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Puzzle & Dragons to be shut down in China eight months after launching

Two years of development, eight months active life

Puzzle & Dragons to be shut down in China eight months after launching

Puzzle & Dragonsdeveloper GungHo is to close down the China version of the game on March 15th 2017.

The localised version of the game was co-developed with China-leader Tencent. It was first launched in the region on July 29th 2016, meaning it will have been active for just eight months before being closed.

The release was announced back in December 2014. Contributing Editor Jon Jordan wrote at the time that "it will be interesting to see whether the success of games that have sprung up to fill the gap left by Puzzle & Dragons' absence in China mean that the originator fails to generate its expected returns".

Falling revenues

GungHo saw its revenues and profits tumble in its Q3 FY16 financials. Revenues were down 29.6% year-on-year while profits dropped by 43.4% year-on-year.

As a result, it said it would focus on releasing games globally instead of developing for local markets and then slowly pushing the games worldwide.

Puzzle & Dragons has seen some relative success outside of Japan. It surpassed 11 million downloads in the US in November 2016 and was estimated to have generated $300,000 in October 2016 from its English-language release.


Staff Writer