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A conversation has been brewing on X among Japanese game developers about something players rarely think about: when a live-service game suddenly announces its end of service (EOS), the people who made it are often just as blindsided as the fans. The discussion kicked off following the end of service (EOS) announcement of the mobile game Link! Like! Love Live!, which is set to go offline on June 20 after three years of service. Developer Odd No.’s worsening financial situation was cited as the reason for the closure.
『Link！Like！ラブライブ！』
サービス終了のお知らせいつも『Link！Like！ラブライブ！』をお楽しみいただき、誠にありがとうございます。
プロジェクトを支えてくださるすべてのユーザーのみなさまへ、大切なお知らせがございます。… pic.twitter.com/iszlGXP0XW
— ラブライブ！蓮ノ空女学院スクールアイドルクラブ（Link！Like！ラブライブ！） (@hasunosora_SIC) April 6, 2026
On April 6, Japanese game designer Nozomu Ichikawa posted on X, “By the way, it’s a fact that mobile game developers and management teams often get informed of service terminations last minute, so please don’t blame them.” The post opened the floodgates, with many fellow developers sharing their own experiences.
Nekodora Soft, an indie developer who spent 17 years as a programmer at a game company, confirmed that this kind of thing happens. “This is true,” they wrote. “We were carrying on with development work as usual, preparing a few months ahead, when we suddenly got called into a meeting room and heard the news.”
『Link！Like！ラブライブ！』
サービス終了のお知らせいつも『Link！Like！ラブライブ！』をお楽しみいただき、誠にありがとうございます。
プロジェクトを支えてくださるすべてのユーザーのみなさまへ、大切なお知らせがございます。… pic.twitter.com/iszlGXP0XW
— ラブライブ！蓮ノ空女学院スクールアイドルクラブ（Link！Like！ラブライブ！） (@hasunosora_SIC) April 6, 2026
Another developer shared a particularly rough memory: finishing a voice recording session where actors performed chants for the game’s first and second anniversary events, only to be told by the sound supervisor immediately after that the company had decided to end the game. “All I could think was you’ve got to be kidding me,” they said.
This lines up with what happened behind the scenes at Link! Like! Love Live! itself. The game’s scenario director, Shunsaku Yano, took to his personal X account to apologize to players and thank them for their support over the years. He also revealed that the scenario team only learned about the EOS decision “a few days ago” and was still processing the news.
発表されましたとおり、Link! Like! ラブライブ！のサービス終了が決定されました。
先日4月以降の展開を告知したばかりで、混乱させてしまっていることをお詫びいたします。
我々シナリオチームも数日前に通達があり、飲み込みきれてはおりません。ただただ残念です。… https://t.co/QCqYAeMp2F— 矢野俊策（公開用） (@Syano_open) April 6, 2026
The discussions highlight a side of live-service game shutdowns that often gets overlooked. Players understandably feel the sting of losing a game they’ve invested time and money into, but the developers working on those games — sometimes right up until the announcement — are dealing with their own version of that loss, and often with very little warning.
