Perfect World CEO and co-CEO resign after mass layoffs

Perfect World CEO Xiao Hong and co-CEO Lu Xiaoyin have resigned from their positions following mass layoffs at the company.

According to a company announcement and reports by Chinese media, the media conglomerate has appointed senior VP Gu Liming as the new chief executive of the company.

Hong and Xiaoyin will reportedly continue on as directors of the company.

Perfect World has confirmed the news of the resignations to PocketGamer.biz but did not provide any further comment on the matter.

Mass redundancies

The news comes a month after multiple sources claimed Perfect World laid off as many as 1,000 employees across its offices in Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu and other cities.

Reports also said the recently launched One Punch Man: World and in-development Perfect New World had ceased production. A source from the company disputed these claims, however.

As we previously noted, One Punch Man: World has still not been updated on the App Store and Google Play since April.

Financial woes

Perfect World’s Q1 2024 financials saw the company report a net loss of ¥29.8 million ($4.1m).  That represented a fall of 112.33% year-over-year from ¥241.3m ($33.2m) in Q1 2023.

Operating income, meanwhile, fell by 30.2% Y/Y to ¥1.32 billion ($182.9m).

As previously reported, AppMagic data estimates show that Perfect World Mobile gross revenue on the App Store and Google Play fell by 56.9% year-over-year in 2023 to $106.6 million.