For many players, the suspension of their favorite game is undoubtedly bad news.
For many players, the suspension of the love game seems to have nothing to do with themselves.
Because they don't play at all, even female players, most of them are kings, eating chicken, and very few go to the game to fall in love with the husband of the paper person.
So, embarrassed!
In early February, the mobile game "Too Busy", which has been in operation for more than two years, issued an announcement, saying that the game will stop operating on May 8, the server will be closed, and all account data and character information in the game will be emptied.
As soon as the news came out, it quickly caused heated discussions among the player community.
Different from the huge discussion splash caused by the suspension of "World of Warcraft" and "Hearthstone".
Once a game with relatively unpopular positioning and niche is suspended, players are often more likely to fall into a passive situation due to factors such as weak voice and insufficient sound rights protection mechanism.
According to public information, "Too Busy in Charge" is the first antique otome love mobile game developed by Beijing Huaqing Feiyang Network Co., Ltd., which was launched in August 2020.
Two years later, "due to various force majeure factors, it has become more and more difficult for us to support the operation of the entire project. On February 7, the production team of "Too Busy" announced that in view of the actual difficulties of the project, it decided to stop operations and clear the data.
Are users' data, information, and virtual items wiped out?
In fact, in the same period last year, there was also a sensational unpopular, niche game suspension incident.
On February 24, 2022, the 3D love dress-up mobile game "Yunchang Yuyi", developed by Xishanju and published by Tencent Game Agency, issued a notice of closure, providing other mobile game gift packages as a "compensation" plan for users who have paid in the game and have leftover props in the game.
The turning point of things comes at the annual March Day Five.
On March 18, the official micro of the China Consumers Association released a news that I would have paid attention to the problem of the "cloud clothes and plume" game reflected in the consumer's comments.
12 days later, on March 30, the official micro of the China Consumers Association released the news again: After the attention and promotion of the association, "Yunchang Yuyi" issued an announcement to suspend the suspension process and continue to provide game services.
Yunchang Yuyi official micro-synchronization also issued a non-stop service announcement, and announced that "the in-game related services provided to users in the future will no longer be paid, and users can still experience the game normally." ”
Will it repeat the story of a year ago?
Why is it all this love style game that causes controversy?
In this regard, Liang Ruxin, a reporter from the New Express News, had an exchange with Shule, and Poor Dao thought:
There is no unbroken banquet, and the suspension of the game will indeed bring certain disputes over virtual items, but the specific situation may not be one-sided.
First, in addition to the suspension of operations due to agency disputes such as World of Warcraft, most of the outage games themselves are also entering the end of their lives and lack of profitability, most players have long since withdrawn from the service, and the remaining players have long expected the suspension of the server, and the general dispute is not large.
Second, whether the game virtual items have property attributes is still controversial, and under the model experience of free games and props payment, users have the right to use the purchased props, and it is often difficult to do more constraints on rights.
Therefore, the player's claim to the game rights and interests, under the endorsement of such two states, becomes naturally weak and rude.
In reality, the contradiction between game manufacturers claiming ownership of game data and players claiming ownership of virtual property has not been resolved in the two decades since the rise of online games.
The only solution can only be the final definition given by the law, which can determine the rights and obligations of both parties.
The ownership of game data belongs to the manufacturer, which is beyond reproach, but whether the virtual item is a property, whether the player has ownership in addition to the right to use, has not been finally defined, and the contradiction is unsolvable without relevant cases.
The fact that virtual items are not property has become a consensus in the game industry at present, and it also makes it impossible for players' virtual property claims to be finally implemented.
From the perspective of the market as a whole, "Too Busy" is not the only game that chose to stop due to operational difficulties and other reasons.
Since 2022, there are "Apocalypse of the Book of Illusions", "Labyrinth of the Luna God", "Dream Walking" and "LoveLive! A number of similar games such as "School Idol Festival" announced the discontinuation.
It is not for nothing that this phenomenon is concentrated in such genres that are distinctive in terms of two-dimensional and romantic style.
Games that focus on aesthetic two-dimensional wind, themselves in the vertical category, the number of users is not outstanding, must be similar to Mihayou's original god out of the circle, in order to be able to fight for a long time.
Female gamers, for such homogeneous games, are generally indifferent, even if the love style and paper husband are rich, they lack special attraction.
In fact, Mihayou's Honkai series, which is also two-dimensional, failed to finally break the circle, which limited development.
Although it is the top in two-dimensional games, it was less known by players other than two-dimensional fans before the appearance of Genshin.
As for the player's appeal non-stop, or the fire "Cloud Clothes Plume" story, it is actually not feasible.
After the service is stopped, it also retains the single-player openable state and achieves "immortality", even if it is not considered technically feasible, it will still incur maintenance costs and update costs when the operating system with the game is upgraded.
In the past two decades of development of domestic online games, thousands of closed and served games, and even developers or agents have died in the tide, who can guarantee that game data is really "immortal".
Author Zhang Shule, columnist of People's Daily and People's Posts and Telecommunications, expert of CEI Media Think Tank, senior TMT industry commentator, newly published book "Self-media Writing from Beginner to Proficient" (Tsinghua University Press).