Chinese Internet Giants are canceling more than 60 major projects this year alone. Over 26 games by Tencent and 6 by NetEase will never see the light again.
Mobile games have a short shelf life. When revenue goes below a critical line (even if it's still making a decent profit), they would normally face the inevitable fate, and the remaining fanbase would often feel abandoned. However, in Japan, this company, Mynet, revives dying game projects for a living.
Dying Games Saved by Mynet
At the recent CEDEC 2022, the largest Japanese Game Developer Conference, Matsumoto Keishi, President of Mynet, shared Mynet's unique mindset and business model.
Matsumoto Keishi at CEDEC 2022
Mynet was founded in 2006 and transferred its focus to game development in 2012. They survived in the game development industry with a few mediocre games, but by all means, their game never went big. In 2014, Mynet performed another transition into the publishing and operation line of work.
Mynet quickly thrived in this new niche market. By the end of 2020, they had acquired and operated more than 50 dying games, and this number increased to 80 by the end of 2022.
Report from Mynet
Till now, Mynet has already handled multiple large IPs, including "Yakuza Online," "Monster Legends," and "Daisennran! Sankokushi Battle". As the first official organization that created the "secondary business-transfer agency" business model, Mynet faced few barriers to entry.
List of Games by Mynet
Since Mynet does not have a development team, these games face the common problem of not having enough new content updates. However, for most fans, just being able to log back to their accounts brings enough joy. As more and more mobile games fall beneath the event horizon, this new market segment is undoubtedly interesting to look out for.
Source: GameLook