{"id":55720,"date":"2026-01-13T22:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-01-13T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/?p=55720"},"modified":"2026-01-13T15:52:17","modified_gmt":"2026-01-13T06:52:17","slug":"japanese-gacha-giant-gungho-gets-new-ceo-following-months-of-pressure-from-activist-investors-lowers-presidential-salary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/japanese-gacha-giant-gungho-gets-new-ceo-following-months-of-pressure-from-activist-investors-lowers-presidential-salary\/","title":{"rendered":"Japanese gacha giant GungHo gets new CEO following months of pressure from activist investors, lowers presidential salary"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Japanese game company GungHo Online Entertainment, known as the developer of long-running mobile game Puzzle and Dragons<\/strong>, and more recently, as publisher of Nihon Falcom\u2019s Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter, has announced a change in administration on January 9, 2026. According to the official notice<\/a> by the company, current president and CEO Kazuki Morishita will be stepping down from his role, becoming Chief Development Officer and Chairman of the Board of Directors instead. This comes only a couple of months after a long campaign led by activist investors advocating for Morishita\u2019s removal from the position.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ever since January 2025, activist investor Strategic Capital has maintained a firm stance about Morishita\u2019s dismissal<\/a>, stating that it is a necessary step towards \u201creviving GungHo from being a one-hit-wonder.\u201d Throughout the past year, the investors have been actively criticizing the CEO for \u201clacking awareness of his responsibilities,\u201d citing \u201cfailure to produce a hit for 13 years since the release of Puzzle and Dragons,\u201d and Morishita having a salary higher than Nintendo\u2019s CEO, as some of the many issues within the company.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Puzzle<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In September, GungHo officially rejected Strategic Capital\u2019s aggressive proposals to fire Morishita, arguing that his removal \u201cwould significantly damage corporate value.\u201d But only four months later, the CEO decided to resign. While it hasn\u2019t been disclosed whether his decision was influenced by the activist investors\u2019 campaign, the company writes that Morishita stepped down from his role as CEO and President in order to \u201cdevote himself more fully to directing and overseeing game development.\u201d Starting from February 1, 2026, the position will be taken over by GungHo\u2019s current CFO and Executive General Manager of Finance Accounting Division, Kazuya Sakai.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Citing \u201cthe company\u2019s recent performance,\u201d GungHo has also revised their remuneration system<\/a>, resulting in lower salary payouts compared to \u00a0fiscal year 2024. Notably, total remuneration for the presidential role in the previous fiscal year was about 288.4 million yen (around $1.8 million USD), while after the revision, the amount is estimated to shrink by about 63%, to 107.7 million yen (around $678.3k USD). The company describes the new system as a \u201cperformance-linked restricted share remuneration system,\u201d which doesn\u2019t allow payout of stock-based remuneration unless the comparative total shareholder return (TSR) growth rate is above 100%. As reported by GameBiz<\/a>, GungHo has been seeing a continuous rise in stock prices following the two announcements, especially attracting market attention thanks to its remuneration system revision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Related articles:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Square Enix\u2019s major shareholder drops 100-page presentation criticizing how the company is managed, rallies other shareholders\u00a0
<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Activist investor of major Japanese game developer requests dismissal of CEO, calls him \u201cunqualified and completely unaware of his responsibilities\u201d\u00a0
<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Japanese game company GungHo recently announced that CEO Kazuki Morishita will be stepping down from his role to focus on game development.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":79,"featured_media":55722,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_gspb_post_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[261,17],"class_list":["post-55720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-financial-news","tag-japan-related-news"],"blocksy_meta":[],"yoast_head":"\nJapanese gacha giant GungHo gets new CEO following months of pressure from activist investors, lowers presidential salary - AUTOMATON WEST<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Japanese game company GungHo recently announced that CEO Kazuki Morishita will be stepping down from his role to focus on game development.\" \/>\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\/japanese-gacha-giant-gungho-gets-new-ceo-following-months-of-pressure-from-activist-investors-lowers-presidential-salary\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Japanese gacha giant GungHo gets new CEO following months of pressure from activist investors, lowers presidential salary - 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