On November 22nd, the influential and classic music mobile game Rhythm Master, which had been out of business for more than a year, announced its return.
The official WeChat account of the game announced that a small-scale closed alpha test would be conducted in the near future, limited to Android devices and 10,000 players, lasting for seven days.
A screenshot of Rhythm Master’s announcement
On February 5th, 2021, Rhythm Master announced that it would terminate service at 3 PM that day after nine years of operation. After that time, players were unable to log in, and the game was removed from major app stores.
The operation team explained that the early technical structure had gradually been unable to maintain the normal operation of the game.
This time, the game’s "return countdown" means that the original game license will continue to be used, and a large-scale optimization of the previous version will be carried out.
A screenshot of Rhythm Master
Rhythm Master was launched in 2012. That year, the game topped the free list of the Apple Store within three hours of its release. The game's most attractive feature was the ranking system, where players could compete with their friends on the same stage. It soon became very popular and encouraged fans to play more rhythm games.
In the past few years, Tencent and NetEase have been retreating from less profitable niche markets to focus on their major titles. According to media statistics, Tencent ended the service of 28 games, such as The Legend of Qin Mobile and King of Conquest, in the first half of this year.
However, while old games are being removed from the app stores one after another, there’s still no sign that regulators will ease the restraint on new titles. With many new big projects trapped in limbo without a publishing license, major game companies have had to look back and see if they can still milk some value out of the games that have already ceased service but still have a valid publishing license.
Apart from Tencent’s Rhythm Master, YOOZOO's self-developed 2D mobile game Myth of World also officially announced its restart in March this year, and this is clearly becoming a trend.
YOOZOO's Myth of World officially announced its restart in March this year.
Another interesting phenomenon was that after some games were abandoned by their publishers, the developers and players were unwilling to give up on the games. Bringing them back by appealing to the consumer association. There were also some producers who restarted games and ran them at their own expense.
Recently, games like The War 2061, Raziel, Fashion Cloudy, Cat of Spirit, and more have all found their way back after being shut down by their publishers.