Genshin Impact fan wiki operator may be having second thoughts about datamining after Cognosphere unleashes the lawyers, says it 'will only update live game data in the future'

Genshin Impact banners - Aino — (Image credit: miHoYo)

Cognosphere, better known to most of us as HoYoVerse, has opened a new front in its long-running war against leakers by suing Jianuo "HomDGCat" Zhou, the operator of the HomDGCat wiki. The lawsuit, available via Aftermath, alleges that Zhou "has engaged in a sustained, coordinated campaign to steal and publicly disseminate Cognosphere's confidential, trade secret information and copyrighted materials" related to Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail.

The lawsuit claims HomDGCat obtains content for the wiki "through improper and illegal means," including asking testers to violate their NDAs and provide access to beta packages. In one social media message, included in the filing, HomDGCat wrote, "If you are in Genshin Impact beta or Star Rail beta, and would like to provide files to assist me in my datamining and research, you are welcome to message me at t.me/hom_dgcat. I will inform you of how to get the beta's download link, which is all I need. I will not know your identity and will not leak the links you give me to anyone else."

Asking people to spill the beans seems like fairly small potatoes to me—and honestly, I feel like if you break your NDA because I asked you to, well, that's on you, pal. But beyond that, Cognosphere alleges that HomDGCat then circumvented the systems used to protect the material—the datamining used to actually extract the information—which is a bigger deal.

Cognosphere claims that between September 2023 and December 2025, "Zhou published and disseminated thousands, if not tens of thousands, of pieces of unreleased content from the Cognosphere games," including character art and various pieces of text and dialog. By doing so, Cognosphere says, Zhou has reduced public interest in official Cognosphere announcements, given competing game makers "insight and knowledge about Cognosphere's confidential plans," and infringed on its copyrights.

Interestingly, Cognosphere says it sent multiple takedown requests to Zhou, and he actually responded at least once, on December 29—but it was not the response Cognosphere was looking for. Zhou said he disagreed with the claims against him and would only comply with some of Cognosphere's demands; he did not agree to stop datamining, and "all or nearly all" of the materials posted to the HomDGCat wiki are still up.

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Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.

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