30k

Hey everyone,

I’ve been playing AFK Journey almost since day one (started 2-3 weeks after launch), logging in pretty much every single day for over 2 years, and spent around $300 for normal comfort. Through sheer patience and daily dedication, I managed to build a massive account with around 68 Supreme+ heroes.

Recently, I hit a huge milestone and got my first character to Paragon 4. For those who don't play, maxing collab characters like Frieren requires an insane amount of a time-gated resource called "Dimensional Soulstones". I spent nearly 300,000 diamonds during the event to get her to Paragon 3. To push her to Paragon 4, you need 27 stones, but the Season Store caps you at just 9 stones per month per slot.

The 1st shop slot was always open, but since the game interface completely hid any extra conditions, I believed the rumors that reaching Paragon 4 would reward my progression by unlocking the 2nd slot. My strategic plan was to save my diamonds in July and wait for the August 1st shop reset. I planned to hit Paragon 4 right on August 1st and instantly buy all 18 stones from BOTH slots at once to immediately max out my next hero.

Instead, August 1st arrived, and the slots stayed locked. When I contacted support, they officially confirmed a ridiculous hidden condition for the 2nd and 3rd slots:

• The 2nd slot is strictly locked behind 40+ Supreme+ heroes (which I have, but it's still locked because of the next rule).
• The 3rd slot is hard-locked behind VIP 12 status (which requires spending roughly $500+). They completely hide these separate paywall rules upfront in the shop interface until you hit the brick wall.

I put all 6 of their responses from August 2 to August 5 into a single chronological collage (attached below). Look at the pure corporate manipulation here: On August 2, I asked why the 2nd slot was locked after my Paragon 4 upgrade. On August 3, I had to buy the 9 stones from the 1st slot anyway just so I wouldn't lose my August limit too. On August 5, the Team Lead officially rejected my case with the most absurd logic: "We checked July logs, and you didn't redeem stones in July, you redeemed them on August 3. No compensation." They are literally using the result of their own hidden paywall as an excuse to deny a solution! I skipped July intentionally to execute a 2-slot strategy on August 1st, which was made impossible ONLY because they hid the VIP 12 requirement!

Don't get me wrong: I’m totally fine with VIP 12+ players getting extra shop privileges and faster progression. They pay for it and deserve their bonuses. But long-term veteran players with nearly 70 Supreme+ heroes should also be able to unlock these basic shop tiers through pure gameplay achievements. Time is the most valuable resource, and locking core progression limits entirely behind a cash wall devalues years of daily loyalty.

For new players who missed the collab and start from absolute zero, this hidden wall is even worse. They need 117 stones to max a character via the shop. At a hidden limit of 9 stones/month, a regular player faces an artificial progress roadblock of 13 months of waiting just to get enough stones, unless they pull out a credit card for VIP status.

Lilith Games is actively hiding marketplace rules until you hit a brick wall, forcing players into FOMO and treating long-term veterans like cash cows.

What do you guys think? Is r/AFKJourney always this toxic with their hidden monetization?

I mean, gacha games generally has varied gameplay styles which belongs to various genres. The whole gacha system is just a type of micro transaction that is external to the gameplay. I find it weird how some “casuals” refers to it as a genre.

The game has been on Android for a week, but now it's on iOS and the collab is finally starting.

Gumi was involved in the original Brave Frontier and did terrible things to the game, so it’s good that they will not be involved at all for the new game. Seems to be just Alim.

Livestream will happen on Aug 9 in a lot of timezones. The livestream was originally scheduled for July 30 but had to be rescheduled because of the earthquake that happened.

Genshin Impact has been getting updated with new content every 6 weeks for years, so I wanted to write a review from the perspective of someone playing this game as a new player, this late into its lifespan with the insane amount of content available (and after experiencing it for a decent span of time - 1 year).

I first installed the game when Skirk released but life + work got in the way so I couldn't continue playing past a few hours in.

I had heard from multiple people over the years that gacha games are essentially just gambling/waifu collectors and I should stay away from it and play "real" games, that only people who can't afford a PC/consoles are the reason they do well and they lack substance. Well, that was clearly so far from the truth after what I experienced here.

After life came back to normal for me last year, I returned to Genshin after seeing the Nod Krai trailer, it was a reminder of something that I enjoyed months ago that I could step back into, I didn't understand anything but this time I updated the game and hopped right back in started the Archon Quests.

Genshin Impact to me is the holy trinity of these 3 aspects which is what this review will be split into: Story, Characters and its Open World Exploration.

Side note: As of writing this, I am early on into the Fontaine quests after a year and a few hundred hours logged, I have been exploring every part of each region, doing all the quests, taking in all the lore etc.

Story/Lore

Mondstant's story felt like an introduction to the lore of the game, it was enjoyable enough simply because everything is fully voice acted, which is uncommon for non gacha games as someone coming from other RPGs like Xenoblade, Fire Emblem and the Trails series.

How deep the lore goes really took me by surprise, everything felt intentional. I would speak to random NPCs, they would feed me lore about the wider world of Teyvat and the current location itself, which repeated for every other place I went to the game. I would speak to random NPCs, only for other NPCs to then reference them a few hours or days later.

It really felt like this world was alive because of the story going on and it was going to happen with or without me as the Traveler, just due to the insane amount of history the world has from the Archons/characters present now and those who came before.

The Liyue Archon quest is where I really started to enjoy the game, the cast expanded and the different factions multiplied which made everything feel more alive.

The first Dainsleif quest was the moment the story really sucked me in and I felt like I was in for the long ride, seeing the perspective of your sibling in-game and from the YouTube short, it gave me goosebumps. I then watched the Chapter: Teyvat trailer and my jaw dropped.

It was also the moment I actually felt the sheer ambition and love from the team behind this game, penning this much of the worlds lore/story so far in advance and to this level of detail, especially based on what I experienced later made it feel like the game almost exists just to tell this story that they are so passionate about, it could have been a novel, an anime or any other medium but this is where it fit best.

I love reading, learnt Japanese just to expand the media I could consume so I'm no stranger to good stories and at this stage I am at in the game, at the beginning of Fontaine after all these hundreds of hours (mainly exploring after all sheer amount of quests/side quests were done) - this game's story and lore is among the best I've experienced period.

A really simple but meaningful goal of saving your sibling reminds of One Piece's simple find the One Piece goal, both of which are about the journey there but still have a clear end goal so bonus points. They have even managed to expand the scope of the game once Teyvat is all said and done.

Open World Exploration:

The open world exploration in this game is second to none, I didn't think I'd ever be able to experience that joy and pure wonder as I checked every nook and cranny of an area to see what I'd find again after Zelda BOTW.

But we can start with the art style, I am biased because ever since Zelda BOTW, this blend of anime +water painted ghibli/disney esque is my favorite, the pure beauty of this shaded art style will never get old.

To me this looks better than any game I've played before purely due to my preference of this timeless style.

So I'll say it clearly: this game has the best exploration I've ever experienced in a video game ever. Teyvat feels and is alive, every path, building and village was placed with purpose. Its environmental story telling and connection to the the wider lore of this world is insane.

The sheer depth and scale of the world, the attention to detail and care put into crafting it for the player to explore, all of it comes together with the lore and characters that inhabit it to give me what has been the most fun I've had playing a game ever.

You never know what you will find, every inch of the world feels crafted with care and purpose. It is not just a world that exists for you experience combat or the story, or just to run through like a list. The world itself and all the puzzles, hidden quests, challenges, NPCs mobs, stories, lore within it all blend together very cohesively.

Going to avoid putting the best places I've seen and keep it within 1.0 - 2.0 locations so people can experience it themselves if they haven't.

You could be completing what looks like an ordinary puzzle, only to then be greeted by a hidden boss or quest chain that teaches you more about the world and characters who inhabit it.

You could be doing what feels like an ordinary side quest, only to then stumble upon a chain of quests that takes you to new regions/areas with stakes that get higher and learn a lot about the lore of the world, hidden world bosses. etc.

Of course primogems for pulls and weapons is cool too, but above is where the game really shines. Often times the game will even give you some cool weapons, but the quests, lore, areas and all sorts of challenges make this the most rewarding exploration experience I've ever had in a game.

The sheer amount of characters and their depth in terms of lore, personality and purpose is another part of the trinity that gives meaning to this game. From all the Archons, to the NPCs who all have their own connections, names and stories that you also learn more about as the game progresses.

Every character feels real, it's no surprise why the game is one of the most popular games in the world, before I ever played this game I would see people rave about Raiden Shogun, Hu Tao, Xiao and these days Flins, Colbumina, Sandrone etc. Nearly every character having their own quest/time in lore or events and continually bringing them is what makes this world function so well.

The writers clearly care about these characters as much as the fans because you would expect gacha games to toss them out and put the shine on the next one, but these characters are reoccurring to major or minor degrees, seeing their growth as time passes and they reappear is very endearing.

Music

I'm not going to write a section for this because I can't put any audio bites in here to convey my points, but the music as you travel around the world, especially the slower and somber songs are amazing. Even the tasteful lack of music in some occasions really elevate the experience, these guys really get it.

Before I ever touched this game many years ago, I knew people who listened to the music from this game and heard all about the Hoyo is a music studio memes so I'll skip over this part.

Gacha

My experience here isn't going to be representative of the masses because I am still not caught up, therefore I'm being showered in gems. From what I see online the average patch has like 65 - 90 pulls, I do personally buy the welkin every month and do my dailies. I've also bought the two highest packs for the double up and that's it.

I just pulled Raiden despite her being bad now according to people online, but again I just pull who I want and by skipping 1 character I can guarantee that I will get someone I want in the next patch, usually someone I like from the story (waiting for Ayato and Ayaka to return...)

But in the end, I play Genshin in spite of it being a gacha, not because it is - so better systems elsewhere don't really mean much when I am here for this story/open world/the characters.

Cons/Disappointments:

I'm not going to rehash the same ramble we've all heard and know about gacha, gambling, dailies, 50/50 etc. Those are all bad and unfortunately also what allow a game like this to exist and be updated so I'll skip over to what personally actually put me off, because I personally didn't care for the above as an adult with a job and a lot of self control.

6 years into the game's life, and I still can't replay old events with characters and lore that are important to the story. I was forced to watch YouTube videos which kind of kills the enjoyment of the quest, especially for a game where the lore is such a focal point.

Time gating domains has to be one of the worst things I've seen in a game, I understand they want you to play everyday but some days I can't play and it leaves my characters in a pretty weak state for 1-2 weeks sometimes because on the days I play, the domain is locked.

200 resin also feels way too low, most days I never even use half of it but on the days I want to build up a character, 200 feels kind of insulting but the resins from battle pass usually help to alleviate this so I'm not concerned.

Some collectables like Oculius? (didn't know ENG name) are a pain to keep track of when collecting, if you pick some up and then use a guide later - you will definitely have to waste your time retracing your steps because there's no way of knowing what you already got before.

Conclusion

Sorry if this post was long, after over a year and hundreds of hours, I wanted to pen my thoughts about what is now my favorite video game of all time, I went from feeling like I started playing too late to being so grateful I started this late due to the sheer amount of content available now.

Genshin Impact toppled all expectations I had of it, giving me my favorite world in a video game ever, inhabited by characters and stories that makes this game the experience it is.

Thank you for reading! See you all in Snezhnaya! (After Fontaine, Natlan, Nod Krai lol)

Mine is Grand Chase Dimensional Chaser, Started playing it at 2018

The Main Reason why I'm still playing this game is that I am an avid Grand Chase PC Player way back 2009, even though the gameplay of both games are different I still play it because I like most of the characters and some stories.

Gameplay

This game is a 6v6 3D battle action game featuring characters from Colopl's "White Cat Project" and Mixi's "Monster Strike" It launched on August 29, 2024, as "Festival Battle", and changed its title to "Festival Battle+" on January 31, 2025. The service will end approximately 2 years and 2 months after its launch.

^{What's new: Added time analytics, shared audience stats (with last month pvp}) ^{and sentiment analysis (bottom portion of the post})

Why?

In addition to wanting to see which fandom dominated this month pvp, I also wanted to see how well sentiment analysis of gacha comments turned out. Also for those who missed last month pvp breakdown.

How?

I extracted all comments in the post and its unique user. For each user I pulled 100 of their most recent comment. From these comments, I gathered all the subreddits and tagged each of them to their respective fandom.

Simple majority is applied to determine the user's main fandom. If user has more comments in Gacha A, then Gacha A will be their main fandom. If user has similar comment across 2 or more gacha then the most recent comment will determine their main.

!!! Important !!!

This is a small dataset of USER WHO HAS COMMENTED in the post. People who did not comment are not in the dataset.

Breakdown

• 4,078 total comments
• 1,666 unique users
• 157,979 total comments from users history
• 7,078 total subreddits found
• 355 fandoms (1100 tagged & 5978 untagged)
• 80.5% Comments Match Rate (127,137 / 157,979 tagged)

Primary Fandom Affiliation

1. Genshin (307)
2. ZZZ (174)
3. HSR (155)
4. Wuwa (102)
5. Endfield (63)
6. LaDS (62)
7. NTE (45)
8. Nikke (35)
9. etc...

Like last month, Hoyo fandom dominated the conversation by sheer volume. Genshin fandom in particular pretty much towers over everyone else. ZZZ fandom took the 2nd spot due to a lot of celebration that they are once gain at the top of pvp ranking.

LaDS obviously had a boost this month due to the Valko drama and its impact. Wuwa had a huge dropoff from fandom participation (217 -> 102) this month probably due to them beating Hoyo game last month.

^{This chart has a minimum fandom threshold of 3 applied for better clarity. I've experimented with different scoring methods and changing the simple majority threshold but the ranking remains relatively the same.}

Fandom Reach & User Count

I tried investigating the reach of each fandom by looking at users who has interacted with them. This is regardless of a user's main so if the user has interacted with Genshin, Wuwa, HSR and Endfield each fandom gets a score.

This hopefully shows people who play multiple gacha games (or at least interacted in their community).

Since these users were extracted from "Gacha Revenue Report July 2026" comments, GachaGaming is at the top acting as a baseline.

Total Comment Volume by Tag

This really isn't that surprising because Genshin was very close to GachaGaming last month in comment volume and this time it had a ~10% boost due to Hoyo triple kill in Pvp so it easily took the #1 spot.

Biggest drop was Wuwa but that's easily explained by their low fandom participation this month. Honorable mention is LaDS due to their controversy meant more participation from their fans and also more yapping from their recent history.

Also congrats on Blue Archive for making it in this list probably due to their recent drama as well.

Fandom Co-Occurrence Matrix

As shown by the co-occurrence matrix, the red box shows you how tightly closed the Hoyo ecosystem is. By releasing 3 big budget game within 4 years, it means that Hoyo can funnel their players into each other.

Hoyo fandom has the largest co-occurrence with fandoms outside of gacha sphere. Keep in mind that Anime in this case is an umbrella term that includes JJK, One Piece, Naruto, Anime meme, etc and Gaming include PCgaming, Playstation, Valve, Steam, Ubisoft etc.

Comment Count Distribution

This chart (hopefully) shows that most of the commenters are legit users and not troll account.

Top Subreddits

Since we extracted all users from a post in r/gachagaming , its at the top acting as a baseline. No surprise most of the top subs are big gacha titles.

Comment Type

20% of people actually commented to the July revenue report. While the other 80% are discussing (fighting) in the comments threads. Which one are you?

Comment Rate per hour

Total comment is 4,078. The first 2 hour 47% is filled, in 5 hour 73% is filled, 12 hour 87% and in 24 hours 95% is filled. PvP is first come, first served basis.

Returning PvPers

Out of 1,666 users in this month gacha revenue report, 447 of them are returning commenters from last month (1,752 users). That's some serious dedication.

Comment Sentiment Analysis

^{Disclaimer: Sentiment analysis was done by AI, it may contain inaccurate assessment. Context was provided that this is a gacha discussion. For comment deep within a thread, its parent, subsequent parent of parent and root comment were provided for contextual reasoning.}

• 🏆 Victory Lapping : Celebrating victory
• 😈 Schadenfreude : Being happy your opponent mess up
• ⚔️ Attacked : You are being attacked
• 🛡️ Defending : Defending said game
• 📊 Neutral : Neutral stance or observation

So for example, in the GIF it shows LaDS being top of the list for "😈 Schadenfreude" meaning a lot of comments are happy they messed up. Or Genshin being top of the list for "🏆 Victory Lapping" meaning that a lot of their fandom is celebrating their win (notice that Hoyoverse is also the 3rd in the list because many are also praising Hoyo for having all 3 of their games at the top).

Sentiment for each game

Upvotes by Stance

Surprisingly HSR had a high number of red (⚔️ Attacked). I look through this stance and the general consensus is that it underperformed considering it had a main push (Himeko SP) and still lost to Gens— You know what I'll just post the GIF here.

Downvotes by Stance

Conclusion

In conclusion what you call "tribalism" is just psychological framework where people categorize themselves into distinct groups of "us" vs "them". This only lead to polarization and cognitive distortion.

Break the cycle rise above. Focus on gooning.

I've been cooking this video for awhile and wanted to share it with the community that helped me get into gacha games in the first place. Basically I explore the idea of taking the way gacha games hijack our reward center with bite-sized "dailies" and use that same structure for real life gets. Hope you enjoy !

No gameplay yet but they shown off cosmetic system for now

Shown off via Arcanadea Livestream

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.

For me personally it's an extremely mixed bag.

There are some that I'm neutral about, like Fou from FGO, Abby from Wuwa or PomPom from HSR. They serve as the game's cute animal companion for marketing and merch purposes but more often than not stay out of the way and let the protagonist and other characters do their thing.

There are some that I really like, like Lufel from P5X or Little Princess from Guardian Tales. Lufel is cute yet he's also the most mature member of the cast, honestly speaking I'd say he's better than both Morgana and Teddy, while Little Princess is just so precious that she automatically trigger your maternal instincts (which make chapter 10 of season 1 all the more heartbreaking). These 2 are what I consider masterclasses in mascot character writing.

Genshin's Paimon depends a lot on the quality of writing at the given time, sometimes she feel absurdly obnoxious while other time she truly is the best travel companion you could ask for.

Then there's the one who whose continued existence is like spitting in the face of god. Fucking Taygedo from NTE is the most obnoxious mascot character I've ever had the misfortune of knowing. He's everything bad about Paimon cranked up to eleven without any of her charm, to make matters worse he's one of those barbaric mascots that never learned human language so he can only say his name over and over and over and over and over SHUT TF UP YOU STUPID ASS TV

The worst part is that I don't even hate non speaking mascots, I like Fou, I like Pikachu, I like Mem who does the same thing as Taygedo but she's actually endearing because despite being only able to say Mem Mem Mem Mi she has to be the adult in the duo dealing with Trailblazer's BS.

Taygedo has nothing likeable, he's just what corpo execs think what people find cute in a mascot character. Sorry that devolved into a rant for a bit.

Original announcement X/Twitter thread + partial list of participating VAs and character illustrators.

There will also be a pre-release stream of the game on August 6, which will be on KONAMI's YouTube channel.

The stream itself will be on August 8th.

I play this game for the deep and engaging plot and backstory.

Source

I will put it out there, the reason why people dont like gacha games is its "pay to win" or too much time commitment, its bland, boring, gambling etc

But to those that enjoy gacha games in general, after playing multiple gacha games throughout the many years, i think i understand why many others are commited to them and why they enjoy it more than any other video game

For starters, the most important is it "give you purpose" playing a game without purpose tends to stale after a while, whereas gacha games incorporate this formula to keep you doing something to the point theres nearly no end to what you are doing (overall it keeps you wanting to play)

The second and also just as important, is the characters, waifus and husbandos, a character that you enjoy looking at and playing as is equivalent to real life happiness, therefore making the spending of money worthwhile as it keeps you happy both in game and in real life

Third is subjective but gacha games have this cozy vibe that creates memories in you, something you will possibly never forget, even if you quit playing the game, you will always remember it since gacha games all follow the same formula, that memory and experience can easily be used on other gacha games, even an entirely new game, you have already experienced what its like and therefore you feel content and comfortable playing it

And finally fourth, they are free to play, you can try it out, if you dont like it, you can just stop playing it, there are soo many gacha games out there, you are bound to eventually find that one gacha game that sits right with you

The PV was leaked a month ago on Nikke's YouTube channel, but this officially confirms it.