Love & Deepspace sees massive collapse in player spending after Valko controversy

• Love & Deepspace has seen player spending collapse in the wake of its Valko controversy
• But the incident may have only accelerated an existing decline
• The question remains whether Infold Games can bring back players to the previously hit otome game

One of the more interesting (in the same way that a house fire could be considered interesting) stories of the past few months was Love & Deepspace's bizarre controversy over upcoming character Valko. A massive backlash from players saw the character shelved, only for even more anger to break out because of said shelving.

Now, we've got our first inkling of the aftereffects that controversy has had on Love & Deepspace, with a reported 68% drop in player spending. That's a pretty clear sign that, regardless of how Infold Games handled the controversy, nobody is particularly satisfied with the outcome.

Valko come home

It's worth noting two key things about this dip, though. First is that player spend was already on the decline after May of that year, well before the Valko incident. And second is that much of this decline has not taken into account third-party Android storefronts that are most used in China.

This means we don't have any indication of how Chinese players, whom many global players lay blame on for kicking off the controversy, have reacted to Valko's removal. But what's definitely clear is that Valko is far from the only thing causing dissatisfaction among players.

Ultimately, I think it's a mixture of a poorly handled incident and existing disappointment with the lack of content. And considering Infold has now pledged to add no more new love interests, and the most recent update seemingly being quite lacklustre, it may be a difficult uphill struggle to regain the success Love & Deepspace once had.

Still, the Otome genre remains a pretty popular one on mobile as well as on other platforms. But it's a difficult one to break into, as is demonstrated by the relatively static nature of our list covering the best otome games on mobile. There are plenty of gems that make it worth checking out that list regardless, though!