Tencent Shuts Down QQ Tang Game 17 Years After Launch

Chinese internet firm Tencent announced Wednesday that its well-known game “QQ Tang” will officially cease operations in the Chinese mainland, and the game server was closed at 11 a.m. today. From this point on, users will not be able to log in to the game normally. In addition to the shutdown of the server, the game’s official website, newsgroup and exclusive customer service will also be closed.

“QQ Tang” is a leisure game launched by Tencent at the end of 2004, and it has now been operational for over 17 years. Rumors say that the game has been an abandoned project within Tencent for a long time now. The fact that the game could persist to today is reportedly the direct result of internal programmers’ love and voluntary overtime maintenance.

On the evening of April 19, many web users took to Chinese social media, bidding farewell to QQ Tang on the eve of its suspension. Many expressed strong emotions, such as the following statement: “It’s a game that accompanied me from childhood to adulthood.” Another wrote, “I had played the game from 2006 to 2014, I guessed that the game would stop operation, but I didn’t expect it to be today.”

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In December of last year, “QQ Tang” issued a shutdown announcement, saying that due to the strategic plan of the project team, the game will stop operations in the Chinese mainland on April 20, 2022. The game closed payment functions and new user registration on December 16, 2021.

After the game server is shut down, all account information and user data in the game will be deleted. The only exceptions will be data agreed to be kept on by laws and regulations or any agreements signed between Tencent and players of the game.