Casual game marketplace Legacy Games will shut down its online store on December 31, 2026. After the store closes, disc download codes will no longer be redeemable and points, rewards, and Hero Club memberships will end, with the website and servers closing on February 28, 2027. Players will no longer be able to re-download previous purchases, though installed games can still be played on the same device.
Yu Huasong, head of Yoozoo Network's AI Innovation Institute Red Coast Lab, shared at the 2026 China Metaverse Conference that AI Agents have three major game applications: multimodal content generation, intelligent NPCs with memory and decision-making, and one-click game creation from an idea. He said AI now covers all six major scenarios and over 100 sub-scenarios within Yoozoo, and presented the content production system YOOLab and the development collaboration platform YOOSpark.
South Korean lawmaker 김재원 raised the case of SOL: Enchant topping the charts alongside roughly 300 million won in streamer spending during an Oct. 12 parliamentary audit, and is seeking to amend the Game Industry Promotion Act to bar publishers from improperly buying in-game items or paying third parties to do so in order to lift sales rankings. The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Game Rating and Administration Committee acknowledged no investigation was conducted, and current rules do not require separate disclosure of promotion spending. Netmarble said streamer promotion is one marketing method and that its contracts pay for marketing services, not for top-ups.
Apple has officially launched an "Indie Game Week," bringing seven well-known PC and console indie titles including Sifu, No Man's Sky, Vampire Crawlers and 9 Kings to iOS. Previous 3A ports like Resident Evil 4 Remake performed poorly on iPhone, with 357,000 downloads and about $208,000 in revenue after six months. Apple's 2019 Apple Arcade subscription ecosystem has largely withered, with natively developed mobile indies now nearly absent.
Sensor Tower data shows Honor of Kings remained the top-grossing mobile game worldwide in September 2026, while ROBLOX entered the global revenue top five and also topped both the revenue growth and download charts. Global mobile game spending reached $6.13 billion in September, down 7% month-over-month, with the US leading at 28.7% of revenue, while downloads totaled 3.56 billion, down 5.2%, led by India at 576 million. Tencent's Honor of Kings Chess ranked 7th on the revenue growth chart and 2nd on the download growth chart.
Apple published a China-only report on October 8 titled "China App Store Ecosystem — 2025 Developer and User Value Study," authored by antitrust experts Ju Heng and Markus von Wartburg. The report says the China App Store ecosystem generates about 4 trillion yuan annually with over 95% exempt from commission, and names miHoYo and NetEase as examples of developers using web stores and DTC channels to bypass Apple Pay. It also states Chinese apps accounted for 98% of domestic App Store revenue in 2025, with 52% of Chinese developers' App Store revenue coming from overseas.
GameLook argues that Hololive Dreams, launched on July 23, has reached Japan's top mobile revenue tier, with about $23 million in mobile revenue in August, prompting parent company COVER to raise its half-year operating profit forecast from 1.93 billion yen to 3.5 billion yen. The piece says the game mixes rhythm play, character growth, park building and multiplayer minigames, letting in-game events and streamer content feed each other. COVER and Aiming announced Hololive Mahjong -Holojan- on October 9 with 37 members, mobile and PC support and a release planned within the year, while ANYCOLOR announced a physical card game for December 26.
MMO mobile game in-app purchase revenue fell from $5.3 billion in 2021 to $2.8 billion in 2025, a 47% drop that far outpaced the RPG genre's 38% decline and the broader mobile market's 1% dip, according to an analysis by Naavik. Downloads also dropped 40%, from 345 million to 206 million, and revenue fell another 27% year-over-year from January to September 2026. The report attributes the structural collapse to engagement fatigue, spending fatigue and gameplay homogenization, compounded by open-world adventure RPGs like Genshin Impact raising the bar.
GameLook reports that overseas AI game-creation platform Astrocade announced 10 million monthly active users, double the 5 million MAU four months earlier, with users generating playable content from natural language; it raised 56 million dollars in May from investors including Sequoia, Sea, Google's AI Future Fund and Nvidia. Tencent's Huya listed the AI game generator BinkBink on GooglePlay, Google partnered with Unity on the AI game platform Playground, and Meta unveiled Horizon Create and Horizon Studio at Meta Connect 2026. The article notes none of these platforms has settled on monetization, with Astrocade saying it is focused on user growth and will consider revenue growth sometime next year.
NetEase has revealed ECC: Redline, a self-developed "extreme-sports tactical shooter" coming to PC via Steam and mobile, and players have called it a "1:1 rip" of Activision's Call of Duty: Warzone, citing similar gun feel, UI, sound effects, and camera blur. The free-to-play game has no release date, but some Call of Duty fans frustrated with Warzone say it could fill a specific void.
On September 28, China beat Malaysia 4-0 in the Honor of Kings final at the Nagoya Asian Games, defending the gold medal it also won at the Hangzhou Asian Games, with player Yinuo becoming the league's first and only double gold medalist. On October 8, Tencent TiMi's Delta Force announced its China server daily active users surpassed 58 million as the game marked its second anniversary. NetEase also unveiled its extreme sports competitive shooter Extreme Battlefield, with its first test set to begin on October 15.
Ubisoft Montreal said in an open letter on October 8 that Rainbow Six Mobile's international servers will shut down, staying open until January 15, 2027, with the next season still launching as planned next week and no further content updates after that. The game launched on February 23 this year, running for less than eight months. The piece notes that Tencent's 2024 license covers the multi-platform Rainbow Six Mobile, run domestically by its K9 team, while the PC title Rainbow Six Siege's China version received its license in January 2026 and began a second test round including paid content on September 15.
Delta Force announced on October 8 that its China server DAU passed 58 million, up from the 50 million reported in March. The piece traces its growth since launching in September 2024 and contrasts it with overseas extraction shooters, including KRAFTON ending development of PUBG: Black Budget on October 1 and Arc Raiders falling from a 481,000 concurrent peak to under 50,000 in June before recovering to 131,388 after the Frostline update on October 8. It credits frequent updates, cross-platform play and esports for the game's long-term run while noting a mismatch between overseas preference for PVE and domestic preference for PVP.
Ubisoft announced that Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Mobile is ending development and will shut down on January 15, 2027. The final season will still be released next week as planned. The free-to-play spinoff of the tactical shooter series launched globally this February.
European consumer protection authorities announced a series of coordinated actions against 10 video game companies, accusing them of dark patterns that put minors and players at risk of gaming addiction. The action, coordinated by the European Commission, focuses on practices such as premium in-game currencies that obscure real-world spending, selling virtual currency in set quantities that force overspending, and insufficient parental controls. The article cites Destiny 2's Silver bundles of 500, 1,000 and 1,500 units against item prices of 600 to 1,500 Silver, and notes Fortnite will let players buy the exact amount of V-Bucks they need starting October 14, a change also coming to Rocket League and Fall Guys but not PlayStation for now.
Ubisoft announced that Rainbow Six Mobile will officially shut down on January 15, 2027, less than eight months after its global launch in late February this year. Ubisoft did not attribute the decision to player numbers, saying instead that it aligns resources with the company's long-term strategic priorities; servers stay open until the shutdown date and the next season will still launch as planned, with refund and transition details to come in the coming weeks. The game has millions of downloads on Android and iOS, with Google Play showing over 10 million, and its development team members will move to other long-term strategic projects.
Ubisoft announced that Rainbow Six Mobile is shutting down, with the game playable until January 15, 2027. Ubisoft said the team will move on to other long-term strategic projects, and the game's next season will still launch as planned next week. Announced in 2022 and in development for six and a half years, the title was made by 11 Ubisoft studios with Tencent and had its worldwide rollout on February 23, 2026.
Ubisoft is sunsetting Rainbow Six Mobile, with the game set to shut down on January 15, 2027, while the next season will still release as planned next week. Announced in April 2022 and soft-launched in 2023, the game only fully launched in February 2026, and the dev team said it will move on to other long-term strategic projects.
Modern Sky's Game House teamed up with Haoyou Kuaibao to set up a game expo area at the Guangzhou Strawberry Music Festival that ended in late September, offering demos of over a dozen titles including Under the Fog Sea, Gui Huan and Hungry Wilderness, with Infinity and Lili's Little People Country also hosting reservation booths. Game House head Zhao Yue said music festivals need content to fill idle time while game expos struggle to give non-hit titles exposure, making the two a natural fit. Haoyou Kuaibao said it is targeting the 18-to-25-year-old general entertainment crowd who would not normally visit a game expo but might be interested in games.
Ubisoft announced that Rainbow Six Mobile is shutting down less than a year after its global launch. The free-to-play tactical shooter will remain playable until January 15, 2027.
Xiaohongshu's RED LAND event ran October 2-6 on Fuxing Island in Shanghai's Yangpu district, expanding from 80,000 to 150,000 square meters with over 160 game and anime IPs and more than 80 booths, both doubled from last year. miHoYo's Dawei Ge attended to promote the new game "Starry Valley," joining stage activities, a float parade, and meeting a physical robot of the game's AI cafe owner "Naluo," inviting players to try the game at public beta. The four miHoYo titles "Genshin Impact," "Honkai: Star Rail," "Zenless Zone Zero," and "Starry Valley" appeared together offline for the first time.
On September 30 the Consumer Protection Cooperation Network announced coordinated enforcement against nine companies including King, Supercell, Mojang, Riot Games and Ubisoft over how in-game virtual currency is sold and managed, with Crytek, InnoGames, Plarium Europe and PLR Worldwide Sales also named. The same day, Video Games Europe and EGDF jointly objected, questioning the legal basis and arguing in-game currency is not a crypto-like digital representation of value, saying they had asked for that basis since spring 2025 without reply. The dispute centers on whether in-game currency counts as a digital representation of value, which would make each in-game exchange a new consumer contract with its own 14-day withdrawal notice; the associations offered six commitments including clear real-money pricing and refunds for unused currency within 48 hours, conditional on resolving the legal uncertainty.
Ubisoft is shutting down Rainbow Six Mobile less than a year after the game launched.
Ubisoft announced on the game's official X account on October 8 that Rainbow Six Mobile will shut down on January 15, 2027, with the next season still launching as planned next week. First announced in 2022, the game ran betas through 2023 and 2024, was delayed to 2025, launched in Latin America and then globally on February 23, 2026, and drew millions of downloads on Android and iOS without holding players. Reviews cited operators locked behind paywalls and heavy grinding, while another Ubisoft mobile spin-off, The Division Resurgence, has fared little better.
Ubisoft announced that Rainbow Six Mobile will shut down on January 16, 2027. The game soft-launched in 2023 and fully rolled out in February 2026, giving it less than a year of full availability. The developers will move on to other long-term strategic projects, which Ubisoft did not specify, and more details on the game's final days are promised in the coming weeks.
Ubisoft announced it will sunset Rainbow Six Mobile in January 2027. The Android and iOS spin-off of Rainbow Six Siege launched about four years earlier.
The September WeChat mini game bestseller Top 100 saw its churn rate fall from 25% in August to 23%, with only Call of Duty Mobile (No. 43) newly entering the Top 50 — the fewest new Top 50 titles so far in 2026. Zombie Cannon and Crazy Water World held the top two spots, while simulation management took three of the Top 10; among publishers, 37 Interactive Entertainment led with 7 titles, with Tencent Games and Dameng Longtu tied at 5 each.
Bilibili's self-developed vertical-screen pet-catching game Shines! Lumi generated 50 million yuan in its first week on the app market, entering the iOS top-grossing TOP 20 before climbing into the top ranks of WeChat mini games. The game emphasizes a hand-drawn art style, vertical-screen idle play and automatic pet catching, with a core loop that lets players experience collecting within about five minutes. Bilibili supported the dual-platform launch with in-site promotion, KOL content and holiday ad spending, validating its self-developed game strategy.
China's National Press and Publication Administration published September approvals covering 206 domestic games and 3 imported games, plus 15 licence changes. Among the domestic approvals were 185 mobile titles, 2 client titles, 16 mobile and client titles, 2 mobile, client and web titles, and 1 game-machine title. miHoYo's Yuanchu Zhi Jie was approved for mobile and client, after an official QA said it would support PC at launch, while Zulong's Lord of the Mysteries: The Fool is a cross-platform RPG card game.
Astrocade, a free online platform built around AI-generated games and experiences, now has 10 million monthly users, up from around five million in just the last four months, CEO Amir Sadeghian told Gamesbeat. The platform lets anyone create games and interactive experiences with AI tools that other users can then play, similar to Roblox, and it is preparing to launch an iOS app while marketing heavily in the United States.
Modern Warships developer Artstorm has admitted that an independent artist's 2014 ekranoplan design was used in the game without permission. Rather than removing the copied ship, Artstorm said it will contact the artist directly to make things right. According to IGN, the ship costs between $50 and $100 in gacha spins, or as much as $700 to buy outright.
Final Fantasy VII Ever Crisis will shut down in fall 2026. Players will not have much longer to keep playing the game.
Artstorm, developer of Modern Warships, admitted it used independent concept artist Alex Jay Brady's ekranoplan carrier design as the basis for the in-game ship RF Bartini A-2000-7 without permission. The studio apologized to Brady on X and said it would contact him directly to make things right, while Brady waits to see what compensation is offered. Unlocking the carrier in-game requires $50-100 in gacha spins or roughly 7,000 to 15,000+ ArtCoins.
Free-to-play playtime is broadly flat as gacha RPGs drive PC growth, says Newzoo
A Newzoo report says free-to-play is not dying, with its share of playtime falling 2.9 percentage points to 29.3% between 2021 and 2025 while absolute hours remained broadly flat. Annual F2P live-service launches on PC and console fell 31%, from an average of 21.3 titles in 2020-2022 to 14.7 in 2023-2025. Gacha has become the main area of F2P growth on PC, with 17 major gacha titles in 2025 versus three in 2021 and PC gacha playtime up 92%.
Infold posted cocktail recipes themed around Love and Deepspace's male leads on X, using fire lily and datura—the signature flowers of Rafayel and Sylus—as garnishes, with datura being a psychoactive and potentially deadly plant. A follow-up tweet 36 hours later stated all drinks are fictional and for in-game purposes only, warning players not to recreate or consume them in reality.
Love and Deepspace developer Papergames posted non-alcoholic cocktail recipes inspired by in-game slimes, and followers warned that some ingredients, including Datura and colchicine, are toxic. Papergames followed up a day later, stressing the recipes are fictional and for in-game purposes only. The replies also saw players demanding that the werewolf Valko be added to the game.
Eggy Party ranked No. 6 on the iOS top-grossing chart as its "Twin-Star Editor" system, announced at its fourth creator conference, moved into practice with the origin editor and world editor running in parallel. Three groups of UGC creators have turned park maps into "independent UGC products" with monetization and long-term operation, and studio Modeman grew to nearly 20 full-time staff within 4 months of joining, with its second map's revenue up over 350% from the first.
Genius Sonority has announced that its free-to-play RPG The New Denpa Men will end service on 7th December, with in-game data such as Jewels and items no longer available and some refunds offered. The game launched on Switch in 2024 and got a Switch 2 version earlier this year, roughly eight months before shutdown.
The New Denpa Men to end service on December 6 https://www.gematsu.com/2026/10/the-new-denpa-men-to-end-service-on-december-6