We are not calling all of you racists. But the representation of Chinese fans in our social media spaces has looked exactly like that. It would be foolish to judge a huge group of people based on a crowd that was clearly eager to laugh at devastated players — but the problem is that every post trying to explain the situation is still full of hypocrisy.
Let me clarify my position.
I used to be a Sylus fan, and I liked the game. I did not become a Valko fan. To me, he simply seemed like an interesting and funny character. I am not here only to defend him. I am here mainly to explain the position of many international players.
I will not condemn your anger over the use of Unit 731. The more educated among us were already familiar with that term. I will also not argue about the incorrect representation of China for global server players. It is completely obvious that these are the company’s mistakes, and you have every right to be angry and demand answers from them.
But I absolutely do not support the hatred toward Valko or all the consequences that followed.
Let me start from the beginning.
The game had been hinting at a sixth love interest for a long time. In the character selection menu, the “Coming Soon” button did not disappear after Caleb’s release. Have you ever noticed that there are six protocores in the game? And each of them matches the eye color of one of the protagonists, including Valko’s yellow eyes. Each ML has his own version of a rival or counterpart — for example, Sylus and Xavier — with connected story elements. There are also a few other details, but listing all of them here would take too long.
So yes, the game had always hinted that there would be six love interests. The company’s mistake was presenting Valko while ignoring all the existing problems in the game. But Valko himself was not a mistake, and he should never have suffered because of bad-faith fans.
Second, this focus on Valko’s presentation being terrible and “dangerous” is hypocritical, because all of our love interests have been like this. You say you are a Caleb fan, and hearing this from you is honestly very hypocritical.
Please remember Caleb’s own presentation: he restrains MC, threatens her, does not allow her to contact her loved ones, controls her actions, and decides what is best for her on her behalf. Why were there no statements back then saying that all of these actions violated women’s safety?
The problem is that the exact same types of scenes were tolerated, romanticized, or even celebrated when they involved more popular love interests. So when Valko was suddenly framed as uniquely dangerous, it looked selective. It looked less like a consistent concern for women’s safety and more like people found a socially acceptable argument to justify removing a character they already did not want.
Or why did none of these media outlets shout about this when Sylus was released? Sylus kept MC in handcuffs, forced her into certain actions, and restricted her freedom.
Why is nobody talking about Xavier, who stalked her?
And why cancel Valko if those Unit 731 references were in Xavier’s story?
Why is everyone silent about Rafayel’s card where he appears in MC’s home without permission?
There is only one answer: every one of those MLs simply had a more attractive appearance for the Chinese audience.
And now another question.
Love and Deepspace earns tens of millions every month. It is always at the top of gacha revenue rankings. You yourselves talk about the lack of story updates for 500+ days. From a business perspective, this can be interpreted very simply: the audience accepts this, the audience supports us with monthly spending, and the impressive scale of birthday celebrations for favorite characters also shows enormous player engagement.
Never before did the situation reach this scale or receive this level of coverage until Valko was announced. And the main demand from the community that we saw throughout all these days was to remove Valko.
But here is the problem: removing Valko will not solve a single one of the game’s actual issues.
You could have demanded more accurate representation. You could have demanded the removal of painful and controversial content. You could have asked for truly high-quality content. Maybe you could have demanded two parallel banners — for example, Valko and Caleb — so that fans could choose which character’s card they wanted to pull for.
But no. You pushed for Valko’s removal.
Countless posts on social media demanded that he be deleted. Afterward, just as many people celebrated when it happened. Many grieving players who loved him received insults. And you really want us to believe that you were not protesting against him?
Also, I can see that you like working with sources, so I will leave you with a few final thoughts that I recommend you think about.
At Infold’s office, all banners of all love interests have been removed. Fans’ anger has reached politicians, and the game may very well be taken in for inspection. There have been many statements claiming that because of Love and Deepspace, Chinese girls are not paying attention to real men. And more and more discussions are now appearing about whether female-oriented otome games in China will face much stricter scrutiny or restrictions.
You do not even have to reply to me. Just watch the situation and answer these questions for yourself:
What exactly were you protesting against?
Who used your anger?
Where was the real root of the problem?
And are we, the fans of Love and Deepspace, really better off now?