Reported by NUPIAO
Even though it started as a bold experiment from a giant in designer toys, the venture couldn’t quite survive its second year.
Lately, the official channel behind Pop Mart’s in-house title, Dream Home, dropped an announcement that really caught everyone off guard. Because of some internal planning shifts, the server curtain will officially fall on August 12, 2026, at 10 AM sharp. Along with the shutdown, the game’s website and community hubs are getting the axe too. If you’ve been holding off, it’s too late: recharge functions and new sign-ups went dark on June 12, and download links across all platforms have been quietly pulled.
To say thanks for sticking around, the developers promised some sweet farewell perks. Before the servers go quiet, players can tap into a special “fortune-telling” pool featuring every limited character and furniture piece, giving everyone one last shot to complete their collections.
By June 15, Pop Mart’s customer support team confirmed the shutdown rumors to the press. When asked why, reps kept things vague, saying they just got the memo and pointing everyone back to the official site. Interestingly, Apple’s App Store still lets you grab the package right now, but open it up and you’ll see a hard stop on new account registrations.
Once the news broke, veteran players took to social media to vent about months of stale content updates, only to get handed a shutdown notice instead. Many shared how deeply they’d invested emotionally—these digital avatars and dream homes felt like genuine parts of their daily routine. For them, pulling the plug was tough to swallow.
Looking at player feedback, the art style and IP crossovers definitely turned heads. But underneath that pretty surface? Gameplay felt repetitive, optimization was shaky, and patch notes arrived slower than molasses. Those bottlenecks kept chipping away at retention, day by day.
Back when it launched, Dream Home carried huge weight for Pop Mart. It was supposed to be the bridge connecting their physical IPs to the digital world. Talk about a long bake! They snagged their licensing approval way back in 2019, but didn’t actually open the gates for public testing until June 27, 2024. That’s a five-year dev cycle.
Mixing cozy sim-management with party vibes, this casual social title packed in all the heavy hitters: Molly, Dimoo, SKULLPANDA, LABUBU, you name it. Players could build out their own homes, throw digital parties, and basically live out that “cloud-raising” fantasy inside a scrapbook-style world called Cloud Whale Island.
Right out the gate, the hype was real. It shot straight to number one on the iOS China download charts, held the top three spots for three straight days, and hovered around the top 50 on revenue rankings. Pop Mart clearly bet big here, slotting it into their “Digital Entertainment” division as the cornerstone for turning collectible toys into living content.
During a 2024 earnings call, Pop Mart CEOWang Ning made sure Dream Home got its moment in the spotlight. He framed it as a massive leap forward for their IP ecosystem, right alongside those physical theme parks. Pre-launch buzz was strong too, with over 1.54 million accounts reserved in just two days. Sure, it trailed behind another sim-hit like Heartbeat Town’s 2.32 million, but the momentum was undeniable.
PerWang Ning, the game wasn’t chasing quick cash grabs. Instead, it was meant to tie in with offline attractions, deepening the emotional bond between the brand and its fans, ultimately stretching out the lifespan of these characters. Fast forward to today, though?Wang Ning’s vision has definitely hit a wall.
Let’s talk numbers, because the financial toll here is brutal. Pop Mart’s 2025 annual report paints a stark picture. The studio actually running Dream Home, Beijing Paqu Interactive Tech Co., Ltd., raked in 21.5 million RMB in 2024 but bled 47.7 million in net losses. 2025? Revenue tanked to a measly 2.7 million RMB, while losses ballooned to 70.5 million. Two years in, and we’re looking at a nearly 120 million RMB hole. By the end of 2025, the studio’s net assets sat at -119 million RMB—straight-up underwater.
Business registries show Beijing Paqu Interactive was founded back in 2016 with a registered capital of 10 million RMB. Wang Ning holds a dominant 91.56% stake. It’s a dedicated mobile gaming arm under the Pop Mart umbrella, spinning entirely around developing and operating Dream Home.
Meanwhile, Pop Mart’s bigger picture looks absolutely glowing. Full-year 2025 revenue smashed through 37.12 billion RMB—a massive 184.7% jump year-over-year. Adjusted net profit hit 13.08 billion RMB, climbing 284.5%, pushing net margins to a record-breaking 35.1%. A huge chunk of that came from THE MONSTERS franchise (featuring LABUBU), which alone brought in 14.1 billion RMB and carried the growth engine.
And honestly, Wang Ning knows the score. Back in May during a candid interview, he openly admitted that both their film and gaming pushes haven’t quite landed the way they hoped. He laid it out bluntly: these are brutally competitive spaces. As a relative newcomer, Pop Mart just had to pay the tuition fees along the way.
Pulling the plug on Dream Home isn’t just a Pop Mart hiccup; it highlights a recurring headache when designer toy brands try to cross over into gaming. Analysts point out that while Pop Mart’s got a massive fanbase, converting that collector passion into steady gamers proved tougher than expected. On one hand, the core loop just didn’t hook people long-term. Sim-management and party games are super saturated, and slow update cycles killed the buzz. On the flip side, toy collectors usually prioritize physical merch over digital apps. Their patience for grinding in-game and spending money online is naturally lower. Plus, the monetization strategy never quite clicked with the brand’s aesthetic vibe. Result? You get sky-high development costs clashing with razor-thin returns.
For Pop Mart, that 120 million RMB dent barely scratched their overall portfolio. Still, this stumble in the gaming department sounds a serious warning bell for their broader IP expansion plans. Going forward, the real challenge remains figuring out how to blend authentic brand identity with engaging gameplay loops, plus mastering the art of long-term fan engagement in a mobile market that rewards fast iteration. It’s a puzzle they’re still trying to solve.
