Genshin Impact Fanwork Guidelines Revealed

miHoYo has clarified their stance with Genshin Impact fanworks policy, setting the boundaries for things like cosplay, fan arts and other works based on their popular and very profitable gacha game.

Here is miHoYo’s stance on fanworks, translated, in full:

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Permitted scope of derivative works (own works only)

Creation and various operations of illustrations, doujinshi, manga, novels, etc.
Creation of cosplay costumes, various activities using cosplay, and various operations thereof.

Prohibited items

Use for commercial purposes, whether paid or unpaid.
Use of materials (illustrations, videos, audio, music, logos, marks, etc.)
That which is judged to be extremely damaging to the image of the Company or the Content, or injurious to the honor or dignity of a third party.
Any use of content that is excessively offensive to public order and morals or that contains anti-social expressions
Any use of collaborative works for which the copyright belongs to a third party
Any other unexpected or secondary use that is deemed inappropriate.

The contents of the guidelines are subject to change without notice. The contents of the guidelines are subject to change without notice. Please be aware that we cannot be held responsible for any damages caused by the revision of the guidelines.

While the text used is very broad, its not uncommon to many other fanwork guidelines by companies with popular characters. Essentially, normal types of fanwork such as fanart, fancomics and even fanfiction are all generally allowed, especially if you’re just making them for yourself or sharing them with friends.

Similarly, miHoYo’s lawyers won’t come after you for cosplaying the characters, or making meme videos while in Genshin Impact cosplay. In theory this should also come under any fan animations as well, so basically if you’re your average run-of-the-mill creative fan, you should be in the clear.

Where the Genshin Impact fanworks policy gets you though, is in its banned items. It explicitly calls out commercial use of the Genshin Impact IP, meaning you can’t go around be making money off of the work. There’s a lot of debate to be had here about things like whether this means you can’t run ads on your fan animation, or other similar tier list and other analyses would count to this definition.

The main thing to be wary of on this list is the third and fourth points, which basically gives miHoYo carte blanche to come after works they don’t like. If they deem your work is counter to the values of miHoYo, don’t be surprised if you’re asked to take it down. The fact that they haven’t given samples of what they might not agree with is particularly dangerous here, since it’s still technically up in the air if things like erotic cosplay would fall in this category.

Fanwork policy isn’t unique to Genshin Impact, as many games straight up ask artists not to sell merchandise based on these IPs. The developers of Among Us famously did so last year as the game was getting big, and for the most part many fans have played nice with their rules.