▲ 60 r/CalebMeiMeis
Molly Tea has some really cute CalebMC-like marketing for Qixi!
u/Strange-Purchase4789 — 2 days ago
▲ 82 r/CalebMeiMeis
Did you know that Caleb's first phone call came with the rain? And that when you scan Caleb's QR from the CD collection, you'll be redirected to the sound of only rain
The title of chapter 1.09 is Rainfall Curtain. The weather forecast didn't mention any rain, but I guess Caleb yearned so hard before making a phone call that it rained anyway. Caleb's desk OST is also called Midsummer Rain, and his bond story title is Rain's Embrace. And it was also raining during the iconic Captive Bird.
When there's rain, it means Caleb is missing and yearning for you 🥹
I really love the writing choice to manifest his yearning as the rain because there's this sense of ache behind it (especially Midsummer Rain like wow what an amazing piece).
White noise link (it has 40 minutes of yearning lol): https://deepspace.papegames.com/proj/whitenoise/xiayizhou.html
u/Strange-Purchase4789 — 7 days ago
▲ 52 r/CalebMeiMeis
Caleb's different sneezes
In CN/JP he sneezes 'little sister', in EN he sneezes 'little one' which I think is also very cute! And I think EN only has 2 sneezes and not 3 which is a shame (unless I just never encountered the other one?)
I also only recorded the EN/Simp CN/JP event before so unfortunately this doesn't have Trad CN and KR apologies 🙇♀️
Which sneeze is your favorite? Mine definitely has to be the 2nd meimei. He says it so very softly and gently I love it
u/Strange-Purchase4789 — 11 days ago
▲ 249 r/LADS_OG
They're all so adorable omg
They're little babies 🥹🥹
P2-P6 are photocards from the palm-sized figurine where they're sleeping
Also you can find the HD versions just search for user 镜Ethereal in XHS
u/Strange-Purchase4789 — 12 days ago
▲ 61 r/CalebMeiMeis
One of my favorite things about Caleb is how doting he is and how he loves to spoil MC. And one of the ways he shows this is by picking out accessories for her
That hairpin in the Stage Observer art is the one he got in the 1st image 🥹
And one of the best things is that she returns it so so much like in Clearday Return, Netherlord event story, and his very iconic necklace!
u/Strange-Purchase4789 — 14 days ago
▲ 1.2k r/gachagaming
The cancellation of Valko, the would-have-been 6th LI of Love and Deepspace. Was it because he was too ugly or was he just the straw that broke the camel's back?
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?
- Standard battle companions: The OG3 had 3 battle companions from the start to help with combat. Sylus (and later Caleb) only had 1.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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).
- 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:
- Version 2.0, Sylus, July 2024
- Abyssal Chaos Part 1: roguelite gameplay with lots of storylines, branches, and different endings for each LI
- New free outfits for Xavier, Rafayel, and Zayne
- Announcement of release dates for the branch stories of OG3
- More stages for Deepspace Trials (endgame combat) and LI-specific Orbits (it’s like the Deepspace Trials but you gain affinity for that LI)
- 3 new World Underneath stories
- The smaller stuff that I forgot (new photo feature, etc)
- Version 3.0, Caleb, January 2025
- Abyssal Chaos Part 2
- Paid outfits for all 5
- Free 4* cards and an event for all 5
- More stages for Deepspace Trials and LI orbits
- The small stuff that I forgot (period tracker, etc)
- Version 6.0, Valko, June 2026
- 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!
- 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.
- 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.
- Other stuff (new widgets)
- 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.)
They later change this to BRANCH story with release dates (September for Caleb, November for Sylus)
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.
Sylus and Caleb had around 200k likes and 15k comments, Valko had 50k likes and 300k comments.
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
Left to right: Douyin, Weibo, XHS, Bilibili
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.
u/Strange-Purchase4789 — 18 days ago
▲ 94 r/LADS_OG
Daily Active Users cut in half to ~900k in China, a short timeline of events, and my unneeded commentary
I unfortunately had to remove most of the links because I kept getting nuked by reddit's filters 💔 Let me know if I messed up anywhere. Additional info is also welcome!
June 22 19:30
- Valko's first trailer dropped and instantly received many CN players' anger
- A few days later, the trailer from Weibo gained 1m comments. And at least 2m comments before they took it down.
After June 22, CN starts boycotting, realizing that if PPG had the resources to make a brand new LI, then why weren't they focusing on the game's issues first such as main story updates, bond stories, etc for all LIs? When Sylus released, they even mentioned that they had insufficient production capacity. And given that they had the audacity to release a 6th LI instead of improving the game, then either they never had insufficient capacity, or that the already insufficient capacity that they weren't able to solve was instead allocated to him. [For the insufficient production quote, please look for LaDS twitter post dated Jul 6, 2024]
Also frankly, I think they just don't have any idea on what to do with the MS. If 'That's because it's free' is a reason, then it's very easy to monetize imo because they could just have banners related to the LIs with the MS. Caleb's Painful Signal is a good example of this.
June 26 11:00
- Another trailer dropped, angering CN further (and some of global) because he looks like a mishmash of LIs, with some reused animations from other LIs as well. Sometimes he looks like Caleb, in other frames, he looks like Sylus, and rarely Rafayel. Which I'm very amazed by because those three look nothing alike at all lmao. Not beating the AI allegations this one
June 28 01:00
- ?? They suddenly dropped an announcement at 1 in the morning, saying that Valko was part of a long-term plan, and that
they just opened a new word documentCaleb's and Sylus's Main Stories are in active development. They also dangle Rafayel's myth, basically saying "give us more money!" - They try to bribe us with 10 limited wishes and 10 standard wishes that you can get until July 23. Even without data, to me this says there was a worringly sharp decline in logins
June 28 19:30
- The livestream drops, angering CN further because there's close to 0 new content for the 5 LIs besides the kitchen.
- To compare, Sylus' livestream introduced Abyssal Chaos Part 1, announced the branch stories and their release dates, and free outfits for the 3 LIs
- In Caleb's livestream, they announced Abyssal Chaos Part 2, an event and free 4* cards for CNY
- In Valko's livestream, it had Valko, the kitchen which would contain a few new interactions with LIs, Sylus in an apron, and a moment of silence where they show a quick edit of Caleb and Sylus with the words MAIN STORY (which they changed to Branch Story the next day). No release date at this time. Also, Valko has that 4 star card with the plushies that OG3 have but Sylus and Caleb don't 😭 what the helly
June 29
- Love and Deepspace 731 shoots up in Weibo's trending topics. I can't remember how long it was, but I do remember that within 30 minutes, it got lower and lower until it was completely removed. I heard removing something from trending cost a whole lot of money compared to putting something on trending.
- Later that night, PPG announces that using 731 on a WU story about experimentation was simply random, that they weren't using offensive quotes relating to women's safety, that they're not prioritizing foreign audiences, that the players are crazy, blah blah blah. This, naturally, angered CN further
June 30 20:00
- They cancel Valko in an 'apologetic' announcement (after being so arrogant from the first two). The sincerity is suspect to me because who the hell makes a hashtag after saying sorry?
- They bribe 30 wishes across 30 days lmao, which further proves that their DAU really did plummet because this is basically a sad attempt at trying to boost DAU
July 8 06:00
- They cancel their event at Bilibili World in another 'sincere' apology saying "We sincerely accept all criticism and corrections regarding the issues exposed and will not evade responsibility. We will use reverence for history, protection of national sentiment, and the preservation of Chinese culture as our benchmarks to comprehensively conduct staff training and self-correction."
July 9
- Version 6.0 drops, the 'Coming Soon' is gone, and we get a surprise Wander in Wonder rerun instead of NDZ or Misty Invation. Most likely to show they're emphasizing Chinese culture + it's the most sought after rerun
CN boycott (or is it still a boycott? Perhaps a lot have even given up on the game) is still ongoing. Even after removing Vacuum Cleaner they still haven't returned because PPG hasn't addressed any of their concerns at all.
Sources:
- Unfortunately I can't directly link so I'll just mention where they're from 🥲
- P1 graph from tieba 壁吧专楼吧 by 个二个一 (This forum is about discussing game revenue or any stat related stuff. Deepspace was a hot topic there the last week haha. The graph is from the newest thread 2026年-嘉豪之夏-手机游戏流水综合讨论楼)
- P2, P3, P4 DAU & WAU(P4) analysis from Bilibili from 壁吧专楼吧 (I recommend watching them. It's quite interesting and they're very impressed by the drop in DAU lol)
- P5: Same source as P2,P3,P4 but more updated by momo (更新日活版) in XHS
Some Notes:
- For official LaDS posts that aren't available in EN, you can either check their official Weibo or XHS account.
- I won't be commenting about 731 or the women's safety issue because I'm not equipped to comment on them. So I'll just link this very informative thread in r/MrLove
- During the first few days of CN's boycott, they would make these banners like [If the revenue is low, praise (LI)'s mains. If the revenue is high, blame PPG for buying their own packs], etc to encourage players to boycott. One of those banners was [If you want to remove the 6th LI, they'll make him a special encounter. But if you want the game to EOS, they'll easily throw away the 6th LI] and I wonder if there really was any danger of LaDS shutting down hahaha
- Personally, I support all boycotts both pro-Valko and anti-PPG 😆 PPG should be taught a lesson. I only wish we had data how much of global is boycotting though. They gotta stop taking credit for CN's boycott lol
Some more interesting information: Debunking thread
u/Strange-Purchase4789 — 1 month ago
▲ 1 r/LADS_OG
Daily Active Users cut in half to ~900k in China, a short timeline of events, and my unneeded commentary
June 22 19:30
- Valko's first trailer dropped [Link: xcancel(.)com/Love_Deepspace/status/2069020075986661392]
- A few days later after this, the trailer from weibo gained 1m comments. And at least 2m comments before they took it down.
- Comparison between Sylus, Caleb, and Valko's first trailers on XHS that I managed to screenshot on June 25.
- Another comparison between Valko's reception and Caleb's. His cancellation announcement had more likes than any of his posts 😭
- Here's another comparison of Bilibili's reaction to Sylus, Caleb, Valko ('Your husband' is derogatory. Basically saying 'I don't want that as my husband. He's yours. Keep him')
After June 22, CN starts boycotting, realizing that if PPG had the resources to make a brand new LI, then why weren't they focusing on the game's issues first such as main story updates, bond stories, etc for all LIs? When Sylus released, they even mentioned that they had insufficient production capacity. And given that they had the audacity to release a 6th LI instead of improving the game, then either they never had insufficient capacity, or that the already insufficient capacity that they weren't able to solve was instead allocated to him. [Link: xcancel(.)com/Love_Deepspace/status/1809561279931298170]
Also frankly, I think they just don't have any idea on what to do with the MS. If 'That's because it's free' is a reason, then it's very easy to monetize imo because they could just have banners related to the LIs with the MS. Caleb's Painful Signal is a good example of this.
June 26 11:00
- Another trailer dropped, angering CN further (and some of global) because he looks like a mishmash of LIs, with some reused animations from other LIs as well. Sometimes he looks like Caleb, in other frames, he looks like Sylus, and rarely Rafayel. Which I'm very amazed by because those three look nothing alike at all lmao. Not beating the AI allegations this one [Link: xcancel(.)com/Love_Deepspace/status/2070341759998345709]
June 28 01:00
- ?? They suddenly dropped an announcement at 1 in the morning, saying that Valko was part of a long-term plan, and that
they just opened a new word documentCaleb's and Sylus's MAIN stories are in active development. They also dangle Rafayel's myth, basically saying "give us more money!" - They try to bribe us with 10 limited wishes and 10 standard wishes that you can get until July 23. Even without data, to me this says there was a worringly sharp decline in logins
June 28 19:30
- The livestream drops, angering CN further because there's close to 0 new content for the 5 LIs besides the kitchen.
- To compare, Sylus' livestream introduced Abyssal Chaos Part 1, announced the branch stories and their release dates, and free outfits for the 3 LIs. [Links: xcancel(.)com/Love_Deepspace/status/1810154745987989770, xcancel(.)com/Love_Deepspace/status/1811265601752752506]
- In Caleb's livestream, they announced Abyssal Chaos Part 2, an event and free 4* cards for CNY. [Link: xcancel(.)com/Love_Deepspace/status/1877692890153172994]
- In Valko's livestream, it had Valko, the kitchen which would contain a few new interactions with LIs, Sylus in an apron, and a moment of silence where they show a quick edit of Caleb and Sylus with the words MAIN STORY (which they changed to Branch Story the next day). No release date at this time. Also, Valko has that 4 star with the plushies that OG3 have but Sylus and Caleb don't 😭 what the helly
June 29
- Love and Deepspace 731 shoots up in Weibo's trending topics. I can't remember how long it was, but I do remember that within 30 minutes, it got lower and lower until it was completely removed. I heard removing something from trending cost a whole lot of money compared to putting something on trending.
- Later that night, PPG announces that using 731 on a WU story about experimentation was simply random, that they weren't using offensive quotes relating to women's safety, that they're not prioritizing foreign audiences, that the players are crazy, blah blah blah. This, naturally, angered CN further. [Link: xhslink(.)com/o/ODRFVJ57i1]
June 30 20:00
- They cancel Valko in an 'apologetic' announcement (after being so arrogant from the first two). The sincerity is suspect to me because who the hell makes a hashtag after saying sorry? [Link: xcancel(.)com/Love_Deepspace/status/2071927369653485756]
- They bribe 30 wishes across 30 days lmao, which further proves that their DAU really did plummet because this is basically a sad attempt at trying to boost DAU
July 8 06:00
- They cancel their event at Bilibili World in another 'sincere' apology saying "We sincerely accept all criticism and corrections regarding the issues exposed and will not evade responsibility. We will use reverence for history, protection of national sentiment, and the preservation of Chinese culture as our benchmarks to comprehensively conduct staff training and self-correction." [Link: xhslink(.)com/o/AcH9v8uFCCl]
July 9
- Version 6.0 drops, the 'Coming Soon' is gone, and we get a surprise Wander in Wonder rerun instead of NDZ or Misty Invation. Most likely to show they're emphasizing Chinese culture + it's the most sought after rerun
CN boycott (or is it still a boycott? Perhaps a lot have even given up on the game) is still ongoing. Even after removing Vacuum Cleaner they still haven't returned because PPG hasn't addressed any of their concerns at all.
Sources:
- P1 graph from tieba forum 壁吧专楼吧 by 个二个一 (This forum is about discussing game revenue or any stat related stuff. Deepspace was a hot topic there the last week haha. The graph is from the new thread. Unfortunately it's not possible to link to comments.) [Old thread link: tieba(.)baidu(.)com/p/10604341743], [New thread link: tieba(.)baidu(.)com/p/10831184574]
- P2, P3, P4 DAU & WAU(P4) analysis from Bilibili from 壁吧专楼吧 (I recommend watching them. It's pretty interesting and they're very impressed by the drop in DAU lol) [Links: bilibili(.)com/video/BV15mTq6JEH8/, bilibili(.)com/video/BV1W5TQ6gE9n/]
- P5: Same source as P2,P3,P4 but more updated by momo (更新日活版) [Link: xhslink(.)com/o/Cg1cHr3MyA]
Some Notes:
- I won't be commenting about 731 or the women's safety issue because I'm not equipped to comment on them. So I'll just link this very informative thread in r/MrLove
- During the first few days of CN's boycott, they would make these banners like [If the revenue is low, praise (LI)'s mains. If the revenue is high, blame PPG for buying their own packs], etc to encourage players to boycott. One of those banners was [If you want to remove the 6th LI, they'll make him a special encounter. But if you want the game to EOS, they'll easily throw away the 6th LI] and I wonder if there really was any danger of LaDS shutting down hahaha
- Some photos I took from twitter but I won't link to them for fear of accidentally sending harassers to them. But if you found your tweet and want to be credited, let me know and I'll edit it.
- Personally, I support all boycotts both pro-Valko and anti-PPG 😆 PPG should be taught a lesson. I only wish we had data how much of global is boycotting though. They gotta stop taking credit for CN's boycott lol
Apologies for the weird linking because I keep getting nuked by reddit's filters. Let me know if I messed up any links or information. Additional info is also welcome!
Some more interesting information: Debunking thread
u/Strange-Purchase4789 — 1 month ago
▲ 33 r/LADS_OG
Daily Active Users cut in half to ~900k in China, a short timeline of events, and my unneeded commentary
June 22 19:30
- Valko's first trailer dropped
- A few days later after this, the trailer from weibo gained 1m comments. And at least 2m comments before they took it down.
- Comparison between Sylus, Caleb, and Valko's first trailers on XHS that I managed to screenshot on June 25.
- Another comparison between Valko's reception and Caleb's. His cancellation announcement had more likes than any of his posts 😭
- Here's another comparison of Bilibili's reaction to Sylus, Caleb, Valko ('Your husband' is derogatory. Basically saying 'I don't want that as my husband. He's yours. Keep him')
After June 22, CN starts boycotting, realizing that if PPG had the resources to make a brand new LI, then why weren't they focusing on the game's issues first such as main story updates, bond stories, etc for all LIs? When Sylus released, they even mentioned that they had insufficient production capacity. And given that they had the audacity to release a 6th LI instead of improving the game, then either they never had insufficient capacity, or that the already insufficient capacity that they weren't able to solve was instead allocated to him.
Also frankly, I think they just don't have any idea on what to do with the MS. If 'That's because it's free' is a reason, then it's very easy to monetize imo because they could just have banners related to the LIs with the MS. Caleb's Painful Signal is a good example of this.
June 26 11:00
- Another trailer dropped, angering CN further (and some of global) because he looks like a mishmash of LIs, with some reused animations from other LIs as well. Sometimes he looks like Caleb, in other frames, he looks like Sylus, and rarely Rafayel. Which I'm very amazed by because those three look nothing alike at all lmao. Not beating the AI allegations this one
June 28 01:00
- ?? They suddenly dropped an announcement at 1 in the morning, saying that Valko was part of a long-term plan, and that
they just opened a new word documentCaleb's and Sylus's MAIN stories are in active development. They also dangle Rafayel's myth, basically saying "give us more money!" - They try to bribe us with 10 limited wishes and 10 standard wishes that you can get until July 23. Even without data, to me this says there was a worringly sharp decline in logins
June 28 19:30
- The livestream drops, angering CN further because there's close to 0 new content for the 5 LIs besides the kitchen.
- To compare, Sylus' livestream introduced Abyssal Chaos Part 1, announced the branch stories and their release dates, and free outfits for the 3 LIs. Links: 1, 2
- In Caleb's livestream, they announced Abyssal Chaos Part 2, an event and free 4* cards for CNY
- In Valko's livestream, it had Valko, the kitchen which would contain a few new interactions with LIs, Sylus in an apron, and a moment of silence where they show a quick edit of Caleb and Sylus with the words MAIN STORY (which they changed to Branch Story the next day). No release date at this time. Also, Valko has that 4 star with the plushies that OG3 have but Sylus and Caleb don't 😭 what the helly
June 29
- Love and Deepspace 731 shoots up in Weibo's trending topics. I can't remember how long it was, but I do remember that within 30 minutes, it got lower and lower until it was completely removed. I heard removing something from trending cost a whole lot of money compared to putting something on trending.
- Later that night, PPG announces that using 731 on a WU story about experimentation was simply random, that they weren't using offensive quotes relating to women's safety, that they're not prioritizing foreign audiences, that the players are crazy, blah blah blah. This, naturally, angered CN further
June 30 20:00
- They cancel Valko in an 'apologetic' announcement (after being so arrogant from the first two). The sincerity is suspect to me because who the hell makes a hashtag after saying sorry?
- They bribe 30 wishes across 30 days lmao, which further proves that their DAU really did plummet because this is basically a sad attempt at trying to boost DAU
July 8 06:00
- They cancel their event at Bilibili World in another 'sincere' apology saying "We sincerely accept all criticism and corrections regarding the issues exposed and will not evade responsibility. We will use reverence for history, protection of national sentiment, and the preservation of Chinese culture as our benchmarks to comprehensively conduct staff training and self-correction."
July 9
- Version 6.0 drops, the 'Coming Soon' is gone, and we get a surprise Wander in Wonder rerun instead of NDZ or Misty Invation. Most likely to show they're emphasizing Chinese culture + it's the most sought after rerun
CN boycott (or is it still a boycott? Perhaps a lot have even given up on the game) is still ongoing. Even after removing Vacuum Cleaner they still haven't returned because PPG hasn't addressed any of their concerns at all.
Sources:
- P1 graph from tieba forum 壁吧专楼吧 by 个二个一 (This forum is about discussing game revenue or any stat related stuff. Deepspace was a hot topic there the last week haha. The graph is from the new thread. Unfortunately it's not possible to link to comments.) Old thread, new thread
- P2, P3, P4 DAU & WAU(P4) analysis from Bilibili (links: 1,2) from 壁吧专楼吧 (I recommend watching them. It's pretty interesting and they're very impressed by the drop in DAU lol)
- P5: Same source as P2,P3,P4 but more updated by momo (更新日活版) link
Some Notes:
- I won't be commenting about 731 or the women's safety issue because I'm not equipped to comment on them. So I'll just link this very informative thread in r/MrLove
- During the first few days of CN's boycott, they would make these banners like [If the revenue is low, praise (LI)'s mains. If the revenue is high, blame PPG for buying their own packs], etc to encourage players to boycott. One of those banners was [If you want to remove the 6th LI, they'll make him a special encounter. But if you want the game to EOS, they'll easily throw away the 6th LI] and I wonder if there really was any danger of LaDS shutting down hahaha
- Some photos I took from twitter but I won't link to them for fear of accidentally sending harassers to them. But if you found your tweet and want to be credited, let me know and I'll edit it.
- Personally, I support all boycotts both pro-Valko and anti-PPG 😆 PPG should be taught a lesson. I only wish we had data how much of global is boycotting though. They gotta stop taking credit for CN's boycott lol
Let me know if I messed up any links or information. Additional info is also welcome!
Some more interesting information: Debunking thread
u/Strange-Purchase4789 — 1 month ago
▲ 302 r/CalebMains
In the beta, MC was much more depressed after the explosion
In the main story, MC overworks herself that she barely sleeps, then lets herself become bait so she can enter the dangerous N109 zone so she can find out what happened and who was responsible for the explosion.
But it seems in the beta, her reaction was much more depressed 😭 I do think it's very in line with Caleb's MC's characterization though. In Decoherence, she'd rather die with Caleb than be in a world without him. In YYS, she becomes a monster, lost her memory, can't even speak, and her mind basically breaks after he dies.
But I also understand why this was removed lol. It's a bit too heavy and too close to home for an otherwise lighthearted otome. Plus, the main story tries to be "neutral" (at first anyway lol) toward the LIs regarding MC's feelings so this put too much importance on Caleb as well.
Anyway, I just wanted to share this because it's both interesting and sad af.
u/Strange-Purchase4789 — 2 months ago
▲ 126 r/CalebMains
A fan made a wonderful website that sends our wishes to Caleb. Let's wish our brother a very happy birthday!
It's so cute 🥹 I love seeing so many baby apples from around the world greeting Caleb a happy birthday ❤️❤️❤️
The website: https://caleb-your-skyblue.vercel.app/
It's made by Starry Sunny from Threads
The form is limited to 10,000 wishes/(pages?) though so once it reaches that, the website will be closed.
u/Strange-Purchase4789 — 2 months ago
▲ 91 r/CalebMains
The pair of birds together in his chibi art, along with his pilot outfit, reminds me of Skyline
u/Strange-Purchase4789 — 3 months ago
▲ 60 r/CalebMains
Official Content: [Two Hearts, Bound by Fate] in all languages
>A warm breeze slips in through the window. Quiet words drift between you and him as love softly lingers in the air.
Could this ordinary day be the echo of a wish once shared in another time, another place? 🪐
>💕Again and again, love will guide those who yearn for each other back under Deepspace.
Heartfelt words, unwavering vows—they will traverse light-years and time, only growing stronger with every age.
Rough TL from JP for the title. Just imagine that it's more poetic than my TL 🙈
>EN: Two Hearts, Bound by Fate
JP: ふたつの心が巡り合い、愛は果てなき時空へと広がっていく / Two hearts meet, and their love expands toward the endless space and time.
Simp. CN for reference: 两颗心相遇，于是爱在无限时空中蔓延
I guess they shortened the EN one because there's not enough space?
u/Strange-Purchase4789 — 3 months ago
▲ 86 r/CalebMains
I appreciate so much how Garden of Eden-like the whole kindled was, and landscape mode make the Eden vibes even better! It makes me wish so bad for an actual landscape version of kindleds
Anyway I really loved the part where MC bites the necklace. It made me think of Exclusive Aftertaste where Caleb takes an apple and they bite on it. This time, it's MC who takes the apple (necklace) first and they make out with it 🙂↕️ It's so good
I also really loved the 'I didn't teach you that' part 🥵🥵🥵 I occasionally see that sometimes in fics or HCs lol I'm glad we actually got one in game
I can't wait for Illusio and put him in his R1 outfit and colonel 😋
Also that last shot where he buries his face into her chest!!! Dare I say that's our Eve wanting to go back to Adam's rib hehe
u/Strange-Purchase4789 — 4 months ago
▲ 74 r/CalebMains
Since they haven't posted anything yet in other sites besides CN ones, for anyone who's too excited like me, here it is!
u/Strange-Purchase4789 — 4 months ago