Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

Thanks to CTOnews.com netizen South China Wu Yanzu for the clue delivery! CTOnews.com June 23 news, beautiful girl three elimination game "Mirror 2" launched PS5, price 78 Hong Kong dollars (CTOnews.com remarks: currently about 72 yuan), PS + membership price 54.6 Hong Kong dollars (currently about 50 yuan), publisher is HONG KONG SAKURA GAME LIMITED.

Mirror 2: Project X development team KAGAMI II WORKs announced bankruptcy on March 9, and development work on subsequent chapters of the game will be suspended indefinitely. The development of Novastella Island and DancingSim has been terminated.

The announcement said unconditional refunds would begin for all users who purchased Novastella Island and DancingSim from now on. Click [Help]-[Steam Customer Service] in the upper left corner of the Steam client, and find the corresponding product and select [I want to apply for a refund](users who play for more than two hours and have more than 14 days can also get a refund). These two products will also be removed within 4 weeks after this announcement, please complete the refund application as soon as possible before the game is removed.

Bankruptcy announcement original text:

Dear gamers, I am sorry to meet you in this way.

Due to the huge impact of the September 30 incident last year, the development team has been bankrupt and disbanded, and the development of subsequent chapters of Mirror 2: Project X will be suspended indefinitely. We hope to complete the development of subsequent chapters in the future when we have the ability, and the game will remain in the current Early Access state until the development is completed; the follow-up development plan of Novastella Island and DancingSim has also been terminated.

After communicating with Steam platform, we will immediately start unconditional refunds for all users who purchased Novastella Island and DancingSim. Click [Help]-[Steam Customer Service] in the upper left corner of the Steam client, and find the corresponding product and select [I want to apply for a refund](users who play for more than two hours and have more than 14 days can also get a refund). These two products will also be removed within 4 weeks after this announcement, please complete the refund application as soon as possible before the game is removed.

In addition, Mirror 2: Project X is currently about 30% refundable, so please rest assured that we will continue to refund all refunds.

As of today, Mirror 2: Project X (including DLC) has sold 4.2 million copies, with pre-tax revenue of more than 18 million, accounting for only 37% of R & D costs. Each chapter requires dozens of people to develop for three months, with an early cost of 6 million and a later production pipeline that costs 4 million.

Failure to meet the needs of players leads to negative reviews, which is indeed our problem and should suffer the consequences. However, we must clarify the false charges of "illegal fundraising fraud" and "illegal collection and sale of player privacy information."

At the beginning of Mirror 2, our original intention was to put the player experience first, make significant progress in play, plot, graphics, music, etc., and keep the price low. The development cycle of Mirror 2 is very long. From 2019 to 2022, four versions were made: LIVE 2D version, U3D realistic version, UE4 realistic version and UE4 cartoon rendering version. The time and cost of overturning each version is very high. All the nuances, such as the soundtrack, we also try our best to achieve the ultimate: each character has a vocal theme song tailored to the story, in addition to Japanese also added Chinese and English versions, not only in the production of a lot of difficulties, but also added a lot of extra costs.

When we made the U3D realistic version in 2020, we launched crowdfunding. Although crowdfunding failed, we were very touched by the encouragement of more than 3000 players, which is also the source of motivation for us to overcome difficulties and persist. A few days before the EA release, we sent a free game KEY to everyone who participated in the crowdfunding as a thank you.

January 21, 2022 Mirror 2: Project X EA release is our highlight moment: 600,000 copies sold on the first day, 2 million copies sold in the first month (including paid DLC;COSPLAY and original DLC are free during the launch). The pre-tax income of the first month was 8 million yuan, recovering 1/3 of the initial research and development cost. At the same time, however, the popularity of the broken circle has caused great trouble. We continue to receive warnings from relevant departments that we are operating illegally, and we have not stopped yet. Under the focus of attention, we have modified and deleted the online and subsequent development content. In August, the creative workshop was blocked, and the last road was blocked.

September 30,2022 "A letter to players" announcement released, we really stupid out of the sky: did not tell the truth frankly, also did not expect to contact Steam first to ask if you can help refund, spent 3 weeks to build a refund website, and through Alipay to strangers transfer the information needed is mistaken for stealing privacy...

In short, everything from this day began to accelerate the collapse, we expected to harvest a large number of bad reviews, but also expected the word of mouth will decline. But what we really didn't expect was that our sincere refund behavior would make players feel like we were "selling player privacy information," and even someone had said confidently,"My Steam account has been stolen, it must be these people." The speed at which the incident developed surprised us. It took only a few days for us to go from some people venting their emotions to most of the Internet's online violence against us. Some members of the team continue to receive harassment and personal threats; scenes of a team member taking children outside have even been secretly photographed and posted online; WeChat, telephone, home address, etc. of some team members have also been posted online by human flesh...

In any case, everything will eventually return to calm. But we still take this opportunity to say to our former team partners scattered all over the world: Sorry, we failed you.

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