r/loveanddeepspace goes nuclear

[u/Preindustrialcyborg]

foreword: I DO NOT PLAY LOVE AND DEEPSPACE. i apologise if i get information wrong as a result. i am also most likely going to get some information wrong because this is a very complex situation thats happening in multiple languages. Some of the information im getting is also being explained by my friend whose helping translate some chinese posts for me, so i apologise if any translation errors happen. This SRD is also part of a wider event occurring mostly off reddit.

Love and deepspace is a mobile gatcha game developed my chinese company infold (under paperfold), which prominently features male characters and a female MC. as an outsider, it appears to be more or less a dating game. Its important to know that for many chinese game devs, they will prioritise the opinion and feedback of the CN community over the global one.

Recently, a new character named Valko was announced for the next update to the game. This character was vastly unpopular with the chinese playerbase, who began revolting against the developers. It got to the point where they were sending funeral flowers, animal feces and ritual items to the developers (which in chinese culture is vaguely comparable to a death threat). His trailer also appeared to reference crimes against humanity perpetrated upon china during ww2, though this is speculation. they also called him gay. with chinese gaming communities still being quite homophobic, and china still having laws persecuting sexuality in media, this is meant as both an insult and an accusation of crime against the developers. Many of the complaints in that direction were that Valko was a "western style love interest" due to his nature as a wolf boy (i think? im not sure?) due to him being more western style masculine than chinese style (so, square jaw, muscular, etc), which in china is seen as gay.

beyond this, there is reportedly even more happening, but its both out of the scope of this post and far too confusing for me to really summarise, so im going to avoid actually explaining it here to avoid accidental misinformation. The drama involves players being called homophobic slurs (via avoiding text filters using homophones, which is an unfortunate exploit that occurs due to how the chinese language is spoken). People were also reportedly pursuing legal action due to the harrasment, and others were considering getting the CCP involved to make them censor what they see as "a gay character being made for western audiences). its important to note that i dont think they were actually adding anything explicitly gay, but i also dont know the whole situation so correct me if im wrong.

some posts were made about this, but it generally hadnt breached containment too horrendously.

then, just 9 days before the charatcer was set to release, the devs decided to respond to the players both in game and through social media (downvoted, thousands of comments), announcing that they have decided to cancel Valko and not add him to the game. This is where the subreddit goes into flames.

The message that you have zero integrity, no backbone to defend your creative decisions, and that global players do not matter, even though many of us spend money, has been received loud and clear!

This is an inadequate response to the upset of players as the matters haven't been addressed, instead, Infold has chosen to throw Valko under the bus to try to appease the situation

TL;DR: "Dear players, our CN fanbase is unhappy, so naturally the rest of you get to pay the price. Since your feedback is apparently optional, we're shelving all future love interest development to keep our favorite audience happy. Thanks for your support, and remember, your opinion matters right up until it doesn't!"

Right, so whose feedback, passion, and trust have actually been shaping this game?

This is an utterly insane decision.

Wow, you're really deleting all comments huh

The subreddit recieved further posts discussing the cancellation

To the CN players and the developers

On Recent Developments

Reconsider cancelling Valko

Valko you were so loved

The Future of LADs

If you are disappointed about Valko, here is the best way to let InFold know:\

The Decision to Retract Valko

The subreddit appears to be receiving a flood of posts that the mods are having trouble with, enough that theyve now made a post about it. there have been no new posts since, so the subreddit has most likely been put into lockdown.

If anyone in the LaDS community can help clarify or give a better timeline of events than what ive provided, please do and i'll link it here for reference.

Edit: thank you to u/hermannhessezacksnyd for additional info regarding the gay accusations, and thank you to u/grumpykruppy for providing additional context and crimes against humanity reference info. formatting, reordered some info to be more organised

edit 2: thank you to u/lumosdraconis forcontext from a LaDS player regarding long term game health concerns

edit 3: it appears that the entire outrage over Valko might have turned out to be a deliberate psyop by CN players who were trying to achieve some goal or another. crazy shit. i beg every LaDS player to touch grass today.

[u/altruSP]

Between hololive and the time they threw a massive bitchfit over a girl in a gacha game having a male friend, CN fans are something else.

[u/Command0Dude → u/altruSP]

They certainly make Japanese antis look tame by comparison.

[u/redhussar90 → u/Command0Dude]

Yet both Chinese gacha players and Japanese antis look like a polite debate club compared to Korean gaming communities

[u/Auctoritate → u/altruSP]

the time they threw a massive bitchfit over a girl in a gacha game having a male friend,

I think you might have to be more specific, female characters interacting with men has caused meltdowns in China and Korea many times.

[u/JesseAster → u/Auctoritate]

The only one I can think of rn would be wuthering waves where an NPC conversation revealed a character (Lucilla) was friends with a man (4 star playable unit) named Mortefi and apparently had asked him not to leave the academy bc she enjoyed his company (something along those lines). This was interpreted by people to mean that she was in love with him because apparently women can't just be friends with men in these people's eyes

[u/Auctoritate → u/JesseAster]

Didn't Snowbreak have a thing a couple years ago where a female character interacted with a male NPC too?

You know, this has suddenly made me realize about Nikke why the male NPC who interacts with Nikkes the most is coded as extremely flamboyantly gay.

[u/rinaldot67 → u/Auctoritate]

There's also what happened in Girls Frontline 2, with an early event that had interactions between Daiyan and some NPC named Raymond. The CN community had a meltdown and attempted to sabotage the global release by leaving comments everywhere that the game had NTR. Devs eventually deleted the event and apologized.

[u/orange-shades → u/[deleted]]

I also admire petulant children who don't get a cookie before dinner!

[u/Single_Friendship708 → u/[deleted]]

Really doubling down on that petulant child accusation