Hit-Point's 95% take killed Travel Frog China — a 7.6M-DAU hit exits

In 2018, Travel Frog — a Japanese idle game with no Chinese localization and no marketing — became China's biggest mobile craze, peaking at 7.63 million daily active users and spending weeks atop the App Store free chart. Alibaba's gaming arm moved fast: subsidiary Lingxi Games (灵犀互娱) took the China license, and rather than just localize, rebuilt the game from zero — maps of China, new art, furniture crafting, diary stories, weather and seasons. The Chinese version out-developed the original; Hit-Point's own Japanese version stopped updating about two years before the Chinese one did.

The license terms made the work nearly worthless. Once the Chinese version stabilized, Hit-Point demanded 95% of game revenue — 'for historical reasons' — leaving 5% for the team doing all development and operations, per employee accounts in Chinese media. A plan to buy out the China IP for an eight-figure-RMB sum was agreed, then retracted at signing in favor of an annual fee. Merchandise was the escape route: by 2022 co-branded products covered payroll. From 2023 approvals crawled — a plush and China Post gift box ready in 2023 never cleared, and even a Weibo post needed a month's notice.

By 2024 the project team was down to two or three people, with customer service cut in June. On September 8, 2026, the official account announced the game ceases on December 8: the IP license had expired and renewal talks failed. A person close to Lingxi told Southern Metropolis Daily the IP side demanded terms harsher than the current deal and stripped Lingxi's right to run co-brand events and merchandise — the two channels that kept the project alive. Recharges stopped that day; servers close at 18:00 on December 8, when all account data will be wiped.

The China version — heir to a 7.63M-DAU craze — dies Dec 8, 2026; eight years of Lingxi's rebuild and all player data get deleted.

Hit-Point priced the license off its 2018 viral fame, not the ongoing value Lingxi created — the split was justified only by 'historical reasons'.

Merchandise sat outside the 95% split, so the licensor moved to cap that channel too, trading the licensee's survival for control of the brand.

Approval culture: every asset, event and even social post needed Hit-Point sign-off, with month-long turnarounds that made profitable ideas unshippable.

The licensor never priced its alternative: at a 5% share, the partner's rational endpoint is shutdown — taking the IP's entire Chinese market with it.

A license is worth what the licensee can earn. Set a 95% take and veto every side channel, and you don't collect more — you collect a shutdown date.

As of September 10, Lingxi said it was still negotiating with 'utmost sincerity', and players are petitioning Hit-Point for data exports and an offline version. Refunds cover clover bought with real money in the final three months. Chinese gaming commentary was unsentimental about the cause: the same year the frog dies, Chinese-made games hold six or more slots in Japan's top mobile revenue charts — leverage in Sino-Japanese game licensing has flipped since 2018. Hit-Point kept 95% of a shrinking revenue pool and lost 100% of its largest overseas market.