A mobile game that once pulled in over ¥10 million monthly saw its revenue crash by more than 90% after swapping planners — bottoming out at just ¥800K. And the dev team's response to the backlash? Mass-delete criticism posts, ban players, and shut down comment sections. Welcome to the current state of Shanhai Jinghua's "Return" edition — an operational meltdown more dramatic than the game's own storyline.
Let's rewind. Shanhai Jinghua was originally developed by Xingliu Studio under Yoozoo Games. Years ago, it launched as a blatant Onmyoji (阴阳师) clone — so much so that even its shikigami, skill designs, and skill-up materials looked like Onmyoji assets with new skins slapped on. The original version shut down after a short and rocky lifespan. Later, with a game license (版号) in hand, Yoozoo resurrected the game, even releasing a documentary on Bilibili about how much the team cared about character design and how they'd do things right this time. Sounds sincere, right?
Spoiler: it wasn't. The relaunched version hemorrhaged players due to outdated marketing, near-zero content output (literally zero events during National Day and New Year's), and a nonstop parade of bugs. Revenue slid from ¥10M+ at the September launch all the way down. After bringing in a new planner, things got even better — in reverse — hitting a floor of ¥800K.
So what exactly did this new planner do to nuke the game so thoroughly? Here's a player-compiled list of anti-player decisions, each one a precision strike on paying players' patience:
First: the 160-pull reward that guaranteed a current banner SSR selector box? Gone. Replaced with random SR shards. Second: the hard pity system? Removed entirely. After your first soft pity, every pull is a coin flip with no safety net. Third: the SSR rate was secretly nerfed from 2.5% to basically requiring pity to pull anything. Not even a heads-up to players.
Fourth: they dropped a massively overpowered PvP character called Xingtian (刑天) — a single unit that could wipe entire teams. Players begged for a nerf. The devs' answer? Sell a paid exclusive weapon to "counter" it. Then they power-crept that weapon out of relevance with new characters, turning PvP balance into an utter joke.
Fifth: the previous planner had promised a Qishu (奇术) system — essentially free skill upgrades for characters. That was scrapped and replaced with "Shenwu" (神武), which is basically whale-tier paid weapons. A promised free feature converted into a monetization hook. Players were furious.
Sixth: the PvP matchmaking system is a work of absurdist art. They split it into auto and manual modes — manual can't find matches, auto just devolves into Xingtian vs. Xingtian slugfests. Level 60 newbies get matched against level 100 veterans. Win a match: +0 points. Lose a match: -75 points. And here's the kicker — there's an actual bug where winning sometimes costs you points too.
The result of this masterclass in community destruction? Comment sections flooded with negativity across every platform. Players who posted long complaint threads on TapTap got their posts deleted and accounts banned. One player made a full "Shanhai Jinghua Planner Documentary" video on Bilibili out of sheer rage. The game's Bilibili page is even sadder — official posts get single-digit replies, sometimes zero comments for hours.
The final straw came when the official Bilibili account posted an update, and the very first comment was a player's mockery. The thin-skinned community manager had a full meltdown, closing comments and hiding the post entirely. The classic "if we can't see it, it doesn't exist" PR strategy.
The NGA comment section, meanwhile, served peak entertainment value. One commenter quipped, "You played this after it already failed twice — isn't that on you?" Another sighed, "Just do another resurrection, there'll always be new suckers lining up to throw money at it." Someone else asked the real question: "How does something like this still pull ¥800K in revenue?" — because even ¥800K seems generous for a game in this state.
One commenter who knew Yoozoo's history dropped a devastating rundown: Yoozoo is the company whose CEO was literally poisoned, and their claim to fame was the Youth of the Three Kingdoms (少年三国志) series — ancient-era P2W mobile games where power came straight from your wallet. Their advice? "Avoid anything from this company on sight." They added, "I can't fathom why anyone would spend money on this trash. If you're going to play a game like this, at least play Onmyoji — at least when you quit Onmyoji, you can sell your account on Cangbao Pavilion and recoup some losses. Who's buying an account for THIS game?"
Another player nailed the recurring playbook: "The game's original launch relied on compensation from server crashes to attract players with generous freebies. Once they had the audience hooked, the freebies dried up. The resurrection followed the exact same script — big marketing push, lure you in with a welfare wave, then pull the plug." Same scam, different day.
One particularly savage commenter called it "Cyber Myanmar" (a nod to the notorious scam compounds) and said its ¥10M opening revenue proves that "this is exactly what the playerbase deserves — respect, blessings, and lock the key." When players compare your game to an international fraud operation, you know trust has evaporated completely.
As things stand, Shanhai Jinghua's "Return" has effectively failed. The planner keeps making anti-player moves, the community management keeps getting worse, and whatever trust remained is long gone. The only real question left is: when does the third resurrection cycle begin? Given this game's tradition of shutdown-resurrection-cashgrab loops, the circus probably isn't over yet.
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