A new hell for game preservation: this gacha game will shut down forever if players don't top up a mysterious counter

(Image credit: Visual Arts)

A Japanese mobile game's future hangs in the balance as its publisher reveals that it's up to players to keep the game running by filling up a mysterious counter.

As reported by Automaton, Itsuwari no Alice players will soon have to keep the game going themselves after a recent announcement from the game's publisher, Visual Arts. On July 15, Visual Arts shared the news on Twitter, telling players that it plans to halt the release of new content for the game after maintenance is completed on July 31. After this downtime, there will be some changes, the post also reveals.

According to Visual Arts (machine translated), Itsuwari no Alice will soon feature a "server fee counter" as well as a "counter of something." The team says they plan to continue Itsuwari no Alice as long as the "something counter" doesn't fall below the "server fee counter." What this means is that as long as the "something counter" is higher than the "server fee counter", the game will continue to run as normal.

It's a very vague announcement, but it seems that Visual Arts plans to keep the game going so long as the running costs are being matched. It hasn't been revealed what this means exactly, but players have their theories that it's related to some gacha mechanic, therefore could mean players need to give up real-world currency to keep the game going.

How the future of Itsuwari no Alice will go is anyone's guess, but it seems the initial response to the announcement hasn't gone down too badly with fans. Most replies that I've seen have been fans thanking the development team for running the game so far, and there's also a lot of people saying they'll be sad to see their favorite mobile game come to an end. Only time will tell if this is enough to keep that "something counter" topped up.

Looking for a new mobile game? Take a look at our best iPhone games and best Android games lists.

After studying Film Studies and Creative Writing at university, I was lucky enough to land a job as an intern at Player Two PR where I helped to release a number of indie titles. I then got even luckier when I became a Trainee News Writer at GamesRadar+ before being promoted to a fully-fledged News Writer after a year and a half of training. My expertise lies in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, cozy indies, and The Last of Us, but especially in the Kingdom Hearts series. I'm also known to write about the odd Korean drama for the Entertainment team every now and then.