The head of Alibaba Holding GroupThe entertainment company apologized to employees for its controversial remarks rejecting a video game performance of the unit and denigrate the Cantonese dialect, gone viral in Chinese social networks during the weekend.
Fan LuyuanChairman and CEO of Alibaba Digital Media and Entertainment Groupadmitted that he was “out of step” with these comments, adding that he only wanted to “liven up the atmosphere” during a meeting with the employees of the subsidiary Lingxi Gamesaccording to an internal press release published Saturday on Alibaba’s intranet.
During the meeting, Fan, a member of the Alibaba partnership and also chairman and CEO of Hong Kong-list Photos from Alibaba – critical Canton– based on Lingxi Games for “losing its way under the leadership of the previous management team”.
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“I don’t think you have the value system, mission and vision of Alibaba,” he said, adding that employees should reevaluate what the group stands for.
Fan said the studio failed to innovate beyond the hit mobile game Three Kingdoms Tacticss or launch other major titles, which has weakened the unit’s competitiveness over the past three years. “A game without innovation for five years is nothing,” Fan was quoted as saying by Chinese media.
He has also been quoted in reports as saying that Cantonese is a “dialect for barbarians.” Cantonese is widely spoken in the southern province of Guangdong and the autonomous region of Guangxi on the continent, as well as in Hong Kong And Macau.
Images of mobile game titles published by Lingxi Games. Photo Lingxi Games alt=Images of mobile game titles published by Lingxi Games. Lingxi Photo Sets>
To make amends, Fan said in his online statement that he would donate three months of his salary to a team-building fund for Lingxi Games employees.
Despite Fan’s apology, his earlier remarks continue to spark discussions online about his ability to pass judgment in an industry where he is known for his lack of experience.
Fan’s controversial comments came months after Lingxi Games – known as Ejoy before its acquisition by Alibaba in 2017 – underwent significant personnel changes. Zhan Zhonghui, one of Ejoy’s three co-founders, stepped down as director of Lingxi Games in March, replaced by Tactics of the Three Kingdoms producer Zhou Bingshu.