It’s been a busy week if you’re very deep into Infold’s game catalogue, more specifically if you’re into Love and Deepspace or Infinity Nikki. It seems like Infold can’t catch a break from fan opinions; they usually get a lot of heat from their Chinese fanbase (and being a Chinese game developer) when something goes wrong.
Love and Deepspace has added another male suitor for players to romance and interact with. Because of how huge the fanbase is, there are many responses which vary from not liking that Valko was muscular and going deep into homophobia, as buff men are usually associated with gay men. Love and Deepspace is infamous for not having any gay content, with Infold shutting down fan art which can be seen as gay or discussions that the main character could be a man instead of a girl.
Infold listens very carefully to their Chinese audience and the Western one, and both are primarily of the opinion that the game should be left only for women to play rather than have gay men try it too. It also comes with a massive stigma of otome games being shallow as they are marketed to women, deeming them as not real games, and the gacha elements don’t help.
LADS Fans Say ‘Bad Dog’
The fans of Love and Deepspace got very offended by the decision to add a muscular werewolf love interest, even if he was trademarked and hinted at quite a while back; according to the lore that is available in the game, there should’ve been 6 love interests all along. Many fans went vocal online in every possible corner, saying that they don’t enjoy how rough he appears to be, which led to Infold to softly censor his look before taking a step further and removing Valko altogether in a quick attempt to patch things up before they got ugly.
Infold employees had been getting death threats from players, calling to boycott the game until they would be heard; fans of LADS also ended up sending cow dung and curse rituals to the studio’s headquarters where the banner of Valko was placed to advertise the new love interest.
The fans of Love and Deepspace got very offended by the decision to add a muscular werewolf love interest
They also started spreading false information (that now the game is open for anyone to play as men or women, which isn’t the case) or that the character is just made for the Western audience, implying that they are pandering to the Western fans more. Infold also confirmed that they would not be adding any additional love interests from now on, to try and make peace with the angry fans.
Adding to the confusion, Valko was greeted mostly positively by the Western audience of Love and Deepspace, and there were also Chinese fans that enjoyed and welcomed him. With Infinity Nikki just having survived another wave of censorship over cleavage, also from the Chinese fans, players are seeing how easy it can be to sway Infold’s creative direction. If a minority makes enough noise, will they scrap anything that the fans will demand, no matter how big or small the hate?
Many are asking what this will mean for Infinity Nikki and the slowly shaping drama of the bathing suit being revealing. Only time will tell, and we’ll watch how Infold will continue reacting to the drama, as the fans’ response has yet to die off, but the ball is still in Infold’s court.
