhong could hire feminists, make feminist games, AND get feminists to whale (spend heavily), I'd put him on a pedestal.' Replies #10 and #13 shot that down: 'Feminists and money-spending can't coexist,' and someone added that several infamous 'feminist' accounts on Chinese social media were actually men farming outrage for profit — a practice known as '收米打拳' (cashing in on feminism).

Reply #16 took the discourse to another level: 'I hope Chinese gamers quickly evolve from "no males in my gacha" (有男不玩) to "no females on the dev team"' — referencing a popular boycott slogan among male-oriented gacha game players in China, where fans protest the inclusion of male playable characters. The implication is that this exclusionary mindset is now extending from in-game content to the real-world composition of development teams.

Reply #18 posed a pointed question that resonated with many: 'I've always wondered — why don't these feminists just start their own company and make their own games? Why do they always infiltrate mainstream or male-oriented game studios? ...At the end of the day, making a great game is what earns you respect, not stirring up trouble.' Reply #19 kept it simple: 'Didn't they know what the company made before they joined?' Meanwhile, Reply #15 went full meme economist: 'Oh no, NIKKE account prices are about to skyrocket' — joking that this kind of anti-woke stance would only boost the game's market value.

As of now, the source of this claim is primarily a Bilibili video and social media reposts — Shift Up has made no official statement on the matter. But regardless of whether every detail checks out, the NGA comment section's explosive reaction paints a vivid picture: a significant portion of Chinese male-oriented gacha gamers are hypersensitive to anything touching feminism, and deeply frustrated with domestic studios they perceive as ideologically compromised. As for whether Yu Zhong will ever respond? Almost certainly not. After all, the very first reply already delivered the perfect punchline: you can't fire yourself.