In their newest update 1.3, a new area has been added, along with it came new fishing spots and fishing catches.

One of their fishing assets contains the watermark from Doubao (豆包) a popular Chinese AI chatbot assistant with image and video generation powered by Seedance (Bytedance).

This has sparked heated debate amongst Chinese players, while not hardly criticizing the use of AI they do make fun of the fact that Doubao’s AI image generation watermark comes from the free version of the app, with many comments calling them cheap, criticizing their carelessness and questioning the real reason behind their low production costs.

To quote one of the comments:

“AI is fine, but using Doubao is just funny. The free version no less.”

Other comments talk about AI across the Chinese gaming industry, how other companies such as Hoyoverse and Netease have self-developed AI tools while Hotta Studio uses an AI chatbot assistant.

To put it on perspective, asking Doubao to generate an image is very similar to asking ChatGPT.

Quote from another comment:

“Doubao Doubao, help me generate a game asset of a purple crowned seahorse.”

I’ll add that the Chinese community already knew about the extent of AI usage in Neverness to Everness, though they weren’t expecting to see Doubao of all things.

As of this post, the watermark has been removed with the asset remaining the same otherwise.

Any game that has any kind of lootbox is automatically +18 by law

It's been known in China for a while, since the last beta (in February), but just today a video by iYatoOfficial is getting viral on Twitter and lots of posts gathering over 100k likes in total have brought it to the general public's attention that in NTE you can't date men, but you can date women as female MC.

It's actually a bit of a flirty friendship, but very clearly intended to be seen as dating since the interactions are a bit too intimate. You can set up to 5 girls to date.

While it flew over my head in February (even thought I often browse xhs and bilibili) due to its neutral reception, the negative reception today is really hard to ignore bc it's everywhere if you follow any gacha fanpage, with several reposts and retweets bashing it (and a couple praising it as well).

This is making some people a bit bitter, specially because the info comes to the public attention a week after Mongil's announcement that they won't release more male characters after releasing the game with a small amount of them (https://www.reddit.com/r/gachagaming/s/Fkub1W2Yyh).

Well, at least they aren't baiting their players into playing a game that only caters to male players (and bi/lesbian women, even if by accident and it ends up being patched in the future).

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Source: https://x.com/i/status/2045495647311433984

Hi gooners!

Doing this after 1.5 years.

Here's your sauce: (not in comments this time because I still get dms about names).

Ultimate Gooner: Last Origin, Horizon Walker, How To Raise A Harem, BrownDust2

Extreme Gooner: Azur Lane, Haze Reverb, Girl Wars, Lost Sword, Idle Angels, Idle Huntress, Attack on Time, Tales of Angels

High Tier Gooner: Snowbreak (Pre Censorship), NIKKE, Echocalpyse, Dragon Traveler

Mid Tier Gooner: Star Savior, Neural Cloud, Blue Archive, Chaos Zero Nightmare, Zenless Zone Zero, Girls Frontline 2 Exilium

Low Tier Gooner: Wuthering Waves, Honkai Star Rail, Stella Sora, Neverness To Everness, StarSeed Asnia Trigger, Aether Gazer, Punishing Gray Raven, Girls Frontline, Path to Nowhere, Skullgirls

Not Enough Goon: Genshin Impact, Umamusume Pretty Derby, Arknights, Arknights Endfield, Trickal Chibi GO

Why am I here: Reverse1999, Limbus Company

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:

http://xhslink.com/o/8fLuumUFwFD

http://xhslink.com/o/QpcRXk3FPk

http://xhslink.com/o/38WusOgfG8v

http://xhslink.com/o/4JpYxaxsOK0

http://xhslink.com/o/6sevYpTjLof

http://xhslink.com/o/pcmJ2dvzXo

http://xhslink.com/o/5X23NfSy95X

http://xhslink.com/o/AxJ3wE552wq

http://xhslink.com/o/4ZzoJNpMVh5

http://xhslink.com/o/4s1pLMoeOwk

http://xhslink.com/o/2e3cMnwuIfu

Summary from Weibo's AI:

On June 22, 2026, Love and Deepspace suddenly dropped its sixth male protagonist, "Ao Yin," without any story buildup. His Western-style werewolf character model clashed severely with the art style of the five existing male protagonists, triggering massive player backlash. The official response of spamming "Sorry!" only intensified the conflict. The comment section has accumulated nearly 600,000 negative comments, and this has rarely united fans of the other five protagonists in a joint protest. 

I. Incident Core: New Male Protagonist Controversy
On June 22, 2026, Love and Deepspace suddenly revealed a sixth romanceable male protagonist, Ao Yin, via a concept short. Set as a 189cm werewolf leader/CEO, scheduled for July 9. Customer service had previously denied plans for a sixth protagonist; this abrupt drop, with no story buildup, was seen as a betrayal.

II. Reasons for Boycott

• Aesthetic clash: Ao Yin's rugged Western model sharply contrasts with the refined East Asian style of existing male protagonists, mocked as a patchwork design, and his name sounds like a wolf howl, sparking ridicule.
• Unequal resources: Main stories of the five original protagonists have stalled (e.g., Xia Yizhou 500+ days no update), yet the new protagonist received a full promotional package; players call it a double standard.
• Worse gacha: With six protagonists in mixed pools, pull probability for a favorite dropped from ~20% to ~16.7%; scheduling concerns for future cards.
• Story conflict: Ao Yin is the core leader of the villainous EVER group that has harmed all existing protagonists; players reject romancing someone who hurt them.

III. Official Response & Backlash

• Response: Officials ignored core issues (model, gacha, buildup) and spammed "Sorry!" while pushing lines like "look at his bright eyes." They also declared all protagonists heterosexual for the first time, seen as deflection.
• Player reaction: Seen as force-fed promotion and an ineffective apology. Veterans noted that when old protagonists faced rumors, the company stayed silent, but now frantically defended the newcomer, highlighting a double standard.

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P.S. Many Chinese female players hate "wolf/bear" type characters because they think the characters look gay. They don't want to attract gay male players and don't want the dev to fawn over male players.

Red dots=like, black dots=dislike.

Covered up games in images 3 & 7 are Snowbreak Honor of Kings & Reverse 1999, respectively.

EDIT: Image 3 is actually Honor of Kings, not Snowbreak. “SB” over HoK’s square means 傻逼(sha bi)=stupid/idiot/dumbass/asshole. Although HoK isn’t a gacha, it’s up there with a few other mobile games that are popular in China.

Part 2 thread with Arknights, Endfield, Nikki, and other games cut off in these pics here: https://www.reddit.com/r/gachagaming/s/yvlpDV499B

Post credits: http://xhslink.com/o/1SW4p5Tf0vY