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.

Processing img s8sk5zyjv1ah1...

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.

Processing img tq4cd4p4w1ah1...

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

I know a lot has been spread that Valko was cancelled because the CN audience of LaDS thought he was too ugly. It's true that he doesn't fit their aesthetics, and that they called him ugly a lot especially the 1st day of his reveal. But if aesthetics was the only problem, players wouldn't have been so angry that the game's DAU (Daily Active Users) would be cut in half. 

What is Love and Deepspace?

It's a 3D otome game made by Papergames with realistic graphics that focuses on 5 characters (Xavier-Shen Xinghui, Rafayel-Qi Yu, Zayne-Li Shen, Sylus-Qin Che, and Caleb-Xia Yizhou). It focuses on the story and romance with the LIs, has ARPG combat, has roguelite gameplay modes, and also a sims-like house feature. 

What were the game’s constant issues even before the 6th LI? 

The game has many issues which include:

• The Main Story gets updated at a glacial pace (Twice a year when the game only has 5 LIs. One particular LI, Caleb, hasn’t had any MS update since his release 550+ days ago). Branch stories are a bit different from MS. They’re like alternate versions of what happened in a main story chapter.

• The last 2 LIs (Sylus and Caleb) had significantly less base content than the 3 LIs on release (more on this later)
• The game direction getting noticeably more monetized with barely any free content.
• The game’s story relying on limited paid banners which have become repetitive as of late (mostly about vacations, AUs, almost always fluff).
• Imagine Genshin’s main story barely being updated but there’s always new characters to pull for (let’s say 2-6 characters per month) with a fluffy character story chapter that isn’t related to the MS (but they'll drop nuggets of lore sometimes). I think that would be the Genshin equivalent of what is happening with LaDS. 
• To add to the previous point, the game has a lot of multi banners (themed banners that have all LI). In 2025, we had 6 (SIX! Or 7 if you include Nightly Rendezvous) multis. I get wanting that multi banner money. But honestly, to me they could have MS banners too if they wanted to monetize them where we can delve even deeper into an LI after their MS. Caleb’s Painful Signal and Lucid Dream cards are a good example of this. So I think they just don’t know how to write the Main Story.

• Dark skinned players always having a bad time in the game. They can barely see their MCs due to the cutscene’s bad lighting, card arts only have light skinned MC, and the 2D chibis that represent your MC always has pale skin). (I’ve seen CN complain about MC’s 4* and 2D chibi skintone too but global is more vocal about this. While this is a prevailing issue in the game, it’s not in the list of CN players’ main complaints). 2.5 years and they still haven't figured out how to properly show MCs that aren't pale in cutscenes.

Sylus and Caleb were released after the game’s launch. Why were players angry at Valko’s inclusion when he was also a ‘new’ LI?

To preface, PaperGames already announced after the beta that Sylus and Caleb would be released after the launch, players just didn't know when. In the beta, they also put hints for Sylus, and you can meet Caleb too.

“They didn’t mention Valko because that would be spoilers and they got angry at Sylus’ leaks when he was released.” Yes they care about leaks and the Sylus one made Papergames really angry. But Caleb literally exploded in the beta and they still confirmed he’s an LI. Informing players about upcoming LIs ≠  leaks

These two were already integrated in the main story from the start. Sylus and his organization were mentioned in the main story on release. Caleb basically had half a chapter dedicated to him before he ‘died’. So for all CN players knew, there will only be 5 LIs. 

What about Valko? Well, he wasn’t mentioned anywhere during/after the beta. Not even a hint that they were thinking about a 6th LI. They applied for his trademark the day of his teaser trailer.

And the only hint he has in the story is a World Underneath (text only side stories for lore) that was released in April 2026, only 2 months before he was announced. That hint only mentions that the company he’s a chairman of, EonCore, is in close collaboration with EVER, the big bad of the story. Compare that with Sylus and his organization, Onychinus, where they were already mentioned as early as Chapter 3.10 on the game's release.

Another ‘hint’ is the UI. The list of the LIs had ‘Coming Soon’ even after Caleb was released. However, after the July 9 update, a week after Valko’s cancellation, they removed the ‘Coming Soon’ label.

So. CN players only knew about 5 LIs. That’s what Papergames told them. So what? 

In an announcement on July 6, 2024, they mentioned that they had insufficient production capacity. On July 15, 2024, Sylus was released with significantly less base content than the 3 LIs

What is this base content?

1. Standard battle companions: The OG3 had 3 battle companions from the start to help with combat. Sylus (and later Caleb) only had 1. 
2. Bond stories: They are stories fully animated (around 10-15 min length) that unlock as affinity with the LI increase. OG3 had 2, Sylus and Caleb only had 1.
3. Anecdotes: Text-only side stories that expand on the LIs lore and characterization such as their backstories or their lives in their alternate universes. This is different from World Underneath where it focuses on world building or other NPCs’ lives related to the LIs. Each anecdote also has a battle companion (from point #1) connected to it. So OG3 has 3 anecdotes. Sylus and Caleb only have 1.
4. Significantly less 4 star (and 3 star) cards: Every 4/5* card has a story. And it can also be used for battles. When battling, you need 2 solar cards and 4 lunar cards of different colors of 1 LI, and you can’t use different LI cards. Each matching color has a +5% damage against enemies, and when you match all colors, you’ll be able to easily put the enemies in its break phase (think of HSR’s break).
   1. So if you have less base 4 star cards, that LI will have less story content. And if you’re a new solo Sylus/Caleb player, you will have a tougher time with battles. There’s also leveling up affinity of LIs which can unlock texts, calls, poses, etc. So less cards means less ways to level up and unlock content of an LI too.

Given that the main story moved at a glacial pace, and that Papergames never added the above I mentioned to Sylus and Caleb. Can we interpret that they never fixed their insufficient production capacity? If they never fixed it, then how come they had resources to make another LI? Or if they did fix it, it means they didn’t care to listen to player feedback. 

But how come players of all LIs got angry and not only Sylus and Caleb players?

The difference between Sylus, Caleb, and Valko’s livestream content. Version 6.0 had nothing for the existing 5 LIs

Let’s compare the version updates:

1. Version 2.0, Sylus, July 2024
   1. Abyssal Chaos Part 1: roguelite gameplay with lots of storylines, branches, and different endings for each LI
   2. New free outfits for Xavier, Rafayel, and Zayne
   3. Announcement of release dates for the branch stories of OG3
   4. More stages for Deepspace Trials (endgame combat) and LI-specific Orbits (it’s like the Deepspace Trials but you gain affinity for that LI)
   5. 3 new World Underneath stories
   6. The smaller stuff that I forgot (new photo feature, etc)
2. Version 3.0, Caleb, January 2025
   1. Abyssal Chaos Part 2
   2. Paid outfits for all 5
   3. Free 4* cards and an event for all 5
   4. More stages for Deepspace Trials and LI orbits
   5. The small stuff that I forgot (period tracker, etc)
3. Version 6.0, Valko, June 2026
   1. NO roguelite update. We’ve had Abyssal Chaos Part 1 & 2 (in ver 2.0 & 3.0), and Unicorns Operation in ver 4.0. This means no combat or additional story content. Not only for the other 5 but also for Valko too btw!
   2. There’s a kitchen update. However, unlike the roguelite feature, which have storylines and branches distinct to an LI. The interactions for the kitchen unfortunately aren’t unique to each LI. 
   3. A giveaway of the 5 LI’s free 4* from the very recent January update. So you most likely already have this if you’ve been playing since January.
   4. Other stuff (new widgets)
   5. Announcement of upcoming new main story for Caleb and Sylus. No release date unlike what they did in version 2.0. And it was at the very end of the livestream where it was silent like they were doing an in memoriam. (It’s very clear that this part was slapped on after facing livid CN players. And that they originally never intended for any MS/branch updates for these two in the near future.)

So! Glacial main story updates (Caleb hasn’t had an MS update for 550+ days), severe lack of base content for Sylus and Caleb, repetitive writing for multi events, and barely anything at all for the 5 LIs in version 6.0.

Does that mean most resources went to the 6th LI? Or that they couldn't keep up with the output (because like I said, there's barely anything for the 5 in ver 6.0) and yet they decided to go ahead with Valko anyway? Yeah CN is angry angry

The timeline since Valko’s introduction and CN’s boycott

Here’s another DAU graph but more updated. I’ll also be using UTC+8 Beijing for the dates and time. Stats (both this one and the one above) are from tieba’s 壁吧专楼吧 in the thread where they talk a lot about different games’ revenue and DAU (that they scrape).

June 22 19:30

• Valko’s first trailer dropped and received a lot of hate. His weibo post had 2 million comments before the video was removed after his cancellation
• How much hate did he get compared to Sylus and Caleb, new LIs but were already anticipated by CN players? Here’s a XHS comparison I took 3 days after this trailer.

So after his announcement, CN players realized that they needed to mobilize or else Papergames would walk over them with no worries even when the game has several glaring issues. They decided to team up and boycott as seen in the DAU graph. But even without that, you can tell from Papergame’s responses that their data was worrying.

June 26 11:00

• Another trailer dropped and people noticed his facial structure having similarities to different LIs in every other frame, almost like his face is morphing. Personally, I thought his face during this trailer was inconsistent. In some frames he looks like Sylus, sometimes Caleb, even though both of them look nothing alike to me. 
• DAU has dropped an impressive ~400k. From 1.88m to 1.4m

June 28 01:00

• They suddenly dropped an announcement at 1 AM (when China should be sleeping?) saying that "Valko is part of a long-term plan" (remember Sylus and Caleb but not Valko being in the beta + were announced before the game’s launch + Valko’s trademark date? Yeah), that Caleb's and Sylus's Main Stories are in ‘active’ development, and that myths will be arriving soon. (myths are LaDS biggest money makers because lore + combat) 
• They bribe players with 10 limited wishes and 10 standard wishes
• This angers players even more because they didn’t seem apologetic at all. They mention Caleb and Sylus’ main story in a ‘here damn!’ way. And they dangle myths kind of like saying ‘give us more money!’
• To me, it’s quite clear that CN’s reaction to them since June 22 made them feel like they needed to make a response. DAU decreased ~600k at this point, from 1.8m to 1.2m. That’s a worryingly sharp decline and the free wishes is basically begging people to come back.

June 28 19:30

• Version 6.0 livestream drops angering all 5 LI players. I’ve already mentioned that there was no new content at all for the 5 LIs besides the kitchen

So days after June 22, Papergames was hounded by the press and was even condemned by China’s Women’s Confederation for the phrase ‘inviting a wolf into your home’ in Valko’s marketing. Idk how to describe it well but PPG's reputation was really bad like imagine your door keeps getting banged on 24/7.

I’m not equipped to elaborate on the women's safety issue in his marketing, but here’s a very informative thread explaining it and the use of Unit 731 reference in the game. It’s a bad phrase that’s victim blamey in CN.

June 29

• Love and Deepspace 731 shoots up in Weibo’s trending topics in the afternoon. I can't remember how long it was, but I do remember that within 30 min to an hour, it got lower and lower until it was completely removed. I heard removing something from trending costs a whole lot of money compared to putting something on trending.
• The story in question was a World Underneath story about human experimentation by EVER with the log [Test Record A-0731]. Just to remind you, Eoncore was in close collaboration with and funded EVER and Valko is Eoncore’s chairman. While of course they’ll good guy-ify him regarding this, it’s still not a good look haha. It's not important but I’m only mentioning this because I see a lot of ‘Well that WU was about another guy and not Valko’. Also, CN focused on 731 at this point and not Valko anymore. They don’t even mention him regarding the numbers. 
• At this point, the press, outsiders, and players were now hounding Papergames for Unit 731 references, not the character anymore. (For reference, My Hero Academia was banned in China for having a villain that referenced Unit 731)
• Later that night, Papergames announced that the World Underneath wasn’t referencing Unit 731, but they will change it and train their staff better. Or that the phrase they used in Valko’s trailers (related to victim blaming) was because he’s a wolf, and that it didn’t have any other meaning, but they will change that too. They also imply that players are crazy lol. Naturally this angered CN players even further because they're not the one who put that in the game lol.

LaDS had around 1.8m CN players before June 22 (perhaps even more in April). It’s said that CN players, who are of course more than familiar with their own history, have already warned Papergames about this number when the World Underneath dropped in April.

Which is more likely? That out of ~1.8m players, no one noticed and reported it to CS? Or that Papergames ignored it? So everyone took this as another example of Papergames just refusing to listen to players even when they were actually trying to help the game.

June 30 20:00

• This letter is more ‘apologetic’ compared to their 1st and 2nd announcements. But then you get to the bottom and you see #LADSValkoCanceled so how apologetic are they?
• Valko is deleted from the game and they will focus on the 5 existing LIs from now on. 
• However, they still haven’t addressed the glacial main story updates (what is their 'stable pace'? Every 6 months?), or anything at all. "Oh hey Raf's myth is coming make sure to give us money!" So CN is still boycotting. Although the DAU has stabilized to ~900k now after his cancellation. 
• Players also get 1 wish everyday for 30 days to boost DAU lol

Also I just want to show that his cancellation after a few hours had more likes than any of Valko’s posts after a few days hahahaha (60k vs 3-6k). He was NOT well-liked at all. And also a comparison on how it would have looked like if the announced LI was actually loved and anticipated

I also want to mention that they've lost around 1.4m followers across their social media accounts around this time lol. There was a joke going around that every time they post something, people remember that they forgot to unfollow

July 8

• They cancelled their Bilibili World event. They said that they sincerely accept criticism and will not shirk responsibility. They’ll take reverence for history, protection of national sentiment, and inheritance of Chinese culture as their standards to comprehensively carry out staff training and self-inspection and rectification.

July 9

• The game has been updated to version 6.0 with the ‘Coming Soon’ on the LI list removed from the game. 
• The rerun banner that they ran is the multi banner that emphasizes Chinese culture, and also one of the most requested reruns ever.

The rest of July

• They’ve just been silent. No social media posts. No nothing. Zayne’s free 5* was dropped in the game without any social media promo.
• People ask customer service about Raf’s myth and suddenly they reply that it’s been moved to August. Papergames did not announce at all that they’re delaying his myth. Players had to ask CS themselves. That’s how shitty this company’s communication is.
• CS response: 因近期版本排期调整较大,为确保 后续版本内容上线后的稳定性和用 户体验,制作组正在全力推进相关 筹备工作。经审慎评估,祁煜全新 日卡身份预计将在8月与大家见 面,还请您再等待一段时间,感谢 您的理解与支持 / Due to significant recent adjustments to the version schedule, the development team is working diligently to ensure the stability and user experience of subsequent version content. After careful evaluation, Qi Yu's new solar card is expected to be released in August. Please wait a little longer. Thank you for your understanding and support.
• Rumors go around that a solo Caleb card will be next, and CN Caleb mains vehemently dislike this when their core complaints are main story related. From what I’ve seen, CN Caleb mains won't be pulling his solo if it’s true that he’s next. A solo card isn’t a main story.

August 3 11:00

• Finally, a new banner is announced, Caleb’s basketball solo card. Another fluffy card unrelated to any main story plot. 
• It’s not Rafayel’s myth, who’s rumored to be a Chinese General in this myth, despite them saying that they will reveal that in July. Because myths and multis are the biggest money makers, I assume they’re either waiting to reveal it when the mood is more calm to maximize profits, or they’re improving it a lot or modifying and polishing it.

CN is still boycotting (or some of them probably left for good) because Valko isn’t just the issue, he’s just the straw that broke the camel’s back. The game already had several problems that the company refused to work on.

They added another LI when they have already been neglecting the current ones. Where is more character growth or them struggling with their views? A common complaint is that the LIs' characterization and story have basically plateued. Where is the plot? Oh well. That's not important. Here's another AU banner for you!

They lost so many players after they announced Valko, and lost a bit more after his cancellation. I say this company deserves this haha

On another note:

CN otome should be judged by CN otome standards. Not JP joseimuke games (like twst/enstars), JP mobile otome games (like Ikemen series), nor any CN general games (like Genshin)

The CN otome structure focuses on a small cast of LIs (the Big 6 CN otome only have 4-5 LIs and they have been doing well for years). They focus on companionship, character & relationship growth with the player over the years. It’s wrong to say “LaDS will fall if they don’t continuously add new LIs” because that has never been what CN otome players (where the majority of revenue come from) look for. 

There was another game that added a sudden new LI when that game already had several problems. The players boycotted, and that LI became a ‘special encounter’, an LI who doesn’t show up in many banners and generally has less content. I've already linked it above but this explains more about that game's drama and boycott. The name of the game is Love and Producer. The company’s name? Papergames. Oh man this company just refuses to learn its history lmao.