Alibaba studio pulls top game from Vivo’s app store after similar move by Tencent

The cooperation between strategy game Three Kingdoms Tactics and the Vivo app store had ended, Alibaba’s Lingxi Games said in a statement published earlier this week, without elaborating on the reason. The game will be removed on March 7, and users will no longer be able to log into the game through Vivo’s app store, according to the notice.

The Guangzhou-based studio apologised to players for the inconvenience. Users can apply for refund of unused game credits, the company said.

Vivo declined to comment on Friday. Lingxi, which was acquired by Alibaba in 2017, referred the South China Morning Post to its earlier statement. Alibaba owns the Post.

Launched in 2019, Three Kingdoms Tactics has been a commercial success, raking in more than US$1 billion in the first two years of release. It was the eighth-highest-grossing mobile game in Apple’s China App Store last November, helping Lingxi secure the fifth spot among Chinese mobile game companies ranked by global revenue, according to data from analytics firm Sensor Tower.