Food Fantasy Shutting Down — Dev Claims Player Data Trapped by Tencent, Players Mass-Report to Consumer Protection Hotline

A mobile game that once raked in over 100 million yuan per month is now shutting down — and the developer is claiming they can't even get their own player data back from the publisher. This isn't a shitpost; this is what Food Fantasy (食物语) players are living through right now.

Tencent-published, Baitian-developed gacha game Food Fantasy recently announced that its publishing agreement with Tencent is expiring, with servers scheduled to go dark on June 18. The community went absolutely nuclear. Players organized across Weibo's Super Topic (超话), in-game chat, and multiple fan strategy groups, rallying everyone to file mass complaints with China's 315 consumer protection hotline.

The juiciest part? A leaked black-background screenshot claimed that 'Tencent has already set up an emergency response team' to handle the situation — though nobody can confirm if it's real. The original poster was also confused about why players' rage was directed at Baitian (the developer) rather than Tencent (the publisher).

The poster also shared screenshots of Tencent's game service terms, hinting that the ownership of player data is a legal gray area. Users mentioned that the Southeast Asian server (Singapore/Malaysia) is also affected, and the global version may have been published by Bilibili, though this remains unconfirmed.

Then on April 25, the bomb really dropped. Baitian released an official statement that straight-up said: 'Player data is held by Tencent and cannot be retrieved,' and 'Tencent's publishing revenue split was too high, causing losses.' This escalated the drama from 'game bad' to a full-blown corporate war over data hostage-taking and unequal profit splitting.

The comment section delivered peak entertainment. One top-voted reply went for the jugular: 'Players claiming Tencent maliciously suppressed revenue to force the shutdown — I don't want to sound dismissive, but I literally LOL'd. If the game was making money, what company would voluntarily shut it down?' Brutal, but fair.

However, others provided more nuanced takes. One commenter explained that Food Fantasy isn't a typical self-published game — it involves a revenue split dispute between Baitian and Tencent. 'Tencent kept earning while Baitian kept losing money, so the losing side pulled the plug.' Some insiders even claimed that Baitian deliberately removed all monetization points (gacha, paid items) as a 'kamikaze' move to force Tencent to agree to the shutdown.

The pushback was equally fierce. Another high-voted reply dismantled the narrative: 'This game hit ¥100M monthly revenue in its first two years, then they added limited SP characters plus the 'Wooden Donkey' incident (a controversial game mechanic) that drove away self-respecting players. Revenue dropped to single-digit millions per month — even Tencent wouldn't care about that kind of money.' Someone else corrected the timeline: 'It peaked at launch, then it was a straight downward slope' — not the sustained success players claimed.

Some old-timers got emotional. One wrote: 'I'm genuinely impressed — these players (predominantly female fanbase, colloquially called 集美/jiměi) are so united. If only male players of certain other games could organize like this against THEIR company's BS.' Others recalled previous 'jiměi complaint brigades' that became legendary in Chinese gaming circles. Meanwhile, the usual suspects couldn't resist trolling, joking that the next target would be 'mixed-audience games that give away male character skins for free while charging premium prices for female ones.'

The core conflict is crystal clear: the developer says the publisher is being greedy, the publisher says the game isn't profitable enough to keep running, and players are caught in the middle — losing both their game AND their years of account data. Whether the 315 complaints will actually produce results remains to be seen. But one thing's for sure: this level of player solidarity has earned some serious respect, even from skeptics.

Pro tip from the comment section that's actually worth saving: one user shared their 315 success story — got scammed out of ¥300 on a resale platform, customer service stonewalled them with a ¥100 coupon offer, but the moment they filed a 315 complaint, they got a full refund instantly. The moral? Don't just suck it up — sometimes consumer protection actually works.