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Yes, MeChat is shutting down. Its developer, PlayMe Studio, announced on September 23, 2026 that it was ceasing operations, and told staff the next day that the company would stop functioning immediately.<\/p>\n
PlayMe Studio, a Ukraine-based game studio and part of the Genesis Tech ecosystem, laid off more than 100 employees when it closed, according to a report from dev.ua<\/a>. The company gave affected staff one month\u2019s salary, up to two additional months of pay for unused vacation, and job placement assistance.<\/p>\n MeChat, PlayMe\u2019s flagship title, is an interactive dating simulator that had drawn more than 30 million players worldwide since launch. Employees pointed to three things behind the shutdown: a change in funding approach and higher risk tolerance following FTC legal action against parent company Genesis Tech, falling marketing returns on MeChat itself, and other PlayMe titles that never generated enough revenue to support the studio.<\/p>\n Kateryna Palamarchuk, PlayMe\u2019s senior social media manager, put it simply: \u201cWe were quite niche. Therefore, outside of our audience, few people knew that a large team in Ukraine was creating stories that people from all over the world were waiting for to be continued.\u201d<\/p>\n Genesis Tech, PlayMe\u2019s parent company, is currently the target of a Federal Trade Commission lawsuit filed June 17, 2026 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The complaint names 15 corporations and eight individuals operating under the Genesis Tech umbrella and covers a group of consumer apps including MadMuscles, Harna, Unimeal, Wisey, PDF Guru, PDF Master, Lumi, and Nebula, none of which are games. The FTC alleges the companies ran deceptive subscription practices: hidden costs, billing without clear consent, and no straightforward way to cancel, using a network of affiliates based in Cyprus and operating in Ukraine to obscure their structure. Across just five of the named products, the FTC\u2019s case<\/a> puts global revenue at close to a quarter-billion dollars between early 2023 and mid-2025, and a federal court has already issued a temporary halt on the enterprise\u2019s practices at the FTC\u2019s request.<\/p>\n MeChat itself is not named in the FTC complaint. But the legal pressure on Genesis Tech appears to have changed how much funding and risk the broader ecosystem, including PlayMe, was willing to carry.<\/p>\n Development has stopped. The studio\u2019s lead admin on the Official MeChat Wiki<\/a> confirmed the final scheduled content update, new character stories, lands October 5, 2026. After that, no further updates are planned.<\/p>\n MeChat remains available to download on the Google Play Store and Apple App Store for now, but PlayMe has not guaranteed how long that will continue, since app availability depends on the stores\u2019 own policies once a developer stops maintaining a listing.<\/p>\n The team hasn\u2019t gone quiet about it either. Over on Instagram<\/a>, they wrote that each of them is \u201cnow looking for a new role and a new team to call home,\u201d and confirmed MeChat is not being sold or handed over to another studio to keep running. Project lead Anna R. posted a farewell note of her own on Reddit<\/a>, where players have since gathered by the hundreds to share their reactions.<\/p>\nWhy the FTC case matters here<\/h2>\n
What happens to the app now<\/h2>\n
What this means if you play MeChat<\/h2>\n