Welcome to the HYV* Boycott Page!

We advocate for positive change in the HoYoverse games we love to play

Campaign: Say No to Whitewashing

Tagline: Advocating for Authentic Representation in Media

Key Issues: Cultural appropriation, whitewashing, and misrepresentation in media of indigenous people.Objective: End the practice of whitewashing and cultural appropriation in HoYoverse games

*HoYoverse (HYV)

Sign the petition!!

About

What made the boycott happen:
The HYV Boycott first became necessary in version 3.0 of Genshin on Sumeru’s release in August 24, 2022.
Why the boycott is happening and what made it offical:
The HYV Boycott is happening due to the whitewashing and culture erasure that HoYoverse has created within their games Genshin, Honkai: Starrail (HSR), and even their new game Zenless Zone Zero (ZZZ).
More info about the boycott:
Voice actors of Genshin, HSR, and other games, as well as content creators, have spoken up about the whitewashing and cultural appropriation.
What to achieve from this boycott:
Since Sumeru came out, a large number of people have been disappointed to see HoYoverse’s racist, unrepresentative views of cultures and people that inspired their characters. Unfortunately, this objection was ultimately drowned out and became only somewhat noticeable to the community. Now, with the release of the Natlan teaser trailer on July 12th for the 5.0 version, a group of people came together to protest against HoYoverse’s characters that should be represented in multiple, diverse cultures but instead have been whitewashed by HoYoverse.

History

Past boycotts:
A boycott took place in August of 2022, for the release of Sumeru 3.0. The boycott didn’t progress very far in effecting change, but people have continued that conversation since then.
More occurrences of misrepresenting other cultures and whitewashing in the game:
The first major occurrence of whitewashing in Genshin was with the release of Sumeru, when all the characters who were from the cultures of (look up Sumeru characters ethnicity)

Issues & Impacts

Issues in-game:
Whitewashing: Misrepresentation of characters in cultures of diverse ethnic backgrounds, depicting them as light skinned or white
Cultural appropriation: Using minority cultural elements without there proper acknowledgement or respect; changing cultural deities names
Impacts on the community:
Reinforces harmful stereotypes: misrepresentation perpetuates negative and inaccurate views of cultures
Undermines cultural heritage: Diminishes the value and visibility of rich cultural histories
Marginalization: Continues the pattern of excluding and disrespecting indigenous and marginalized communities

Demands List

HoYoverse is urged to:

- Revise existing content to ensure accurate representation, including and not limited too:
HI3: Needs to address Carole Justice, as she is the only black character within the game; while she also, in-game, has mentioned or been described that she has bleached her skin
Genshin: In or before the 5.0 version release, Natlan and Sumeru’s characters' skin color will be updated to be ethnically and culturally appropriate to the country/region that the inspiration was taken from for the characters, allowing them to have accurate and authentic representation in game of the nations depicted
HSR: In or before the 2.4 version release, Penacony’s characters skin color will be updated to be ethnically and culturally appropriate to the country/region that the inspiration was taken from for the characters designs, allowing them to have accurate and authentic cultural representation in game of the planet/region depicted
ZZZ: Needs to remove blackface that is in the background on a poster board in the game
- Engage with indigenous cultural consultants
- Commit to creating diverse and inclusive characters

Image(s) of blackface from ZZZ

FAQ

If you have any questions, please ask on our form below*:

*We will do our best to respond within 24 hours

Q: Is your group qualified to talk about this issue/are you BIPOC?
A: Yes! We are a very diverse group of (mostly) adults who are either black, indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC), or are large supporters of the boycott; we are all in different countries and speak a wide variety of languages.
Q: I've signed the petition, but I want to help out more. What can I do?
A: Contacting customer support/emailing them or review bombing their games is another way you can help us out.
Q: What is the overall signature goal, and what will happen once it’s reached?
A: Once our goal reaches ~100k signatures, we will be sharing the petition, plus a full press kit that we have created and written to cultural and indigenous ambassadors, news outlets, and possibly legal advisors; to allow them to help us on a higher scale than we are.
Q: Is it okay to buy resold official HoYoverse merchandise? (ex. sunsyea on shopee)
A: Since resellers have already bought the merchandise before you; buying merchandise that is resold is okay, that is as long as HoYoverse makes no profit off of the purchase.
Q: Can I commission fan creation or pay a person to pilot my accounts?
A: Yes, you can. Fan creation and pilots do not directly interact with Hoyoverse's economy, thus it is not a boycott target.
Q: Why should I support this movement that suddenly appeared now?
A: The members of our group have all advocated for change to be made regarding the game since Sumeru, but we all did this individually and little was done because of it. Few outside our own circles even knew this was happening, evidently. It has been wrong for years, but our tactic has changed.
Q: Is this backlash for Natlan’s teaser stronger and louder compared to when Sumeru was announced?
A: We think that this time since we are a larger team behind the boycott–who are staying in communication with each other–that we will be able to achieve this and we will have change. Since Sumeru had died out, Natlan was, for a lot of people, the “last straw”. This is why Natlan’s teaser has been attracting way more attention in this matter–even though the same thing happened in Sumeru. We just have to keep pushing! The team is working hard on many things behind the scenes that will hopefully help see this situation resolved.
Q: Why is the boycott voiced to only be “F2P” and not to fully quit the games?
A: We have seen this going around a lot, HoYoverse makes their games free to play by default, the only way they earn any income is when players make in-game purchases, merchandise, and top-ups. If people went free to play, it would hurt them financially to gain zero profit, making it hard to keep the servers for the games up and online. If this were not the case, then yes, we would have encouraged people to stop playing the game.