I keep thinking back to how much sheer free content and story updates Genshin outputs on a consistent 6 week patch cycle vs... the dripfeed in between banners that LADS feeds you as a "here, damn"
LADS is basically Genshin's prime years but worse considering that it has no real competition & a starved fanbase, which is why it got a way with a lot of crap.
Genshin still has to compete with other waifu games + those who came after them. If you played since year 1, you'd notice that they actually start doing more drastic changes, for better or worse, when Natlan hit the servers.
8
u/planetarialP5X(KR)/IN/Prosekai(JP) Future: Petit Planet/Silent Whispers4h ago
Will be very interesting to see how things pan out when Silent Whispers releases
yea, that part i know, but im moreso curious of the specifics. As in, compared to other game like GI, what are usually their contents rate. I only heard of the general comparison, but never specifics.
Main story basically updates two times a year at this point while the keep pumping out banners and paid content (which atp also includes most of the outfits, almost nothing to buy with the non paid currency). One love interest main story branch hasn't had an update in a year and a half. It's bad
It's starting to feel really strange when you consider how far the relationship between the mc and the guys has progressed. In comparison, the main story barely even started taking off. After taking a step back from the game due to the boycott, it's so strange to think about now.
theoretically (not promised, just historically) LADS gets 2 major main story updates per year. They are like 2-4 hours long of story per update (with like only 5 minutes of animated cutscenes lol), but it doesn't even feature all of the characters. So the wait between characters is really long. Last main story update was in Jan 2026 and it only featured 2 characters.
you can have your opinion on genshin but snezhnaya absolutely is quality content. this is coming from someone who's not even fond of praising genshin or hoyo at all. they did great
GI seems to be the best thing that could happen to both gacha old timers and new entrants. The covid audience helped shaped what the game to what it is now.
Nerfed Inazuma, better weapon system than Hu Tao era and events no longer charging for resin to claim rewards to name a few.
And it also being way better looking than old gacha games that predated pre-Hoyo era. ;)
His last myth did 19 mil by itself, two million more than the entire month of August. His myth this time pulled in about 4mil, the lowest of any myth in the history of the game.
It's okay, they aren't listening to the loud majority either.Ā My r3 Lumiere and KoD has been collecting dust for over a year at this point due to no combat content, and I can just auto SHC like usual lmao.
Valko is an obvious cashgrab and most of the Chinese playerbase never asked for it.Ā Inflop should've addressed all the problems first instead of trying to shill another character out of nowhere then his controversy wouldn't be nearly as bad.
Well in LaDS breakdown, CN is the only positive region, every other region depressed after the controversy and hasn't recovered. The significant non-CN/HK regions are Global >> JP, and global took a massive nose dive and never recovered, same with JP. They usually represent about 30% of LaDS income, now they're about half, closer to 15%. Global is also actively still dropping, so they will probably not return to their old form as long as these regions continue boycott.
They had a myth for the most popular character come out this month, a highly anticipated rerun for the 2nd most popular, a new card for another character, and then one day of a birthday event plus a new promise with accessories everyone wants. What are you talking about? That myth should have been the highest earning solo card of the year.
You're not wrong, and they deservedly underperformed, but there has been such a drought of content leading up to the Caleb solo/Raf myth that even players who would've whaled didn't really need to.
I completely stopped spending after the debacle but still accumulated like ~250 pulls since the hot springs banner just through regular login/gameplay/events/apologems with nothing to spend them on for a month+. All we had was a useless standard selector banner, and a lot of us have already maxed out every single standard card.
I was able to comfortably R1 Raf's myth without spending or even consciously saving. However, even if I was willing to spend to R3 both, it would've been significantly less expensive with all the accumulated F2P pulls. Because of the way LaDS structures its pay packages (significantly discounted early on, scales up over total spend), only having to pull four cards is magnitudes cheaper than having to pull for eight.
In any case, as an OG Love Nikki player there's absolutely nothing surprising to me about PaperGames shooting themselves in the foot. I have no interest in giving them my money again anytime soon, my only point is that you wouldn't have really needed to spend much anyways if you were still regularly playing.
But that is part of the point - you specifically are not spending because you are boycotting in some way. The people not boycotting went out of their way to spend more than usual. Same thing will happen if they drop Valko - weāll have to spend to make a point.
If you wanted to support the game, āspend for Rafā, and spend, you would have. But you didnāt because youāre boycotting to some extent
I feel like you've completely missed my point. I'm literally just pointing to the math that an active player would have accumulated so many free pulls with zero opportunity to spend them, so even paying to R3 every single banner that's come out since would barely stray into whale-tier spending.
Also, IMHO thinking that you "have to spend to make a point" in any gacha game is losing the damn plot. Gacha devs are service providers, and buying pulls is an exchange for those services. When the services are subpar or dissapointing, then I'm not interested in spending. But the decision to spend isn't some sort of moral collective action lmao. There's no reason to "show support" to a multi-billion dollar corporation that just sucks at running their games in the hope that they eventually get better. There's already so many high-quality games out there; let them figure out how to earn your money back. The whole "Valko" situation doesn't have anything to do with the rest of the game being in a shit state.
That would be true if the game was functioning in its normal environment. Itās in the middle of a global boycott and CN raf girlies went super hard to āsaveā the revenue and their fake man. Normal, well adjusted people donāt function that way but this is an otome gacha fanbase after all.
Spending during a boycott is making a point. So is not spending. You yourself said you stopped spending after the debacle.
The general sentiment in the subreddits i follow (main, loveanddepression, a few character specific subreddits) was that many found the new banners were an easy skip. The banners were much tamer in romantic content, and fans felt they were rushed and lacking.
Most if them were most upset about boycotting the reruns, but stuck to their boycott because the fandom is THAT pissed.
A myth usually shoots LADS up immediately to the top of the charts. And Rafayel is th most popular LI in CN and the face of the game. His last myth, Lemurian Sea God, earned 7 million on the first day, and kept earning around 1 million daily for a week, whilst his current myth earned 1.3 million on day 1 and dropped by halfs after.
No Defense Zone is a highly anticipated rerun that would normally earn about 1 million, yet even when it reran alongside Raf's myth, it only earned a little over 400k. Caleb's solo was entirely new, and solos usually see a 1-2 million overall revenue, yet it earned only half of that.
So, not only did they waste millions of dollars in cancelling Valko, but they're not even earning back what they lost. A near 60-70% drop like this is not sustainable if LADS is also funding other projects on top of its own maintenance
Okay I just listened 3 times in a row to the podcast video they released recently and I can't hear Sylus nor Caleb. But I kinda see similarities between Noki's VA and Valko's. Idk if I'm just too obsessed and going crazy atp. š
Huh, you actually had me looking up the companies because i was curious, and found this: Silver Palace is by Elementa, which is a global subsidiary based in Singapore, wholly owned by Happy Elements. And yes, Happy Elements is a Chinese company. So it's Hoyo and PPG once again with their global subsidiaries.
I must say though, it feels like they're returning to their idol roots with StartoU considering they made Ensemble Stars back in the day š perhaps it will do well yeah?
I just listened to the latest podcast video they released and, girl, I am equally biased toward Tay and Noki (who kind of sounds like Valko? Or am I going mad? š). And I might fall for Lim too because he's hilarious.
Tbh the absolute disgrace his team showed put a smear on his own image given heās captain, and he himself showed some displays of poor sportsmanship like trying to get another player sent off on the technicality of covering their mouth.
they are fumin on the LADS_OG subreddit because they thought Myth rafayel would have been at the top 3.. and now they say its not because of the "dog lovers" but because the state of the game xD
They got rid of an entire announced love interest, Valko, in the span of 8 days due to a massove smear campaign. Now a lot of people have no more faith in them or their long-term vision. Add on all the previous issues people were willing to overlook before and you got a bomb
Canceled their 6th love interestās launch after advertising him back in June due to CN backlash, now facing an ongoing boycott. Tenth might not be impressive for ppl that donāt keep up with it, but LaDS used to consistently chart top. This was the month featuring their poster boyās fourth myth, essentially a main push card in other words, so the lack of revenue to show for it is shocking.
just so you know, if that 6th one was released, the game would already be canned. the only thing keeping it up right now is that they cancelled the 6th.
Hmm doesnt explain why revenue didnt really trend down (aside from normal end-of-multi trend down) until after cancellation. Clearly people upset at him being added werent the money makers (theres even a bump during the period between announce and cancellation).
And sensor tower DAU (trusted data) doesnt show a substantial drop until after cancellation
The cancellation of Valko was due to a disproportionate fandom response. People were upset that it came with a lack of QoL updates, sure, but he undeniably would have brought in new players as well. The fandom is so polarized and engaging in idolatry nonsense nowadays that you have people exaggerating the facts. The game would not have shut down. People would have been unhappy their favorite didn't get screentime, and I don't deny the main story update pace is abysmal, but that would've been the end of it.
Fans threw a hissy fit, using content from a previous update to throw him under the bus and reported the game to the government. There were also racially insensitive remarks that he was "too dark" (??) and that he looked "too gay." A certain aspect of the fanbase that didn't want the new love interest literally sent cow poop. Infold decided to pull Valko two days after issuing a statement that their plans for him would not change.
The income his cards would have provided is gone, which, in itself, nuked any small benefit. But sure, his update gave us a kitchen! Now the women can go back to where they belong! /s
Edit: Users trying to "debunk" will not be dignified with a response, as they are members of a dedicated "OG" sub (misuse of the term OG, btw). For people that really want to be free of Valko, he sure does live rent free in your heads. Revenue did not have a marked decrease when Valko was teased, but when he was cancelled, that's when the steep fall-off was most notable. There were people begging players to spend to prove that Valko was not the issue. Sorry Valko fans have "gone off the rails." It's almost like I never endorsed their behavior, yet you want to put words in my mouth. How are those QoL updates looking? Oh wait, there aren't any, because we've scapegoated Valko! Nobody wins here, but people want to direct their vitriol toward other fans, and not the company!
Not this again. Stop twisting the CN boycott into being about Valkoās cancellation when the boycott started because he was introduced in the first place. Half of the active CN player base left because his introduction completely shattered their trust in Infold. That loss of trust is why they stopped playing and spending, which is why the revenue has been in free fall since. There is a whole post on this sub explaining the situation: https://www.reddit.com/r/gachagaming/s/aOmoXcAGkf
It was not about him being āgayā or ātoo darkā. CN has nothing against dark character, the most popular guy in CN for the new LADs copy game called Silent whisper is Theron, who is a dark character and ironically also a werewolf (so CN has nothing against dark or werewolf characters like some people are spreading). Itās funny that you bring up the gay part because if there has been any people calling characters gay looking it would be global because they are constantly calling Rafayel and Xavier gay looking.
You guys love bring up what a few CN people did to protest Valko but not the fact that Valko fans have totally gone off the rails: 1) sending a truck to drive around Gamescom. Calling the cancellation of Valko ācyber murderā 2) threaten to commit mass suicide at infolds building if they release the next multi banner without Valko 3) just today Valko fans got exposed for doxxing the CEO and many other employees. Even going as far as doxxing the CEOs daughter (who is a minor). They got banned.
All of this in just a weeks time.
I can tell you as someone active on CN SNS that if they dare to reintroduce Valko, the few remaining players would be gone.
I was looking at the comments against Valko on XHS when his cancellation happened, they were indeed calling him too gay. You have to keep in mind that what they call "gay" is not the same as the West does. For them, more "bara" looking men do look like what gay men would be attracted to.
And yes, they were also calling him too dark. There was a full smear campaign at this moment, so obviously there were tons of comments about him that would have not happened with another character.
You are wrong though, the players who quit and want Valko will come back, and those who are not extreme will simply stay and play for their mains.
Now then, I'm not gonna pretend I don't know who you are, and we all know that antis love to twist reality.
So, about the truck, almost all the Valko supporters were against this truck. Also, this was probably false since no one saw this truck. I was in Cologne, I didn't see it either.
I wouldn't be surprised if the two other allegations were false too.
Do I have to make a list of all of what antis did ? Because I can.
Just a few to refresh your memory : sending funeral flowers to the Infold building, sending cow dung there, leading a smear campaign, weaponizing women's issues to fit their own narrative, weaponizing China dark history, mass harassing ANY Valko supporter when he was announced in China, doxxing personal info on those who dared speak up, making vows about spending their life savings for Raf 4rd myth,...
the game announced a new LI and due to violent and aggressive backlash from part of the fandom, they cancelled him 2 days after an announcement begging the fans to give him a chance and that he ties into the overall lore, and after 8 days of teasing him.Ā
some fans got big mad when he was announced and so they threatened to boycot the game, but they couldn't really do any damage in 8 days. so when he got cancelled, more of the paying fans boycotted due to not being happy with the direction of the game and with how they folded so quickly to pressure. so all of the revenue not earned in the past 2 months are due to people who would have liked the new LI or people who are disappointed with the company who are refusing to spend money until the company is more transparent.
now people are boycotting because there isn't a new LI and consumer trust has disappeared. anyone telling you otherwise is misinformed imo.
since anti new LI (valko) people got what they wanted, which was his cancellation and for things to progress like usual, then there's no reason for revenue to still be this bad since there are things to pull for in game. in fact there was a highly anticipated solo rerun and 2 paid cards current running rn anyways.Ā
Because he was cancelled. Any anti saying they're boycotting too is lying because they had that whole #Whalesinaction shit and encouraged each other to spend. Lmao, a lot of them got piss mad when Raf didn't top the charts, and they didn't get the usual free 20 pulls.
a bit of both. Some people are boycotting because the company even dared to announce a new Li despite all the lacking QOL updated for the game and frustration regarding lack of content for certain LIs. That frustration and anger even with the new Li cancelled isnāt gone.
Some people are boycotting for his return but that seems mainly to be on the global side. The CN player base has pro-6th LI fans boycotting for him but most of their side is regarding the other issues.
Wrong actually. You donāt see any comment about that in China, let alone in Global.
However, the people supporting Ao Yin (Valko) is very present.
If you look at the Sensor Tower DAU data (even if we canāt know those numbers for sure) you see that people stopped playing because of Valko cancelation in China. People stopped spending as well when he was canceled, not before.
It was a smear campaign, and you know it.
Yes I know lovely, but I just want to say some facts because they are taking this opportunity to spread misinformation as they are often doing. So I want to clear that up a little ^^
i do see the other comments tho, Iām quite active on xhs and have been for quite a long while now.
Revenue data does show a drop since his cancellation but this entire year, the revenue has been lower than in the past two years. That points towards a growing discontent from the fanbase as a whole. So even if some people boycotting are pro-Valko, that doesnāt mean that everyone is however. We know publicly at that some CN Caleb fans in particular were quite upset about his solo card run and wanted to boycott it.
Global is quite loud about the Valko boycott but CN isnāt the same. Why would CN Caleb mains boycott for Valko? He isnāt mentioned in any of their public comments regarding their demands for their boycott. The same can be said for the public exodus of many CN fans before the cancellation and after, most of them donāt seem to list Valko as a point of complaint. Especially when most of the biggest CN pushback came from his initial introduction. A quick reminder tens of thousands of CN players filed government complaints against Infold during the 8 days of his publication and only a few thousand were filed after Valkoās cancellation.
Then, you should see how there are absolutely no comments about a boycott on their part right now.
You know very well that even if the revenue was a bit lower this year, it's nothing compared to when Valko was cancelled.
For Caleb indeed, I did see some comments about Caleb mains being unhappy about the new card and expressing their dissatisfaction. I do believe some of them were boycotting as well.
For Rafayel's 4th myth though ? Crickets. Sylus's rerun ? Crickets. And then, we all saw the revenue tanking hard while there were no boycotts alongside ours.
Revenue and DAU (from SensorTower) both showed that CN players stopped playing and spending when Valko was cancelled. Are you saying this is mere coincidence ?
For your last point, I think you know about the smear campaign and how many thought that LaDS was anti-China and against women's safety. Those allegations have been cleared, and this was indeed a loud minority.
Now the numbers spoke for themselves.
Yes, the revenue is lower than ever right now. But we canāt discredit the drop that happened at the end of June. There is a reason that an entire hashtag on xhs exists where players who quit the game hang out and discuss what has happened in the last two months is still alive. Those players likely wonāt return. That means they are an audience that is lost. If we assume that LADS lost half as many players as what they have lost in CN socials during the 8 days of Valkoās release, that is still over 500k players.
Since then, they havenāt gained that amount of players back. So it would be safe to assume that some of those people arenāt coming back at all. So yes, the revenue is down overall. The people who filed those government complaints against Infold and requested refunds are unlikely to all come back.
And yes, the allegations against Valko all got cleared but you donāt have to search far for comments which still disparage him. He is still the face of a major controversy for a decent chunk of the current player base. If it was a smear campaign against him, Infold could have cleared the air but all the statement that Infold made to support Valko made the situation worse until his cancellation and even now, Infold is carrying on business as usual with no direct mentions of him. There is a good reason for that. The PR situation is still messy.
And I ask kindly, why would CN fans who are predominantly known to be loyal to their specific Lis choose to boycott for Valko in particular? It makes no sense. If that is the case, we can see the loudest player dissatisfaction coming from before his cancellation. The cancellation fixed none of the other issues raised.
Infold removed a new Love Interest before they officially released him, because they listened to a loud minority of the fans, saying they donāt want him (Valko). They got a HUUGE Blacklash, so many players started to boycott.
They decided to cancel the new announced Love Interest called Valko because some CN crazies threatend them. Now we all boycott because we want our man back
I guess they were hoping the LADS boycott would have gone the same as the 1.5 Infinity Nikki 'girlcott'. Lots of folks pissed with that patch but the impact was never that great. Most people didn't completely stop spending, they just spent less. They didnt lose anywhere near the amount of money and player base that LADS is now bleeding out.
After seeing the numbers, I wonder if the reason Infold was so generous with the freebies during this patch is to keep the IN players in a good mood and not get any ideas on joining in the boycott. Lucky for them the IN fans no longer seriously gripe about the legit issues with the game. They are too busy obsessing over how to make her look naked in every new outfit release.
Why everyone acting like this is good? They are still in the top-10 somehow, I thought they will be like 20 positions lower. Plus IN still in top-50. Plus Shining Nikki and Love Nikki. All this need to get out of top-30 at least for boycott actually meant something. They are literally generating ~ 27 million in a month. Papergames and Infold value is ~ 2 billion. They will be completely fine with this income.
Not when they are used to have 40-50 millions monthly and always be in top 3.
Thatās a loss of 30-40 millions each months, this is a HUGE loss for a gacha company.
Biggest downfall actually.
I've found this chart on twt with previous revenue for lads so... 17 mil this month is wild, considering that we had new myth and solo card, new promise, paid outfits and ndz rerun.
Their total earning just in June this year was around 30 million. The fact they only earned 17 million despite a new solo banner, one new promise card, some anticipated re-runs, and a new myth for the golden character is actually a big deal. Raf, in the past, would usually singlehandedly earn 17 million+ in the past. The fact that this is the TOTAL earning for the month is actually pretty bad and incredibly underperforming.
This is a month with new Raf myth, Caleb solo and No Defense Zone rerun, these results are extremely good cuz ngl i thought it would make at least 20mil
Yeah, idk how going from 10M to 17M is seen as good for a boycott
Edit: I mean yeah, no shit, it's less than 50M and it should have been more for a big patch
But I just don't see a mobile game doing 17M a month going EOS or even doing radical changes
It's still an absurd amount of money
We'll see next month if it's going back under 10M
But I feel like it won't go down by much, might even go a bit higher
July didn't receive any new content. August released a new solo, a new myth (emanator/archon/void hunter/etc), and a new battlepass, and made 7M more than a month with no new content. The new myth made ~4M in total when Rafayel last myth made ~22M
10M month had no new banners. There was a lot this month, they should have been way higher. They released the myth for the most popular character and it completely flopped.
You gotta look at full context ā this is LADS 2nd worst performing month ever (worst being July.)
A myth banner for a very popular character normally makes more than $17 million by itself. Infold/PPG isnāt going to be happy to go from making $50 mil a month to $17 mil, no matter how many spots it moves around in comparison to other games.
Foreign dollar, particularly US dollars since we are their second largest market, are worth more and are very valuable to the Chinese economy. Look up exchange rates and the benefits of foreign (US) dollars on the economy.
Additionally, losing global cash is really bad for infold. One of their strategic objectives is to expand globally. Its literally in their company description. The release of valko would have brought in a lot of the global fanbase, just like sylus did. But instead they broke global trust and warded off potential buyers with their decision
506
u/ErrorneousMoe Infinity Nikki + Love & Deepspace 8h ago
*looks at Love and Deepspace\*
Still out of the Top 3 š
Boycott still strong!