Wang Zijie Passed Away: Founded SNH48 Group and Jiuyou Network, Introduced Audition

Text by Liu Shiwu

On April 16, Siba Media issued an obituary, confirming that its founder and chairman, Wang Zijie, passed away due to illness in Shanghai on April 14 at the age of 63. This entrepreneur, who straddled the two generations of waves in the online game and idol industries, witnessed the rise and fall of his career, which reflected the crucial transformation of China's interactive entertainment industry from agency and introduction, to localized exploration, and finally to competition in original content.

Image source: Siba Media's Weibo

Wang Zijie was born in 1963, with his ancestral home in Ningbo, Zhejiang. After working in the US game industry and studying in Japan, he joined Konami after his early studies in Japan. This experience helped him accumulate rich industry resources and a broad perspective, and he also obtained Japanese citizenship.

Wang Zijie (Image source: Internet)

In 2003, Wang Zijie founded Jiuyou Network in Shanghai and successfully represented the South Korean online game "Audition".

"Audition" was a product that defined an era. At its peak, this game became a popular hit that dominated Internet cafes all year round, successfully pushing Jiuyou Network to the front - line camp of the industry and sharing the dividends of the online game market explosion with companies like Shanda and The9.

However, the huge commercial success of "Audition" made Jiuyou Network develop a path - dependence. The company thus anchored its strategic focus on agency operations for a long time and successively introduced or represented many domestic and foreign online games. But when the company later tried to launch self - developed products such as "Divine Weapon Legend" and "Warriors Online", the market response did not meet expectations.

Meanwhile, over - reliance on a single product also brought huge risks. The social and cultural disputes caused by "Audition" and the subsequent deadlocked renewal and revenue - sharing negotiations with the South Korean developer continuously consumed the company's energy and resources.

In 2016, the mobile game version of "Audition" (later renamed "Audition Era") launched by Jiuyou Network was distributed by NetEase. This game was the last hit product launched by Jiuyou Network. The official website data shows that the number of registered users reached 600 million, but it has been officially announced that it will stop operating on June 1, 2026.

As the game entered the decline stage of its life cycle and no new pillar products emerged to take over, the decline of Jiuyou Network became inevitable. This was not only the dilemma of Jiuyou Network but also marked the growth bottleneck of the "single - hit - product agency - driven" model, which was also a transformation problem faced by companies like The9 at the same time.

After the growth of the game business slowed down, Wang Zijie applied his keen business sense to another field. In 2012, he founded Siba Media and introduced the "face - to - face idol" model of Japan's AKB48 to China, creating the local female idol group SNH48.

This transformation was a successful re - positioning. The "theater performance + general election" model of SNH48 opened up the then - blue - ocean idol - training market and successfully launched popular artists such as Ju Jingyi, forming a unique closed - loop of fan economy.

However, in recent years, Siba Media has frequently made headlines due to legal disputes with many of its core artists over contract revenue - sharing, personal development and other issues. In March 2026, the public dispute with top artist Ju Jingyi over tax issues exposed the company's hidden problems in artist management, financial regulations and public image.

Wang Zijie's passing is another case of an entrepreneur's early death due to illness in the industry recently. From a macro perspective, his experience provides a sample for observing Internet entrepreneurship in a specific stage of China: by having insights into overseas mature models and mature localized operation capabilities, one can quickly seize market gaps and achieve explosive growth.

However, when the dividends of the business model reach their peak or the external environment changes, whether a company can make the leap from "opportunity capture" to "system construction" and from "single - hit product" to "sustainable innovation ability" becomes the watershed for the long - term development of the enterprise.

The story of Jiuyou Network is about the end of the agency era; while the story of Siba Media is about exploring how the localized idol industry can achieve sustainable and standardized development. Wang Zijie's career witnessed the rise and fall of these two emerging industries.

This article was first published on "36Kr Games".