{"id":51566,"date":"2025-09-02T02:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-01T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/?p=51566"},"modified":"2025-09-01T18:42:34","modified_gmt":"2025-09-01T09:42:34","slug":"he-should-step-back-from-management-and-concentrate-on-game-development-activist-investor-of-major-japanese-mobile-developer-launch-website-dedicated-to-firing-the-ceo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/he-should-step-back-from-management-and-concentrate-on-game-development-activist-investor-of-major-japanese-mobile-developer-launch-website-dedicated-to-firing-the-ceo\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cHe should step back from management and concentrate on game development.\u201d Activist investor of major Japanese mobile developer launch website dedicated to firing the CEO"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Japanese game company GungHo Online Entertainment, best known as the developers of the long-running mobile game <strong>Puzzle &amp; Dragons<\/strong>, has been facing quite the turbulence since the beginning of this year, with aggressive criticism and pressure from shareholders urging for CEO Kazuki Morishita\u2019s dismissal. In a recent move, Strategic Capital, an investment fund that holds a stake of around 8.5% in GungHo, launched a <a href=\"https:\/\/stracap.jp\/3765-GUNGHO\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">special website<\/a> dedicated to publicly explaining why Morishita should be fired from his position (as reported by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.itmedia.co.jp\/news\/articles\/2508\/28\/news122.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">ITmedia News)<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This comes in anticipation of an upcoming extraordinary shareholders\u2019 meeting set for September 24. As a representative of GungHo\u2019s shareholders, Strategic Capital launched the new website, proposing a strategy to \u201crevive GungHo from being a one-hit-wonder\u201d (the activists believe that the company is too reliant on the success of Puzzle &amp; Dragons). In order to achieve this, Strategic Capital emphasizes that it is necessary to dismiss Morishita as the CEO and remove him from the board of directors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The waves of pressure from Strategic Capital started back in January this year, with the investment fund <a href=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/all-youve-done-is-waste-100-billion-yen-japanese-gacha-game-giant-put-on-blast-by-shareholders-for-milking-same-hit-for-13-years-while-releasing-failures\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">making an official proposal<\/a> highlighting numerous issues and advocating for reforms to win back shareholder trust. Morishita was notably criticized for significantly increasing his own salary despite the company\u2019s operating profit and market capitalization declining over the past 10 years. Following GungHo\u2019s rejection of the proposal, in July 2025 Strategic Capital made<a href=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/activist-investor-of-major-japanese-game-developer-requests-dismissal-of-ceo-calls-him-unqualified-and-completely-unaware-of-his-responsibilities\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"> another public request <\/a>for the CEO\u2019s dismissal, suggesting the company\u2019s decade-long decline was directly incited by Morishita \u2013 citing \u201cfailure to delegate creative authority to the right people\u201d and \u201clacking awareness of his responsibilities as the President and CEO\u201d as just some of the issues on top of the already mentioned ones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignfull size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"615\" height=\"346\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 615px) 100vw, 615px\" src=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/20250901-515660001.jpg\" alt=\"GungHo logo.\" class=\"wp-image-51569\" srcset=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/20250901-515660001.jpg 615w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/20250901-515660001-380x214.jpg 380w\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The new website launched in late August this year once again summarizes all of these alleged issues, citing GungHo\u2019s net cash to market capitalization ratio as being 91%, the highest out of around 50 Japanese game companies. The company was also ranked as the game company with the least prospects for the future. \u201cIf Morishita was truly a talented game creator, in order to utilize his talent to its full potential, he should take a step back from managing the company and concentrate on game development, this would also be for GungHo\u2019s sake,\u201d Strategic Capital commented. Doubling down on the comment, the investment fund cited Yoshi-P\u2019s statement on stepping down as a director of Final Fantasy XIV, suggesting that there should be a clear line between what a company president, a director and a creator does. Morishita shouldn\u2019t juggle between the three roles but rather settle on being a game developer, the shareholder implies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While GungHo\u2019s board of directors previously rejected the shareholders\u2019 request for Morishita\u2019s dismissal, it is yet to be seen if the aggressive public pressure and the upcoming shareholders\u2019 meeting will have any effect on the future of the company. On a related note, in a separate case, GungHo has already faced severe losses after one of its employees <a href=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/japanese-game-company-executive-embezzles-2-35-million-by-sending-fake-outsourcing-job-orders-to-themselves\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">embezzled more than $2 million USD,<\/a> with Morishita himself facing a 30% salary reduction penalty for the incident.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An activist investment fund created a website dedicated to firing the CEO of GungHo, holding him responsible for the company&#8217;s decline.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":79,"featured_media":51568,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_gspb_post_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[17],"class_list":["post-51566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-japan-related-news"],"blocksy_meta":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>\u201cHe should step back from management and concentrate on game development.\u201d Activist investor of major Japanese mobile developer launch website dedicated to firing the CEO - AUTOMATON WEST<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"An activist investment fund created a website dedicated to firing the CEO of GungHo, holding him responsible for the company&#039;s decline.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/he-should-step-back-from-management-and-concentrate-on-game-development-activist-investor-of-major-japanese-mobile-developer-launch-website-dedicated-to-firing-the-ceo\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"\u201cHe should step back from management and concentrate on game development.\u201d Activist investor of major Japanese mobile developer launch website dedicated to firing the CEO - AUTOMATON WEST\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"An activist investment fund created a website dedicated to firing the CEO of GungHo, holding him responsible for the company&#039;s decline.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/he-should-step-back-from-management-and-concentrate-on-game-development-activist-investor-of-major-japanese-mobile-developer-launch-website-dedicated-to-firing-the-ceo\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"AUTOMATON WEST\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-09-01T17:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/20250901-51566-header.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"668\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"338\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"\u0110or\u0111e P\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@AUTOMATON_ENG\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@AUTOMATON_ENG\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"\u0110or\u0111e P\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"\u201cHe should step back from management and concentrate on game development.\u201d Activist investor of major Japanese mobile developer launch website dedicated to firing the CEO - 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