Extreme Chinese players send cow dung, funeral chrysanthemums, curse banners, and ritual items to Papergames/Infold office as Love and Deepspace controversy escalates. LADS Chinese social media accounts have reportedly lost around 1 million followers

[u/blueberryandvanilla]

Love and Deepspace has been facing one of its biggest controversies after the official reveal of its sixth male love interst, Ao Yin/Valko. Since the teaser was released, the game's official Chinese social media accounts have reportedly lost around 1 million followers across platforms.

The controversy has also drawn attention from Beijing Daily, which published a commentary arguing that the backlash reflects a growing crisis of trust between Papergames and its core player base.

The backlash has also spread offline.

As part of Ao Yin's promotional campaign, Papergames installed a giant Valko wolf-print display and a large themed balloon outside its office.

According to reports circulating on Chinese social media, some extreme players placed cow dung inside the company's delivery lockers, with visitors claiming they could smell the odor.

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Others left white and yellow chrysanthemums, curse banners, glutinous rice, and pomelo leaves around the promotional display outside the building. Some visitors also posed outside the office while making middle-finger gestures for photos.

In modern Chinese culture, white and yellow chrysanthemums are closely associated with funerals, mourning, and paying respects to the deceased. Sending these flowers to a person or company can be interpreted as wishing death upon the recipient.

Meanwhile, glutinous rice and pomelo leaves are traditional folk items used in spiritual cleansing rituals to ward off evil spirits. Some protesters used them sarcastically to suggest that Papergames had been "possessed" after introducing the new character and need to ward off this new evil spirit.

One protester also reportedly delivered a banner reading "The new male lead is a wild boar" to the company's office and later claimed that Papergames threatened to call the police. Online, some players also joked about destroying the giant Valko balloon, although there is no evidence that anyone actually attempted to do so (now).

Following the protests, Papergames reportedly increased security around its headquarters. While visitors were previously allowed to enter the building to take photos, recent reports claim that public access has become more restricted, particularly to prevent provocative photos or obscene gestures inside the office.

According to the article by Beijing Daily, the issue goes far beyond Ao Yin's appearance. While some players criticized his more Westernized character design, the main source of frustration is that many longtime players feel the existing five love interests have been neglected. Main storylines of a love interest have reportedly gone over 500 days without updates. Many fans believe the company's resources have been redirected toward introducing a new character instead of continuing content for the existing cast.

Beijing Daily noted that Papergames' global expansion strategy is commercially understandable—Love and Deepspace has seen strong overseas revenue growth—but argued that otome games rely on a "trust economy." Players invest not only money, but also years of emotional attachment. When that trust is damaged, commercial success alone cannot easily repair it. According to the editorial, Ao Yin became the catalyst for frustrations that had been building for years rather than the sole cause of the controversy.

Papergames issues a midnight apology

At around 12:00-1:00 a.m. (China time) on June 27-28, Papergames released an official statement responding to the backlash.

The company stated that:

• Ao Yin (Valko) will remain the sixth male lead.
• The main story updates for Caleb and Sylus are currently in development.
• All players will receive compensation consisting of 10 Limited Wish Tickets and 10 Standard Wish Tickets (20 pulls total).

However, Beijing Daily published a second commentary shortly afterward titled "Six Questions for Love and Deep Space."

The article argued that the statement failed to answer several key concerns, including:

• Where was the apology?
• Why did the company only respond after millions of comments and tens of thousands of complaints?
• Was the 20-pull compensation a genuine apology or simply an attempt to reduce player loss?
• How will Papergames fulfill its promise not to neglect existing characters?
• Has the company truly changed its attitude, or is it merely responding to public pressure?

The editorial concluded that the controversy is no longer just about Ao Yin, but about whether paying players can still trust that their time, money, and emotional investment will be respected, but about whether paying players can still trust that their time, money, and emotional investment will be respected.

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Ao Yin is scheduled to officially release on July 9, and his performance may determine whether this controversy has a lasting impact. However, many observers believe the situation has already become about more than a single character—it reflects years of accumulated frustration over story updates, resource allocation, and communication between Papergames and its longtime player base.

Image sources:

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[u/VickyKujikawa]

LaDS player here (among other gacha games for more than 10 years). Its so surreal how this company, the same one that fucked up Infinity Nikki, is the worst possible company ever to manage a gacha game. They have been mistreating us for 2 years and Im so happy that FINALLY all communities are united and I really hope this boycott works and they lose even more players and revenue. This is surreal specially for one of the biggest gachas in the last years.

Also the "apology " yesterday was pure damage control. They had a livestream today and it was SO BAD. For you guys to understand, they didnt even give us a 10 pull in diamonds, not a single improvement in any area of the game and opveral the worst livestream you can expect for a big major update in a gacha. Its surreal to say the least.

To add to this, the issue is not only the new character introduced, its also:

- The lack of Main Story updates (mind you, most of it is VISUAL NOVEL STYLE). We have 2 very short updates per YEAR. We havent seen Caleb in 500 days and Sylus and Zayne for more than 6 months.

- The combat content that is supposed to be the way to get diamonds is literally for whales at this point

- The resource farming stages are crap to the point is impossible to level up your cards properly

-They keep making more and more banners constantly and making them available for less time

- The optimization of the game is awful and at this rate the storage required on the phones will be impossible to handle

- The content that the characters have is not the same

- They also changed one of the newest characters (KOD Xavier) after the announcements and he underperforms (chinese players have an ongoing lawsuit regarding that)

Edit: Btw, the mods in the official subreddit are actively removing any kind of post talking about the boycott or asking for improvements in all of this, even if the post is respectful. They removed 2 different comments for me lol Kinda crazy

[u/clocksy → u/VickyKujikawa]

I took a break after playing for a couple weeks on launch figuring I'd be back when the main story updated. Well, by the time that happened (6-7 months later) I decided I wasn't interested, lol.

I think all that is to say, Infold has had almost no reason to change what they're doing. They make money hand over fist with LaDS. Sure people gripe here and there, but that has never mattered. People basically enable them to do all this. (Part of that is because the alternatives are worse or don't exist - I've tried other mobile otome gachas and they are truly dire. But then the alternative is simply to find hobbies outside gacha rather than continuing to throw money at something you're not fully happy with.)

I do think some of this behavior is getting unhinged, but that also the frustration is totally understandable. I do hope you guys get some concessions (or competitors step up) but we do have to remember that as consumers we definitely enable this kind of behavior as well, lol.

[u/VickyKujikawa → u/clocksy]

Tbh, the other options are there: there are a lot of visual novels and otomes nowadays that are full games without any kind of gacha. I have been playing VN and otomes for more than a decade now, and we have so many different games and the localization of those games has increased in the recent years. But for some reason I see soooo many people literally not caring about that? When we have so many different kind of otomes: slice of life, other focused on story, others in character development and romance, so many different settings... However they are purely visual novel, so full reading and your classic cgs (which tbh I think its okay, again classic visual novel).

Most of these games are on switch and some of them in pc. Anyone that has spent money on the gacha should have just bought a switch 1 and get full games.

But yeah, LaDS could have been a great game if they focused in the story and developing the world they created as I think its pretty interesting and very innovative in the way they implemented 3d, battles and all. I just wish they start fixing all of this now.... Very sad companies behave like this.

[u/MODERNHoolaHoop → u/VickyKujikawa]

there are a lot of visual novels and otomes nowadays that are full games without any kind of gacha.

But for some reason I see soooo many people literally not caring about that?

And you can't guess why? These games don't provide the same experience as LADS does. And I'm saying that as an experienced otome player. LADS became somewhat mainstream because they did something different to traditional otome.

And LADS is still a visual novel at its core (stated as much by devs themselves), you read 30 minutes of story with T-posing LIs for every 3 minutes of animated kindled.

It's like you saying "but why are people ignoring Twisted Wonderland or Ensemble Stars? They're chock full of husbandos!" to people who want more male characters in Genshin, ZZZ or wherever else. It's not the same and thus ignored.

[u/VickyKujikawa → u/MODERNHoolaHoop]

I know, but the reality is that a lot of people got to know otomes because of LaDS and when ask for other otomes they go straight into gacha instead of thinking there are non gacha games. Regular VN/otome games are still a HUGE niche, even people dont understand what a regular otome is, they only think of LaDS.

I think the newer or younger players are having issues with gacha addiction to some degree just because of the pull system and all, seriously.

People that want male characters in other gachas (and understandably so) could also just go and play regular RPGs that usually have a more 50/50 cast of characters, but overall I just feel the 'f2p' trap of the gachas is also another thing here. Why would they pay for full games when they can play for free.

[u/MODERNHoolaHoop → u/VickyKujikawa]

LADS is first game/dating game/gacha game for a lot of people for a reason.

You think gachas are the only games with gambling? Please. MMOs, browser games, sports games, MOBAs exist. You can find that anywhere. And gachas aren't the only F2P games out there either.

You're missing the point again. Regular RPGs don't offer the same experience.

[u/VickyKujikawa → u/MODERNHoolaHoop]

Uuuh no need to talk to me like this. I have been playing so so many genres of games for decades. Im just saying that there are a lot of people that cant see other games as valid. I know LaDS provides a different experience in several ways, but if we are not getting main story or the content we want because right now its reduced purely to gacha, THERE ARE other alternatives with that content even in the experience is not a carbon copy of that, wether you like it or not.

[u/MODERNHoolaHoop → u/VickyKujikawa]

Don't like how I talk? Maybe you shouldn't have started with this condescending, patronizing and dismissive tone like people who disagree with you are picky, haughty and broke gacha addicts who were born yesterday.

Again, those aren't alternatives but simply different games. Games a subset of gacha gamers take interest in and already play. It's always good to spread the word about games (or anything really) but it's silly to expect that the other party will like the suggestion just because you did for whatever reason.

[u/VickyKujikawa → u/MODERNHoolaHoop]

I was never trying to be condescencing nor implying that others are gacha addicts. But the reality is that since gacha games became popular and more normalized with Genshin (and now LaDS since their target audience was different one) there are a lot of people who started playing said games, normalizing gacha mechanics and spending tons of money in them but that never played other videogames. And thats a trend Ive seen online a lot. Thus, why I mentioned the other VN/otome games available that Im sure some players would enjoy as an alternative.

Of course not everyone is like this, but in the case of otome games, its clearly still a small minority of a community. And these games and gacha mechanics being normalized have also made people develop addiction or similar issues, there are a lot of famous situations that went viral like the Furina or Xiao situations in Genshin.

[u/MODERNHoolaHoop → u/VickyKujikawa]

Gacha games have always been regarded as trash pseudo-games with attached casino. That sentiment started to change post-Genshin but on the "trash games" part because people saw that gacha games can actually be high-quality games... with attached casino. Gachas still get hated on, disregarded and even partially banned in general gaming subs for being glorified casinos, that hasn't changed.

And stories about people that sink all their and their relatives' money on gaming (or literally anything else), going homeless or into debt, or resorting to crimes (including murder), and ruining people's lives aren't anything new either. Same thing has been happening with browser games, MMOs, real or virtual idols, streamers or other things that exploit people's vulnerabilities.