Genshin Impact developers remove imagery that almost gets staff killed, Kotaku reposts them

Two days ago, the website Sina reported that a man was arrested after showing up at Genshin Impact developer Mihoyo’s Shanghai office in an effort to murder the people working on the game, and then himself.

According to Sina, the inspiration for the attack was a recent in-game event that features costumes for the female characters in “bunny girl” outfits. Many people were upset with this but the images of these fan-favorite characters suddenly dancing in bunny costumes was, apparently, enough to make this guy want to end people and himself. Not the best take but I’m glad he was arrested before anyone was actually hurt. Note: Don’t attack people. Period.

Luckily, Genshin Impact cares about their employees and, not wanting to mess around with a repeat event and to keep their employees safe, Mihoyo removed the event and imagery related to the event. They also posted an apology.

While I’m absolutely against game developers changing things because people threaten them (more against the threatening part and giving villains power), I absolutely understand why they did this. No one’s life is worth a bunny suit.

So the event was gone and the offending imagery was taken down. The world could move on.

For a day.

This morning, however, Kotaku’s Brian Ashcraft felt that maybe a little danger is fun and not only dug up the removed imagery but posted them in an article about the attack. You can see it shown below with the actual image replaced with a stock image of a pizza dabbing because it’s not like I’m going to ruin its integrity.

Why is this a big deal?

Well first off, have you noticed that I didn’t post any of the images? If I tell you Nintendo created an event in which Mario was dressed like Ivy from Soul Calibur, I wouldn’t need an image for you to paint that visual in your head right? You could probably, and unfortunately, visualize it.

Not Brian though. He posted that mess right up there.

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This is big because despite being the video game equivalent of The National Inquirer, which exists mostly to gather revenue through daily Amazon ads, it’s still heavily relevant in the public eye. In other words, a lot of people looking into this event will see that.

And before you think this is targeted at just Kotaku, it’s because it absolutely is. IGN covered this without using the imagery. Gamesrant, Thegamer, Gamersgrade, EVEN Comicbook managed to cover this without using the imagery that caused this. Heck, I covered this AND a second topic in this article and I never showed the image. Need I remind you of Mario Ivy? No? You’re right.

I’d contact Kotaku for a statement but if they’re anything like they were back in the Jason Schreier era, I’ll probably just get Twitter blocked.

Long story short. People almost died. Be better than this.