r/OutOfTheLoop • u/tragiciian • Jun 30 '26
Unanswered What’s going on with Love and Deepspace (LADS) new character?
I know that a new character was introduced and then pulled back very quickly. The company that makes the game also said they’ll never introduce a new character ever again. What is up with that? What’s the story here? https://x.com/Love_Deepspace/status/2071927369653485756
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Jun 30 '26 edited Jul 18 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/plsstayhydrated Jun 30 '26
Thanks for explaining and I'm sorry for your wife's loss of her Husbando.
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u/serenchi Jun 30 '26
My wife is also mourning the loss of Wolf Husbando. She's signed two petitions 😂
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u/ExpressoSloth Jul 02 '26
Return of the #girlcott!
(For those who dont know yet: LADS is the same company that made Infinity Nikki, a 3d explorathon gacha based on a long-running dress up mobile game. About a year ago a new update was releases that destabilized the once exceptionally stable game for shallow multiplayer, the story and intro was randomly retconned to justify it narratively, and the outfits were given a higher threshold for completion for no apparent reason other than greed and envelope-pushing. Some players threatened to boycott, in the official discord the word boycott was banned, so they invented girlcott which was also banned. With the most recent patch, this multiplayer area, which is only there for improving engagement mechanics and encouraging another monetizeable grind, was very slightly expanded, but no new content was added after several heavy story patches. The game probably needs a fallow patch, but this is very.... very bare. I bring this up because one of the older outfits was very, verrrrry slightly adjusted, and the apparent reason is complaints from the chinese playerbase. This doesn't exactly make sense, but it's what people are going with. Infold is probably, in part, wanting to fight as few fires at once.)
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u/uncouthbeast Jul 04 '26
To add, the devs reacted so strongly because these crazy fans were sending cow dung, funeral flowers, and ritual items to the chinese office, and even went so far as to report the game to the government.
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u/Ironhandtiger Jul 03 '26
From a cursory google search, “dark skinned” to describe this character is insane. Not that I’m surprised given how skin tone in this market has gone before (see dehya in genshin) but still, it feels just absolutely wild to me.
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u/Head-Aside7893 Jul 05 '26
In China they’re complaining his features in general are too western. Which is crazy because they honestly all look similar to me lol
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u/Ironhandtiger Jul 05 '26
I mean like I guess I could see it? But also for me that’s a selling point (not specifically western features but moreso just different features than the rest of the more similar cast). Chinese game fans are another breed tho
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u/Flutters1013 Jul 04 '26
People actually did comparisons and hes actually the same skin tone as Caleb. Maybe the red hair threw people off but they didnt have to remove him.
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u/BrassChuckles87 Jul 10 '26
Don't forget some people got so mad they mailed boxes of their excrement to the studio... people are nuts
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u/AnonAMouseOperator Jul 03 '26
im trying to understand what this game is. like a sci fi porn game?
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u/uncouthbeast Jul 04 '26
It's an otome game, a dating sim. Being a gacha, they have the main story with no overt romance while each character's romance route is contained in their cards that you pull from the gacha.
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u/Flutters1013 Jul 04 '26
You spend gems to acquire cards, you level up these cards to use in battle. The cards also provide you scenes with these characters and backstory. You can also interact with your man and put little outfits on him.
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u/DudeBroFist Jul 03 '26
it's effectively a part Gacha RPG part Dating Sim gooner game for girls. Picture Genshin Impact if Genshin gave you all the characters up front, you were poly with all the characters and they knew your ovulation cycle, birthday and wanted to go on dates when you weren't demolishing hordes of monsters together.
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u/Ihaventsleptindays69 Jul 03 '26
I don't play the game, I just got curious about it and then I see this lmfao. wdym catering to the male gaze and too white?? Aren't their existing characters already very very masculine attractive? And they call that too dark when bro's skin color is literally almost the same as the others??
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u/Puhlz Jul 03 '26
From my understanding among the Chinese fans they view hyper masculine men to be more gay. And yes unfortunately there's a veil of homophobia to this situation as well. You would think that yaoi would be popular in this fandom but the company has made yaoi fanart of the characters restricted.
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u/Level-Tomorrow-4526 Jul 19 '26
That an outsider mistake Otome fans in china can't stand yaoi fans it straight woman space lol.
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u/MommysLilMisteak Jul 09 '26
Who is this minority? Is it china? Cuz if so, I doubt it's a minority lol
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u/whiteblossom95 Jul 16 '26
Loud minority? WRONG. Chinese players are NOT minority. THEY ARE THE MAIN MARKET OF LADS. The revenue from Chinese server is around 70% - 80% from LADS total revenue. And it's very DOMINANT. They are THE MAJORITY.
Before talking non sense, please searching the REVENUE FROM CHINESE SERVER FIRST.
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u/DudeBroFist Jul 16 '26
It's very funny you think revenue amounts and some very angry people yelling are the same thing and thus a monolith, but as the saying goes when all you've experienced is privilege equality feels like oppression.
You specifically being a Chinese player angry about this and there being a number of other Chinese players angry in no way means your angry group are even the majority of Chinese players, much less the majority of total players. The revenue is completely unrelated to the topic. But please continue CAPS LOCKING AT ME, I'm sure you'll hurt my feelings with it eventually.
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u/whiteblossom95 Jul 16 '26
Who said that? Revenue is totally related to the this topic. If they lose CN main market because of Valko, then they will lose big revenue as well. Majority of CN players complained to Infold about 6th LI and missing contents of existing LIs. Most of them are CN WHALES. They also filed lawsuits against Infold and give them pressure to remove Valko from the game. It was so big that Chinese government and women association started to pay attention to this case. It's started with CN players complaints but it's getting bigger with unit 731 case being mentioned + wolf broke in to MC house trope + bath in the pot murder case.
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u/DudeBroFist Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26
This is a genuinely embarrassing take and a textbook false equivalence fallacy.
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u/whiteblossom95 Jul 16 '26
What's wrong with you, dude? You are not LADS player and your source is only your wife! Your wife also got rumours from social medias like twitter, facebook, instagram, reddit, etc.
I just stated the REAL SITUATIONS behind this Valko cancellations. Stop acting embarassing if you don't know the whole situations!
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u/DudeBroFist Jul 16 '26
I'd advise you to Google a "Survivorship Bias" and then you might understand why I'm scoffing at you here, since you clearly don't understand what a false equivalence is (or apparently sarcasm either is you think the "source" remark was anything to be taken seriously)
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u/whiteblossom95 Jul 16 '26
I am Chinese and I don't understand complicated words in english. And i am not interested to know it further. Also, english is not my first language. But I already said what I need to say. Like it or not, what I said in previous comment is the real situation behind Valko cancellation in China. It's impossible to know the exact true reason from Infold because they are very silent these days. Yes, CN players complaints are the one who started it. That's why I said they are MAJORITY. You can also check the like vs dislike comments in Valko debut posts from Weibo and XHS. Majority of CN players hate him and said negative things about him. But Infold decided to cancel Valko permanently because of another big factors like politics, public criticism, company reputations, etc. CN players complaints are just one reason to another big reasons.
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u/DudeBroFist Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 18 '26
BIG SHOCK. You aren't interested in learning information that may correct what you've already decided to be the case. You could've just told us all that you don't accept being disagreed with and saved me a lot of time.
Have a great life, lady. I'm quite bored with this now.
ETA: also, not to gloat but InFold unhid all materials concerning Valko on the LADS TikTok page yesterday, invalidating every argument made here regarding the angry portion of the Chinese fanbase being the majority of the players.
ETA2: lol looks like you were wrong.
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u/Sweaty-Lab9113 Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 01 '26
I disagree. It's not "a loud vocal minority". It's the majority, and they are exponentially louder than you think. There are hundreds of media outlets in China posted very strong critisism on infold, the game company, for betraying their costomer. This is very very rare for any media outlets to post about a game at this scale, with such strong opinion rather than objective reports. These media even includes "People's Daily" one of the highest rank China state owned media. A lot ot the reports also tied the new character to be intrusive and violates wemen's right. So many has believed that this is a power show off of feminists in China, on how much media power they control and at disposal for their political purpose. Imagine CNN post a headline titled "6 questions for infold". Within days before infold withdraw the new characters, all LADS merchandise is banned across Beijing and all exhibitions. This is how loud they are. If you still think they are minority, they are the minority with power.
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u/Uglynator Jul 02 '26
bro it's a guy in a video game, it's not that deep
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u/Sweaty-Lab9113 Jul 03 '26 edited Jul 03 '26
Gender war is the hotest topic of gaming community in China. All dramas you hear about Chinese video games are either directly or in directly related to it. Recent ones like Chinese player review bombing slay the spire 2 for example, is led by male players thinking the game is supporting feminism(more important than LGBTQ+ as a whole). You can still check steam reviews on what they say.
An earlier example would be women in China boycotting black myth Wukong and all brands cooperating with it. Because they think women and female players are not represented in the game, so the game is "women hating".
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u/Silent_Win5420 Jul 03 '26
It’s because of the things the game director said and the dev team’s misogynistic past, not because of the game itself. He said unlike other games, Black Myth WuKong does not need female players to attract male players, sometimes something is just made for the ‘men’. Depending on how it’s interpreted, but it’s not a very nice thing to say. People from the dev team did say lots of inappropriate things on social media as well.
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u/makemake1293 Jun 30 '26
Like how do u know they are a minority? Do u have any data? Or you just could not believe that maybe they are of the majority. Infold has the actual data.
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u/DudeBroFist Jul 01 '26
If you have contradictory evidence then by all means post it. Until then "ok how you know" is just being contradictory for the sake of being contradictory.
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u/hollowh3art Jul 01 '26
Came here to learn about this hobby drama, pleasantly surprised to encounter Andrade reference
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u/avelineaurora Jul 02 '26
If it was just a bitchy minority the devs wouldn't have had this reaction...
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u/DudeBroFist Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26
You sure about that? The global player base pushback on this has been so severe they've apparently already re-uploaded all Valko materials to video services and said there's a "special announcement" regarding the game coming. The game has also dropped to a 1.2 out of 5 stars review rating on App Stores in the last two days and multiple petitions have hundreds of thousands of signatures demanding the release of the character.
In complete good faith, do you honestly believe that fans of Culture War YouTubers are the majority of, say, Star Wars fans just because they tweet mean things?
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Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/DudeBroFist Jul 02 '26
The global player base in a gacha is ALWAYS the minority.
That isn't the claim you made though, you claimed that the players angry about Valko and demanding he not come out were the majority. These are two different things and you're moving the goal post.
don't know why you're bringing up Culture War youtubers
That's a yes.
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u/eric23443219091 Jul 03 '26
minority lol no there majority of china
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u/DudeBroFist Jul 03 '26
for the fourth time now, InFold's reaction to the pushback this movement has received globally (and the fact that there's now exaggerated drama being reported by the news in China about it) disproves this point. I'm sorry, this was a few thousand very loud and angry Chinese women raising a ruckus and the rest of the player base telling them to get fucked with a cowardly company caught in the middle and trying to please everyone.
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u/Low-Avocado4701 Jun 30 '26
Answer: Chinese fans of LADS went into an absolute meltdown as soon as his first trailer dropped. Every insult you can imagine. His skin tone was too dark, they hated his muscles, said he looked gay, he looked too western, etc.
When some cfans said they liked him, they were immediately harrased & bullied for it.
Cfans sent poop and funeral wreaths to Infold(company that runs LADS) along with threatening employees too. Some even sentt reports to the government.
So western fans are royally pissed off about this decision & are either boycotting or making petitions to reinstate him.
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u/Vixrotre Jun 30 '26
I googled the guy and he's literally white. 💀 WTF. I thought they added an actual POC love interest. I guess they're never going to now.
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u/Arcterion Jul 01 '26
Bro, you have no idea how absolutely unhinged Chinese fujos are.
Think of the most seething incels you can imagine, then give them a vagina.
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u/CatBoi_ Jul 01 '26
They’re not fujos 😭😭😭
Fujos are people who like BL, which is strictly prohibited in love and deepspace fan communities.
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u/gothicspring Jul 02 '26
why tho? you cant ship two of the guys together??
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u/CatBoi_ Jul 02 '26
I mean technically you can, if you wanted to make fanart of two of the guys together and post them on twitter you could, but it likely wouldn't be received positively by others in the fandom. But on most large fan spaces for this you can't post BL. For example, you can check the rules of the love and deepspace subreddit. There's a rule explicitly prohibiting the posting of any BL content.
The reasons for this are honestly pretty complicated. There's a pretty long history of in-fighting and drama in fan spaces between people who like boy x boy shipping and people who like girl x boy shipping. Since the beginning, Love and Deepspace has made it very clear that they are targeting only the latter. You can only play the game as a female character, the players are always addressed as female ("Dear Miss Hunter,") on official posts, and BL content is not allowed in official fan art contests.
Basically, they were able to effectively shut out fujos from the community, which did successfully prevent the aforementioned in-fighting but does come at the cost of some feeling unwelcome in the community. Couple that with the fact that this is a Chinese game and LGBT related content is still pretty taboo, so it was always pretty clear that any BL content was never going to be allowed by the company.
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u/AdFederal6371 Jul 03 '26 edited Jul 03 '26
the reception of the posts would depend on where you post it. tumblr is receptive to it, i’ve seen some instagram users post it and i think they’re decently popular. twitter is probably the same. the reddit is an official space so you can’t post it there. ao3 has a decent amount of li x li shipping (and also male mcs i think)
edit: continued that being said, a lot of the hate valko got was from 1. looking too tan (hes basically the same skin tone as the others. just warmer i think?) 2. looking gay (because apparently a square face does that? it’s basically like androgyny is perceived as more gay in the west, while a buff type of masculinity is perceived as gay in china? it honestly just makes me think of bara mangas so idk). people were also really up in arms about the possibility of a male mc which there probably was never going to be, and i think that conversation started happening more after the game label in the app store switched from otome to dating sim
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u/LinLevine Jul 10 '26
So basically what your saying is the fandom is making leaps and bounds to try to excuse the fact they're being homophobic. They're fictional characters. FICTIONAL
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u/Financial_Glove_1782 29d ago
It is a game for females with male love interest. It isn't homophobic.
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u/Financial_Glove_1782 29d ago
It is a game for females with male love interest. It isn't homophobic.
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u/Financial_Glove_1782 29d ago
It is a game for females with male love interest. It isn't homophobic.
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u/Financial_Glove_1782 29d ago
You really don't understand the feeling of Yumejoshi
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u/LinLevine 29d ago
I am a woman... And I know what yumeshipping is, clearly you don't 😭 holy mother of Tiktok twitter bro
also just because you use a more Japanese version of the word doesn't mean you sound more intelligent. You sound more akin to an early 2000s Naruto weeb running with their arms behind their back in the backyard.
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u/AdFederal6371 26d ago
tldr: im rambling and the only important bit is the last paragraph so just read that
parts of it was being homophobic and racist yeah. china is not very pro-queer media (as per censorship in danmei/baihe/tv shows), so i personally cant blame infold for not wanting to risk it with LIxLI shipping in official spaces (this may just be my attachment to the game characters talking). there’s also the fact that is an otome and therefore marketed to women (usually straight but that might be arbitrary in some games). and some people are really particular about that and there would be horrible outcry if infold actually included queer content in their games (probably antis getting the governments attention again). i think the otome game community has some discourse between otome (female protagonist) and amare (more queer friendly) as naming conventions, but im not familiar enough to say for sure. what i do know is that mystic messenger is also an otome and it has a female character route so like. i wish infold was brave enough for that or something. thats a tangent
looking back at this a month later, theres been rumors of water armies, a really loud minority, and one hugely toxic rafayel fan being the cause of the outcry so it may not even be big chunks of the fandom on the cn side
my personal experience is from instagram and tumblr, so i dont remember much homophobia beyond this one tumblr user who was also really upset by the idea of not self inserting into the player character so like who cares what they think.
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u/Orangopiorasmile 1d ago
Of course not. Cultural context matters here. I mean just imagine if there is a otome or similar game designed for boys to romance male characters would you want the fandom to draw a straight ship?
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u/LinLevine 1d ago
Yep. Welcome to fandom 101!
Rule 1. DLDR. Don't like, don't read!
Rule 2. SALS. Ship And Let Ship.
Rule 3. YKINMKATO. Your Kink Is Not My Kink And That's Ok. (This goes both ways)
Rule 4. Be Kind. A.K.A, Don't be an asshole!
It's how fandom has worked since the start! I know your probably young but get used to the rules because they exist for a reason 😎 failure to follow the rules and don't be surprised when you get shamed or blocked
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u/HowlingWolf13 Jul 01 '26
Nah they're not fujos, the LaDS community actually had serious drama regarding the people shipping the guys with each other or with a (fanmade) Male!MC. It was ridiculous 😭 I think there was even ppl mad over the game having ads on BL-centered websites (which most likely would be because they would be able to reach female audiences) and people were going INSANE over it, though I might be misremembering.
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u/erevaia Jul 02 '26
Definitely not Fujos. One of the main complaints they have with Valko is that he looks gay, so they said that Infold was selling out to males and therefore betraying them lol. I went on Rednot and found this account harrasimg customer service about it lol Edit: Infold made a little statement related to complaints like it aswell, they said the game would always be female orientated and the 'all-gender' accusation were nonsense.
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u/hopingforw Jul 01 '26
You get doxxed and harassed for being a fujo in the lads community, they are not fujos.
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u/Philip_james Jul 01 '26
reminds me of when people were killing cats over wanderer. somethings in the fucking water in china.
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u/SlowChampionship5506 Jul 03 '26
Why are you bringing up fujos?
And incels? Looks like you have some strong preconceived biases. Chill. Women can like BL and not you.
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u/sky-shard Jun 30 '26
"Skin tone too dark".
I looked the character up thinking this might be some racism thing. He has a slight tan. He's not lily white, but "too dark" is off the wall bonkers.
The character's name is Valko if anyone wants to look him up.
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u/Noth1ngnss Jul 02 '26
Honestly, I don't know how tf they think he's too tan. To my eyes, he literally looks white. Like, there's not even a tan, he's straight-up just an average white dude. In some pics, his skin isn't shining as brightly as it is in others, but this is only due to lighting.
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u/lehcarlies Jul 03 '26
I genuinely don’t understand it. He looks slightly more like a man, and has a realistic skin tone. He definitely does look more western compared to the others, as well. Like, obviously younger girls would like more idol-looking guys because they look more feminine, and therefore less threatening. I’m hoping that young girls don’t play this game, though. I know this is rambling, but it just seems like this new character would be more attractive to older players? I don’t understand the extreme reaction—especially about something that’s not real.
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u/tangysam87 29d ago
That’s literally their consistent nauseating remark in regards to American born Chinese actors. They think that they are specifically picked because their skin is dark and eyes are narrow… like literally some of the most famous hottest most-loved American-Chinese actors they think are ugly, while the reason is because the said actors don’t bleach their skin, remake their faces down to the bone structure, and don’t use insta filters in cinema. Meanwhile China is plagued with skin-bleaching and plastic surgery starting at elementary school. And if you ever see c drama, they’re wearing like three layers of makeup that is way lighter than their actual tone. For culture that keeps yelling about westernization and whitewashing, they sure like to westernize and whitewashed their actors. It’s also ridiculous how often the argument is from Chinese citizens about how diverse they are whenever someone mentions that the characters look more western than native, and yet if you look to their cinema and government, that diversity is nowhere to be found. So they use their minority population that is quite excluded and some are quite oppressed only when it’s useful.. any mention of this gets you a xenophobe label. people need to stop walking on eggshells an call them out on it. Just like we shouldn’t be afraid of not tolerating the intolerant, when a nation is so xenophobic itself, they don’t deserve protections from xenophobia towards them, otherwise they will keep acting like this while feeling protected from outside judgement.
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u/Suzushiiro Jun 30 '26
I'm not even close to the target audience for this game but as a long-time Hololive fan I can certainly empathize with the experience of having something you enjoy/are excited for ruined because of the Chinese audience adamantly refusing to be fucking normal about something.
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u/Nickthenuker Jun 30 '26
As a hololive fan you should also know that a certain Demon of
SoupSound is rather disappointed that the new character is being removed.2
u/an_agreeing_dothraki Jul 01 '26
Korean gacha fans: "look what they need to do to have a fraction of our power"
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u/repocin 4f 68 2c 20 68 69 20 74 68 65 72 65 21 Jul 01 '26
Soo, Chinese gacha fans angry at new update for <reason>. What else is new?
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u/Emotional_Act6983 Jun 30 '26
This is crazy… cfans of a lot of things are too crazy. They harass and stalk my favorite Thai BL actors when they go for fan meets, and kpop companies are also treated like this by “fans” and they cave to them. It’s so sad bc caving only gives them more power and the negative voices are always the loudest. I mean, to some degree the companies need to listen to their audience but cutting the character because one group of antis didn’t like him is wild. Yeah, we should definitely be giving equal attention to the existing characters and not lagging if we are going to add new ones, but this response is extreme. I have an inkling that a lot of this pressure is coming from either very rich players who spend a lot on the game or they are part of very powerful families. Possibly both. It sucks bc idc if he’s too feminine and has darker skin, listen, I’ll be Daddy for him… 😂💅… I already am sad that they are missing out on a MASSIVE player subgroup by not having an option for the MC being male…. So many queer people would jump on this instantly for that alone. But to kowtow to one small group of haters really sucks for the rest of us.
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u/DingoPuzzleheaded628 Jul 01 '26
To be fair, sometimes one of those people might literally go to their HQ and attempt to harm someone if a game company makes decisions they don't like
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u/Emotional_Act6983 Jul 01 '26
Oh I 100% know this and the security is important, I’m just saying that it sucks the subgroup of players are allowed to do these things and the company still gives in, making the behaviors worse.
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u/adotang Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 01 '26
What even prompts this stuff happening? Because I know Love Live once had one hell of a crisis when IIRC Aqours went to Shanghai for a live and a bunch of fans there were super disrespectful during the show, and then (admittedly unsubstantiated) rumors sprouted afterwards that some Chinese fans sent the seiyuus porn and "suspicious liquids" that got intercepted by show staff vetting gifts. And this isn't the first time I've heard another instance of "Chinese fans of something are inexplicably the most toxic", for example I've also heard that Chinese fans of non-Chinese games are often remarkably critical and review-bomb over relatively minor concerns no one else has.
Like, there's no way it's some bullshit like "this is inherent to the Chinese because they're like that" (not saying you're saying this, I saw similar said elsewhere some time) because that's racist as hell and other people across the world also frequently exhibit all degrees of awful behavior toward the things they're supposedly "fans" of. Even with the Love Live example I put above, there are many normal Chinese LL fans (apparently part of the problem was that the live was scheduled when a lot of them, who skew young, would be busy with exams, allowing trolls and asshat fans with little else to do to swipe some tickets). But what is it? Is it like, a cultural thing we don't get? Some weird sense of entitlement? Geopolitical beef? Just the simple fact that there's over a billion people in China so there's proportionally gonna be a larger "vocally crazy percentile" than elsewhere simply due to sheer numbers (which I believe is the most likely explanation, being the most mundane one)?
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u/Eleglas Jul 01 '26
In Warframe, the Chinese community of players massively review bombed the game because the developers made some nerfs to explosive weapons and the Wukong Warframe because it was being exploited as an afk farm. Most of the global community was fine with it and understanding, the Chinese players were not.
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u/InuGhost Jul 01 '26
PTSD Flashback of Helldivers 2 and the Defense of Super Earth
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u/twisty125 Jul 01 '26
Yeah god forbid their special city fall despite every game mechanic showing that it would fall. That was such a mood let down when the rest of the playerbase was having fun fighting an alien invasion.
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u/Arcterion Jul 01 '26
Most devs are terrified of offending the Chinese market (even if it's complete non-issues) because of how massive it is.
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u/twisty125 Jul 01 '26
Which is a shame because like, in Helldivers' case - what's there to be offended about? Why are you getting offended at an imaginary locale being lost to a mega alien invasion! It wasn't like every other Mega City didn't fall and it was only the one near China, nearly every other city had fallen before we pushed them back.
Sometimes (and this is a generalization) it really does feel like "snowflake", entitlement? Like you are required to win otherwise you make a big stink and review bomb.
I'm not sure, there's probably a lot I'm missing it's just really shitty behaviour to me, and bending over backwards just reinforces it.
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u/makemake1293 Jun 30 '26
You know why? Because the crazy ones are usually the ones who drive the revenue. The craziness is what infold/K-pop industry cultivates and enables in the first place and it just bites them back.
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u/Emotional_Act6983 Jun 30 '26
Yes and no. Yes the revenue is driven by interest and emotional investment in the game, which translates to more devoted fans being more heavily weighted when criticism is given. However, we have super fans in every country for all of these things from LADS to Kpop to BL. But only certain fan groups display this kind of crazy levels of entitled behavior and they tend to be mostly cfans and kfans that are sending funeral wreaths and causing the need for increased security. Their level of entitlement is very ingrained from either being very rich or influential outside of the microsphere of the specific entertainment industry question (and possibly both), plus the behavior not only being tolerated but it being effective at getting them what they want. When they get what they want from their bad behaviors they will keep doing it bc it’s what works. It’s not necessarily the industry’s fault bc they didn’t create the monstrous behaviors, but they are at fault for not setting boundaries on what kinds of behaviors are acceptable. Especially when fan bases are worldwide in today’s times and catering to a small group in a couple countries compared to the larger fan base definitely creates even more tension bc the minority is taking precedence over the majority. Either way though, the divide is going to be a downfall for players either with character issues or revenue issues it won’t matter. There will always be an unhappy group, their decisions just show us who their priorities are with. And as an American fan of a lot of Asian entertainment it’s not the first or last time international fans will be at the bottom of the priority list even if we do make up a lot of their fan base or revenue.
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u/makemake1293 Jun 30 '26
As an American you probably don’t how infold manages its player base. They run this game literally like a kpop group. They encourage covertly fan groups to fight each other and compete by how much money they spend for their mains. The fan base is always at war against each other and this time the 5 fan groups join together against the sixth. It is literally bts announcing they will have a new member joining out of nowhere. And yes, if you international revenue is strong enough, infold will prioritize you. And one thing you don’t understand is how these fan wars work in China. They will try to find anything, no matter how trivial it seems to report to the government. And reporting actually works in China that there is chance that if enough number of reporting is received, the iron fist would literally shut the company down. Also in the case, there is this 731 controversy. This is just pure stupidity from the company, as they should know about all this and this is their target audience, believe it or not, they are the majority.
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u/Pretend_Top5941 14d ago
fr ik of a lot of ppl who dont itentify with any she/her identity or the pronouns n some even r dysphoric n still play the game. why dont they make a male mc? sigh
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u/marr Jul 02 '26
Good to know gamers being fucking weird is universal across all cultures I guess. :/
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u/Low-Avocado4701 Jul 02 '26
Cfandoms in general can be extremely dedicated, but the crazies unfortunately are very vocal. And tend to be extremely rich.
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u/Grapes-RotMG Jul 03 '26
said he looked gay
I just looked up the game and its characters because I kept seeing this controversy. Brother they ALL look gay. It almost looks like that's the point. Like they're TRYING to capture that ultra Yaoi obsessed women fan base by taking generic pretty-boy bottoms and making them not gay and the love interest for girls.
The new one looks like the only one POTENTIALLY not gay.
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u/ivnwng Jul 01 '26
POOP?????
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u/Talisa87 Jul 01 '26
Yup. Cow poop. It allegedly got so bad that the delivery company started flagging Infold's office address so the orders wouldn't go through
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u/mr_beanoz Jun 30 '26 edited Jun 30 '26
Answer:
There's actually... a lot going on with it.
Some of the Chinese players expressed their disappointment on the game having a new character while the stories for the existing characters are being left behind, where one of the character did not get any new story materials for over a year. There's also some of the players that think the design of the new character, Valko, didn't suit their preferences, thinking that his design suits more to the Western audiences. But the backlash from these players are really hard that the developers backpedaled on putting the sixth love interest to the game and promise to never add any new characters again.
But then...
We also got state media involved which runs the risk of regulatory bodies getting involved.
There's also a very ill judged reference to human experimentation in the game, that for some reason was aligned with a reference to real life human experimentation that happened in WW2 wjere japanese unit 731 experimented on Chinese citizens.
Moreover, the depiction of the new character was associated (loosely) with this and the depiction of him entering MCs home without permission ans getting into bed with her was widely criticised by major state outlets.... when we already have the previous 5 existing love interests doing what would totally be breaching the player character's privacy.
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u/Hunterreaper Jun 30 '26
Seems a bit excessive that they’d never add more characters. I get being mad about characters not getting development but to have the backlash be this extreme is weird
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u/Milskidasith Loopy Frood Jun 30 '26 edited Jun 30 '26
It's an Otome dating game where they have to be very, very careful about not upsetting their biggest whales, and this means convincing them that their particular husbando will always have a steady drip of content. This is a game where after the initial 3 love interests, the 4th and 5th took a while and were at least somewhat controversial for splitting attention and for having their storylines be behind the main LIs.
In this case, promising that they will not split their attention or cause a major controversy like this again is probably something they view as critical for player retention, outweighing any potential gains from getting new/lapsed players to return for the new character.
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u/OkEntrance2298 Jun 30 '26
the thing is thats a valid point especially in games that cater to the ultra-parasocial
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u/tragiciian Jun 30 '26
Never adding a new character to a game like this seems like a death knell. How will they bring in new/lapsed players with a lack of fresh content and characters? Strange.
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u/Milskidasith Loopy Frood Jun 30 '26 edited Jun 30 '26
This is not a Gacha in the "pull on the seasonal banner for the new SSR character we just introduced!" sense. It does not rely on huge amount of characters being added; it started with three love interests and even adding the fourth and fifth were controversial and took a long time.
The new content that brings in players is additional story content for the specific love interests, and if they are more concerned with maintaining their current fanbase than with capturing newer fans with additional love interests, it makes more sense than like, a gacha saying "yeah we're basically EoS no new banners".
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u/mr_beanoz Jun 30 '26
Games like this would usually develop their story with limited pool of characters, but this would also make the writing be more focused, as compared to games with expanding cast of characters where the story would get bigger as more characters are involved with the story.
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u/tragiciian Jun 30 '26
I agree with the comment below that this is an extreme level of “damage control.” It seems like there is more to this story, tbh.
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u/lrish_Chick Jun 30 '26
There is. A lot more.
State media got involved which runs the risk of regulatory bodies getting involved.
There's a very ill judged reference to human experimentation in the game that for some reason was aligned with a reference to real life human experimentation that happened in WW2 wjere japanese unit 731 experimented on Chinese citizens
Moreover the depiction Of the new character was associated (loosely) with this and the depiction of him entering MCs home without permission ans getting into bed with her was widely criticised by major state outlets
There was a lot going on with this and having state media report on you and thus the attention of regulatory bodies in China is ... problematic
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u/SuspiciousExtinction Jun 30 '26 edited Jun 30 '26
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u/lrish_Chick Jun 30 '26
That doesnt seem to mention the problematic depiction of the new mc at all or any of the referenced concerns.
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u/Impossible_Front4462 Jun 30 '26
There’s definitely ways around this. Limbus company is another game where the gacha system revolves around the same group of characters since release. It’s allowed for a lot of depth in the story and I can see this taking off in the future
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u/Aklyon Jul 14 '26
Limbus also is very obviously story-focused, instead of being an otome game with action game elements. This sounds more like LADS is run by the demands of the playerbase.
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u/cat-meg Jun 30 '26
These games aren't like Genshin Impact or some other gachas. There were likely only ever going to be 6 total LIs. They make money by selling special story scenes that also enhance combat and new versions and outfits for the existing characters. Tears of Themis and MLQC have a similar monetization system.
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u/JuliaBoon Jul 01 '26
Tears of Themis is a game that began with four male characters and has NEVER added any others. It is quite popular, not as big as others sure but it is always getting new content. Every character gets an equivalent event and an equal share of development.
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u/BumblebeeOk3407 Jun 30 '26
So there are plenty of TV shows about the war and them doing human experiments thats literally the whole story line of Captain America
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u/wolflance1 Jul 01 '26
Well there's a pretty big difference between "let's create super soldier" and "let's cook this person and see how much of a human is made of water" and "let's skin this person alive and observe how the infection progress".
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u/Seileach Jul 01 '26
We also got state media involved which runs the risk of regulatory bodies getting involved.
Oh? CCP is actually going to enforce on games equally now? Instead of letting the so called meta tier 0 do what they want? Doubt.
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u/hey_its_me_ur Jun 30 '26
Answer: There are a lot of rumors and interpretations from western players going around, so I'll try to summarize the main points I'm seeing straight from the chinese community on xhs.
Players have been largely dissatisfied with the game and its parent company, and in conjunction with recent situations, the introduction of a new character at all seems to be the straw that broke the camel's back.
None of these opinions are my own, just shedding light on what the sentiments are.
Criticism for the lack of game updates and the parent company not listening to players
In very simple terms, lads is a gacha game where you buy or earn currency to get cards related to each of its characters.
These cards are what determine your stats during battles, and the good ones usually have a playable scenario attached, including a cutscene and story to read through. These are usually completely unrelated to the main story, and the premises normally present the characters as already being in a relationship with the player character, so their personalities and interactions are more date-like than what you might expect from them.
As you can imagine, getting players to pull new cards and spend on other supplementary content is where the company makes most of its money. You can 'earn' currency for free in the game, but there's a finite amount you can gain ever at a given point in time and that's it.
Many players were drawn to the game because of the world-building and plot/character development of its main story, which has slowed to a crawl on updating (almost a year long between chapters releasing).
One of the criticisms has been that there's no content so the game has felt stale for both paid and free players alike. Introducing a home system that nobody asked for, and in the most recent update, announcing a 2.0 update to it made players feel like the company was making a cash grab
Adding a new character with the game in this state was taken as a slap in the face to the community, regardless of who he is or what he looks like. A 6th character means pulling for cards for the character you want is even harder, and more importantly, even fewer resources to go around from the development team to progress the stories of the other 5.
Perceived references to well-known tragedies in recent content
This is something I don't see being mentioned in the conversations here, but I would say this is the main source of the outrage. Recent promotional material advertising the character has been called out for making references to specific events in China. The parent company put out an official apology and statement claiming these were unintentional, but the Chinese community doesn't buy it due to how significant they are. Some do seem like coincidences, but it's definitely adding fuel to the fire.
731: A case file in the game was titled "A-0731". Unit 731 was largescale Japanese human experiment project that operated during WW2. It turns out the file in game also details a human experiment, and allegedly the characters involved were named similarly to the real-life officers and surviving victims involved in the original incident. This isn't directly tied to the release of the new character, but the company had not addressed these allegations at the time and was keeping silent on the matter.
611: After players expressed their anger at "0731" being used, the company updated the Chinese version to use "0611" instead. Unfortunately, 6/11, known as literally just 611 was the date of another major historical tragedy in 1941 where the Japanese army launched a gas attack on the city of Daojiao in Donggun where there were over 260 casualties. I wasn't able to find anything in American media about it, but it's apparently well-known locally. To this day, the number has not been changed on the Japanese version of the game.
"Valko": Chinese players are saying the new character's name in english, Valko, is a pun on "Wokou", Japanese pirates.
"Don't bathe in the pot": This was a confusing line shown in the update trailer where Valko was announced. It seems to be a direct translation, and is just as nonsensical in Chinese. Players speculate that this is an insensitive tie to a recent murder case that broke in China where the suspect boiled his wife's body in the kitchen, but the company has stated that this was unrelated and was only a reference to a kitchen being added to the home system?
"Let the wolf in": This one seems like a stretch, but has also been repeated in many comments. This has been interpreted to be the company making light of the recent flux of home break-ins to single female residences in China, and with that making up a large demographic of their audience, has been taken as another example of the company using sensitive topics to promote their game.
Accusations of prioritizing Japan over China
It's no secret that geopolitical tensions between Japan and China have been really bad lately.
Along with the potential political references above, Chinese players have been expressing frustration over the removal of Chinese cultural elements for other regions. Specifically, several cultural references being changed to Japan-related ones. To note, this is a common practice in localizing games (e.g. animal crossing made similar swaps to cater to a more US-centric audience in the North American port), but with the context of everything else, looks quite bad for them
- Chinese Taoist temples replaced with a Japanese shinto shrine
- Mid-autumn festical renamed "Otsukimi Festival"
- Removal of Dragon Boat Festival references from the in-game event and promotional material centered around it
So no, chinese players aren't as a whole against the new character because he's 'too western-looking' or anything, which seems to be the message being spread around. Rather, the boycott is coming from some deeper rooted resentment towards the game that's been mounting for a while now, and has culminated in a storm of backlash that will be hard to resolve.
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u/Milskidasith Loopy Frood Jun 30 '26 edited Jun 30 '26
Of all of the references to tragedies there, the only one that seems plausibly intentional to me is the 731 one. Renaming to a different number that happens to be an almost entirely unrelated tragedy seems like it could happen due to ignorance but doesn't really make sense as an on-purpose reference.
The "Valko" pun, the "Don't bathe in the pot" thing, and the "let the wolf in" thing all seem like total nonsense, unless China has both an extreme monoculture and a huge culture of every line being some sort of reference to that monoculture such that nobody would write a random joke about a big cooking pot and a very generic "he's the big bad(boy) wolf" line without it also having a double meaning everybody understood.
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u/hey_its_me_ur Jun 30 '26
Yeah, as I mentioned, a lot of this is just piling on because of the negative sentiment towards the company, so anything can be taken as an intentional slight. Some of these are definitely reaches but it's what's being repeated in comments so I thought I should include them to give the full picture
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u/Strawbsi Jul 01 '26
(I've only played once, but I'm hearing a lot about whatever drama is going on.) I'm not sure if it started after the original backlash or just now after its blown up, but there are definitely a lot of fans against him being "tan" or even the idea of a character being tan. Some straight up insanely racist shit.
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u/AccurateGrape Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26
I like your post but I have to correct you on some things and provide some additional context as a player of the game. Well I’m quitting it now lol.
The Unit 731 controversy was already in the game since April, it was related to another love interest story specifically the love interest called Xavier. The CN fans voiced their complaints and the number was later changed to 611, after that controversy they changed the number entirely and now in the game it is now called “Experiment X”. They later went on to voice that they loved the story changes. I agree with them that the numbers were in bad taste, not upset with that getting that change.
Unfortunately, the CN fans used Valko’s release to say they were upset about these “Unit 731” when it wasn’t related to him or his storyline. Again, the Unit 731 was tied to another love interest and the issue was corrected two months ago. This was literally an excuse they used to put pressure onto the company and have him removed. This literally boils down to they didn’t like how he looked and made some racist and homophobic statements.
As far as the break in part, global players are again calling out their hypocrisy because we’ve had love interests do the same thing as in entering her house without permission. Once actually drugged the main character and said I’ll keep you locked up forever, he has the yandere trope. There was no problem with that because he has the look the CN fans like.
These issues were not a problem until Valko’s release. I’m not trying to go out my way and blame the CN fans, I’m just providing actual context. There is a lot of misinformation being spread and backtracking going on.
The game has problems especially I agree that the main story should be updated. But now since he was an actually planned love interest from the start, the game always had hints that there would be a 6th love interest, the company will now have to rewrite everything including the main story. I feel for the devs who had two years of work scrapped because of malicious players.
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u/Pretend_Top5941 14d ago
thx for all that info. i think its valid to b upset but their reaction was too big n wrong anyway
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Jun 30 '26 edited Jun 30 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Long_Response_2629 Jun 30 '26
Generally speaking, as someone who is not a LADS player, I think it is very normal for people who love this new character to feel upset when the company decides not to continue developing him.
But to be honest, I also think it is understandable, from the perspective of Chinese LADS players, that they do not want the company to attract gay male players. I personally do believe that the company was trying to do this, based on a lot of evidence, though I would rather not specify it here. To them, it feels like their straight husbands are suddenly being turned bisexual. It would be okay if the characters had been bisexual from the beginning, like Astarion, but it feels different when they are suddenly “turned” bisexual later on. I’m not very familiar with Western culture, so I don’t know whether most Western female players would feel upset about this or not.
This is especially true when the company is doing this with money spent by the original player base. And that is without even mentioning the broader conflicts between Chinese men and women.
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u/Pretend_Top5941 14d ago
but theres already male n other queer players....... this comes from the claim that a non feminine men attracts gay ppl, when for the western places it is feminine men who supposedly attract gay ppl............ tbh i dont think its gonna attract more gay players than there already are, a lot of women like this type of men too. to answer ur question, to be upset about someone being bi is to be biphobic, queerphobic and possibly homophobic, by genuinely no exaggeration.....so only queerphobes n biphobes n homophobes would be upset about it (as in women wouldnt be upset, the only reasons to be upset they have would lit make them one of these labels). i do think that turning someone wtv is bad marketing, either they were or they realised but if they turned bc the company wanted them to its yucky. i hope i made it make sense :-) have a nice day♡
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u/MyLanLan Jul 02 '26
Answer: Hi all, i been watching this thing happened since 22/06, below letter was copy from little red book.
To those global players who are being upset about infold withdrawing Volko (Part 1)
Dear Global Linkon Hunters,
I hope this misunderstanding between CN and global players can be clarified in a short and clear way. I would greatly appreciate it if you could spare a few minutes to read this message from us CN players.
I have followed the discussion about this 6th LI for a while. Since the PV was released, I have seen that a huge misunderstanding between global and CN players has been deliberately created by Infold. Therefore, I wish those who are willing to hear a voice from our side could see this message.
1. Why do CN players hate Valko so much?
I have read some emotional messages from upset Valko fans asking about this. From my perspective, the accurate answer is both yes and no.
China, as we always say, is a huge country with a population of 1.4 billion, so any love or hate can involve a massive group. Surely there are many CN players attracted to Valko – by his appearance, his voice, his character, and so on. But there is also a large number of us who feel nothing toward him, and of course some may dislike him or even hate him.
However, as you global players have said, Valko himself is not the problem – the problem is him being the 6th love interest.
CN Linkon Hunters
To those global players who are being upset about infold withdrawing Volko (Part 3)
2. Why do so many CN players reject the 6th LI?
First of all, none of us knew there would be a 6th LI.
For us CN players, ever since Caleb was introduced, many of us have been questioning whether there would be a 6th LI, and we constantly asked Infold for confirmation.
Unfortunately, the company repeatedly denied the existence of this 6th LI.
So we learned from the company that they were focusing on the existing 5 LIs, and that working on them – the main stories of Caleb and Sylus, the upcoming Solar cards, etc. – was consuming so much of their energy that they were, at that point, not able to bring a new member into this community.
It was not until Valko’s PV was released that we CN players learned they had been collecting your voices and preparing him for a long time.
It is such a shame that they fooled both sides.
It is absolutely unacceptable and ridiculous to bring an unexpected LI into the game while keeping the main market players in the dark about this plan.
It cannot be a surprise for them to see those girls who have invested so much money, time, and emotion in the 5 existing LIs become upset and furious about this marketing strategy.
For us CN players, not knowing about the upcoming 6th LI means that every penny we spent was meant to be spent on our own LI, and only on them.
They cannot and should not force us to accept that our LIs and we have been waiting for more story, only to find out that our support and money were used for an unknown project.
Not to mention that they used all our money on this and did such a bad job launching him – it is obvious that this project was not even well-prepared (copy-pasting all 5 LIs’ elements into Valko and doing a poor job on his launch).
In a word, we are not against Valko, but we are against the 6th LI.
(I hope my poor English can convey the distinction between these two concepts.)
CN Linkon Hunters
To global players who are upset about Infold withdrawing Valko (Part 3)
3. Was Valko withdrawn because of us “crazy” CN players’ hate and “loud voice”?
As we have stated above, and as you can perceive, the company does not give a damn about us players.
There have been more than two million negative comments about the 6th LI, and we have used every possible way to defend our consumer rights, yet we have been ignored for almost a week.
Because they know that this decision, rejected by many of us, does not necessarily mean that no one will support it.
They think they know us CN players so well – they assume that we have devoted ourselves to our lovers for so long that we cannot possibly leave them and give up all these memories, even if they have betrayed us, we may still come back.
Thus, they have nothing to lose.
What they did not expect is that their poorly prepared content for Valko, such as:
a. Using the strongly negative four-word idiom “引狼入室” (meaning “to invite a wolf into the house”) as a wordplay;
b. Letting Valko enter a single woman’s room without permission and still mocking her with “引狼入室” as a tease;
c. Using a recently occurred major violent incident as a reference to introduce the kitchen scene in the home system:
In September 2024, a Chinese husband killed his wife by forcing her head into a pot of boiling noodle soup after a quarrel, causing her to die from hot-liquid asphyxiation. The case, tried in November 2025, was deemed intentional homicide with extreme cruelty and sparked national outcry over domestic violence;
and most importantly,
d. Using the unforgivable number 0731 in the game.
(Please allow me to explain briefly: the number 731 refers to Unit 731, a secret biological and chemical warfare research unit of the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. Based in Harbin, China, it conducted horrifying and lethal human experiments on over 3,000 prisoners, mostly Chinese civilians and POWs. Their goal was to develop biological weapons, and their methods were so brutal that they are often compared to the atrocities of Dr. Josef Mengele in Auschwitz.)
The list goes on.
To global players who are upset about Infold withdrawing Valko (Part 4)
As a globally played game, Love and Deepspace has been supported by us CN players and also by our country, because we believe it is a good chance to introduce traditional Chinese culture and present our project to the world.
However, all these behaviors have deeply hurt our feelings as Chinese and have drawn the attention of our government in the end.
We do not tolerate and strongly refuse to have our scars and feelings used as a source of amusement or entertainment.
So it is actually these reasons that finally made them claim to withdraw Valko.
It is truly unfair that all of you have remained unclear about what happened here in China, just as we were kept away from knowing the original plan.
It is absolutely unacceptable that the company threw this bomb at you without telling you the truth and left you all to hate CN players.
You deserve to know what they have done just as much as we do.
We CN players totally understand that many of you will feel hurt and sad about Volko, but we sincerely hope that you can stay calm and stay strong.
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u/Pretend_Top5941 14d ago edited 14d ago
thx for all this :-) tbh is all valid, its the companys fault in the end. however things like the racism i dont see justified anywhere.... so after spending a night researching i think i got a general idea n some still doesnt make sense.. sigh. (edit also supposedly global players also spent money preparing for him supposedly? so the ouchie is in everyones wallets, n if someone spends more thats bc they r able to) anyways, thx♡ i hope u have a great week! take sm good care of urself ^
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u/Snoo-89203 Jul 01 '26
Answer: Some of this information isn’t true, so I’ll try to shorten an explanation. CN players make up about 65% of the player base, to the point that because of its success in CN lads went global. The issue is that the trailer showed what CN players believe hinted to an incident in 1971 with Japans human experiments that was labeled Unit 731. The reason for this belief was how Valkos unit in the trailer was labeled “A0731”. Also, his memory was titled “Inviting the wolf into the house”. In Chinese culture, that phrase is related to r8pe in their country. So once again, Valko breaking into our characters home made many upset. CN players were outraged as it made the majority uncomfortable, on top of some of the things being said here (ex: he looks like a mixture of 2 other LI’s, his personality doesn’t fit well into the story). The other larger issue is CN was upset is that since another LI was being released, would it stop story production and just become even more of a gatcha concept, where other LI’s will be forgotten about, as well as the story. This outrage is why it was pulled. Resources are from CN YouTubers and also the LADS Discord. It’s not a global vs china situation, it’s the fact that this LI was poorly advertised, poorly executed into the game and was overall denied by the main player base because of the connections to the Japan experiments in 1971 and r8pe accusations.
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u/PixieDustGust Jul 01 '26
A comprehensive answer for sure hit also... you're allowed to say rape. It's not a bad word. It's a bad thing, yes, but it's not a bad word.
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u/Pretend_Top5941 14d ago
in some places its censor it or get censored, so maybe that person is used to them, its fine
•
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