Alibaba subsidiary Lingxi Games shuts down game engine project as e-commerce giant sharpens focus on core businesses

Alibaba did not immediately reply to a request for comment on Wednesday.

The company’s Hong Kong-listed shares on Wednesday closed 2.43 per cent lower to HK$76.15.

Zhan Zhonghui, who headed Lingxi Games, and co-founder Chen Weian stepped down in March. Zhan was replaced by an experienced, albeit younger, video game producer Zhou Bingshu.

In his blog post, Wu pointed out that Alibaba’s flagship mobile game Three Kingdoms Tactics and other titles are still based on its own codes and old self-developed game engine. There was no plan to migrate these games to other commercial engines, he wrote.

After that acquisition, Wu stepped down from management and focused on developing a modern game engine for the company.

Launched in 2019, Three Kingdoms Tactics made more than US$1 billion in its first two years of release. The game remains popular, ranking seventh among China-developed titles in terms of monthly overseas revenue growth in March, according to data from Sensor Tower.