DnF Mobile will no longer be available on some Android platforms from Thursday, according to a notice released on Wednesday by the game’s operating team. The affected app stores – including those of Huawei, Oppo, and Vivo – were identified on the same day in a report by Chinese media outlet 21st Century Business Herald, which cited anonymous sources.
Adjustments in Cooperation
The DnF Mobile team recommended that new users on Android systems download the game from its official website amid “adjustments in our cooperation with certain app stores”. As such, these users would still be able to complete a major upgrade scheduled on Thursday within the game’s app. Tencent did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.
Dungeon & Fighter Mobile is a multiplayer, action role-playing video game based on the personal computer title Dungeon & Fighter Online, which was first released on the mainland in 2008.
Flare-Up Between Developers and Distributors
The removal of DnF Mobile from those Android platforms marks the latest flare-up between large game developers and publishers like Tencent, which runs the world’s biggest video gaming business by revenue, and major mainland distribution channels, as gamers increasingly focus on a small number of popular titles.
Such a dispute spilled into public view on January 1, 2021, when Huawei announced it had removed Tencent’s mobile games from its app store. That move shocked netizens on the mainland at the time because Huawei then accounted for 43 per cent of the domestic smartphone market and many of its users played popular Tencent video games such as Honour of Kings.
Tencent’s games subsequently reappeared after a few hours on Huawei’s app store, with both sides claiming that their dispute was solved “after friendly negotiations”. Neither Huawei nor Tencent offered an explanation for what happened. Android app store operators on the mainland are known for sometimes taking up to 50 per cent of a video game’s revenue as commission.
