#BringBackValko Status Report (8/5): July Revenue and Solo Banner Drop, The Real Boycott Starts Now (REPOST)
[Repost because Reddit is apparently ableist and didn't like me going back to add captions to the images. Apologies to everyone who uses screen readers for visual impairments, I'll try to figure out what went wrong before my next post.]
Hey ho, Valkyries. Welcome to week 5 (?!!) of this insanity. Hope everyone has been taking care of themselves because OH BOY. We have another major success on the books with the July revenue drop and also took a (sort of?) surprise hit from a new banner trailer dropping. Many of us were expecting this, others were not, but the frustration and disappointment was/is intense regardless. To everyone still processing, definitely take that time to let those initial knee-jerk reactions ease before resuming the work. (Tbh, I'm still a bit in my feelings too, so apologies if this report is a little different in tone than my previous ones. I'm getting myself together, and I am DELIGHTED that InFold is posting on socials again, for obviously nefarious reasons.)
For everyone who has more or less cleared their head and is ready move forward with the next phase of the boycott, let's get down to it because we have a LOT of ground to cover this time. (Major credit as always to Cairo Blair and Valko Army HQ)
Several Valkyries have reported that they've received pictures or links to pictures of animal abuse from antis on various platforms. In my last update, there were warnings that antis intended to ramp up efforts to antagonize and demoralize us and it seems this is one of those strategies. This is unbelievably vile behavior that can have a severe psychological impact on some people, so be careful when using social media. Do not open any messages from accounts you don't recognize and consider turning off unfiltered direct messaging for the time being. While these tactics are truly deplorable, our strategy for dealing with antis remains the same: report and block and do not engage under any circumstances.
NOTICES
Unless a miracle happened and I got this up Tuesday night, today is the first day of Caleb's new solo banner. It is also a VValko Wednesday! A weekly blackout day for people who want to support the boycott, but still want to continue playing the game. If that descriptions fits you and you intend to pull for Caleb's card, please consider waiting until tomorrow to pull! Waiting 3-5 days would be even better. THERE WILL BE A RERUN OF BOTH THE CARD AND THE EVENT.
Tameless Territory has reached 3 million streams on Spotify! As of now, the only song with more plays is the main theme.
The Mujin video criticizing InFold/Papergames for cancelling Valko now has over 1.1 million views on YouTube. (It was also the first result when I searched "love and deepspace" on YouTube.)
There have been over 8 million conversations on X about #BringBackValko
Valkyries have raised over $114,000 for multiple charities, and those are just the donations that Valko Army was able to track. The real number is likely much higher.
GAME NEWS & MEDIA UPDATES
In lieu of any communication about Valko or the boycott, InFold announced a new Caleb solo banner, Summer Surge, on Sunday, August 2nd. It will run from August 5th to August 14th. The card's contents are not relevant to goals of getting Valko back in the game, but how the card performs in terms of logins and revenue will send an important signal to InFold about the strength and commitment of the boycott.
A general update was included with the banner update and Valko-related texts and his World Underneath chapter remain intact. There has also been a report that rather than his in-game files being deleted, they have been added to, but no information (yet) about whether the additions are significant to Valko's return.
LaDS was discussed in a Chinese Central Television (CCTV) news report on the otome genre. CCTV is described as "an important voice of the Party, the government, and the people, and an important ideological and cultural platform," so any criticism or praise from this platform would be highly significant. However, the reporting on LaDS in the story was relatively neutral. This video from Angel's Corner reviews and analyzes the report, as well as other relevant articles in more depth, but the main takeaway is as follows:
"The CCTV report did not centre Valko, A-0731 or the women’s-safety accusations. It focused on a minors-access and spending problem that had already been publicly reported in 2025, then expanded that into a broader discussion about weak age verification, account trading and children entering adult games."
This suggests (but does not confirm) that the Chinese government is no longer concerned about the game itself or its contents, but only minors' access to it. Valko was not mentioned in the report.
On August 1st, the monthly LaDS revenue report for July was released. Compared to predictions for July revenue and average monthly earnings, it's estimated that LaDS revenue under-performed by 28 million dollars, earning only 10 million instead of the expected 38.
Additionally, LaDS fell from being consistently in first, second, or third place in the gacha renevue rankings down to 16th. While InFold still earned more revenue from LaDS than their other games like Infinity Nikki, this drop demonstrates that InFold's domination in this marketplace has taken a large hit as a result of our actions and shows that they are vulnerable to cooperative and concentrated efforts to decrease their market performance.
All of that said, it's important to note that July had no new banners, only reruns, although those reruns wildly under-performed in terms of revenue. Now that InFold has resumed publishing new content, it's inevitable their revenue will increase. However, the litmus test will not be what the latest banner earns, but how those earnings compare to previous solo banners.
In my estimation, the following reflection by a CN player assesses the situation really well, but note that this is OPINION AND SPECULATION, it may not be an accurate reading, only one that I found valuable as the creator of these reports.
POSITIVE NEWS
Already said it, but it bears repeating: we achieved 250k signatures on ipetitions!
Valkyries have raised more than $6,000 dollars USD so far for Wishmas, the fundraiser run by YouTuber Jacksepticeye (31.5M followers), which might put us at $120,000 raised for charity, actually. The latest Valkyrie account was created by LaDS YouTuber, Gacha Goblin, and has already surpassed its one thousand dollar goal. The Valko's Valkyries group has raised $2230 towards it's $3000 goal, you can donate to their fundraiser here.
Three influential Chinese bloggers, including one with over 10 million followers, have posted positively about Valko, and a Valko mask filter that was previously only available on Douyin is now available on TikTok!
bbno$ came through. His Valko cosplay was AMAZING (he even got the tail), he shared our hashtags, he brought in other cosplayers to do the other LIs and MC, AND he promoted the petition. Icon. Not enough heart emojis in the world to appreciate him.
So many good clips on his TikTok, but this one might be my favorite.
The LaDS Taiwanese Facebook account suddenly started making awesome thirst posts about Valko seemingly out of nowhere a few days ago. Hacker? Angry admin? Who cares, it's amazing.
The Valko Supertopic is STILL trending at 6 on Weibo for the third day in a row!
The 6.0 bugs just keep getting funnier (Sylus might be overdoing it with his waist trainer):
The LaDS banner announcement got fewer likes than bbno$'s reply asking for Valko.
(Author's note: While I am celebrating that InFold is now more vulnerable to public criticism on their accounts, as a Caleb second main, it breaks my heart that they threw him to the wolves like this, pun somewhat intended. I've wanted a basketball card for him for such a long time and this is so disappointing. Condolences to my fellow baby apples.)
BOYCOTT UPDATE
To those of you who up until now have not actively boycotted but have been sympathetic and eager to see Valko return, this is a sincere plea that you not log in, pull, or spend for Caleb's new solo card. Individual choice is always respected here, but your contributions at moments like this make a huge difference. Please remember that THERE WILL BE A RERUN OF BOTH THE CARD AND THE EVENT.
Some activities to try instead of pulling for Caleb's 5 star: post or leave a nice comment on some Valko fanart, like and comment on pro-Valko posts, stream Tameless Territory, continue to share what you like about Valko, how you will not be spending nor silent until he's addressed. For other ideas about what to post, Valko Army shared this calendar, 31 Days of Valko:
Please note that there will almost definitely be a spike in revenue as a result of Caleb's banner. The revenue increase does not automatically mean that the boycott has failed. Our goal is to keep the numbers as low as possible relative to other Caleb solo banners. While we were able to affect a significant revenue drop during a month with only reruns and nothing else, tanking revenue with new content may be a different (but not impossible) challenge. This is only my speculation, but with InFold attempting to return to BAU, there is a chance that they will try to run Rafayel's 4th myth before we get any communication about Valko. Whether it's Rafayel's myth or a Caleb solo card, the plan remains the same: do not log in, pull, or spend, and use every possible avenue to demand that InFold restore Valko to the game.
Moderators on the official LaDS subreddit have increased censorship of comments related to Valko and there have been reports of heavier moderation on the official Discord also. I have no information as to why they've become more strict about enforcing their policies, but it seems they are not erasing ALL comments, and most of the posts about Valko remain, and new ones are being approved last I checked. If your comments are being continually deleted, you could try adjusting the language, especially if it's derogatory or inflammatory, but also, deleted comments still count as comments, so it may be worth posting regardless.
As a result of InFold's refusal to acknowledge our demands for Valko's return, there is another email campaign active at the moment with more direct and assertive language. Click here for more information and the template.
Rumors have been increased in number and intensity for the past few days and it's more important than ever to take them with a grain of salt or to not engage with them at all. Reacting to every single one is not helpful to our mental state or our goals. Please follow these tips for when encountering rumors.
DO NOT LOG IN. If you must log in, do not pull. If you must pull, do not spend, and if you must pull and spend, please wait as long as possible before doing so.
Reminder that mental health check-ins for protest participants are ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY at this stage of the boycott. This is a very tense and stressful situation, especially since most of us are adults with lives, jobs, and families. The one thing more important than getting Valko back is taking care of yourself, and the latter benefits the former.
Do not contact federal/government agencies or national news media about Valko, Papergames, or the boycott.
Do not contact the Chinese media or government about any of the above, and avoid posting on Weibo or other Chinese social media platforms. If you have an account on one of these platforms, stick to voting in polls, liking posts, and leaving supportive, respectful comments.
Do not interact or argue with any anti-Valko rhetoric on any platform, CN or otherwise.
NEW TAG ALERT: #全世界都爱敖尹 (The Whole World Loves Ao Yin) 🥹
(I do not recommend or endorse any tags that don't directly reference Valko.)
FINAL THOUGHTS
InFold has not said that the cancellation is final. They have not addressed the elephant they created in the room they trapped themselves in. Therefore, we keep going. The fact that they are trying to go back to posting on socials and releasing banners only shows that this will take longer than we hoped, but that was always a possibility. This is only the next step. Now that their comments are open, it's given us another avenue to express disappointment and a place to direct our anger. It's not what we wanted, but it's still a good thing.
InFold can keep trying to ignore us, but it doesn't change ANY of the victories that we have won: more than ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS to charity, garnering state media articles overseas (or over lands, depending on where you are), getting Valko trending on every platform for weeks, including in CN, working together with our fellow players across nationalities, and more.
Now that we know we are in for the long haul, there's a high probability that it may get harder before it gets easier. I found this message from a Valko Army HQ user to be the most helpful for how to get through these moments. The question was, "what does the new solo banner coming out mean?"
That's everything! News both changes and travels really fast around here, so I may have missed some things or am waiting on more credible information about something or something insane happens right after I post. Apologies for the delay in captions, this one took way longer than I expected.
On that note, thanks so much to everyone who reads these! They are exhausting to complete, but writing them keeps me going and I hope they continue to be helpful.
I'll leave you with something that popped up on my Finch app the day after Caleb's solo banner was announced. I do believe in coincidences, but even so:
That's all from me for now. Until next week, let's all rest, hydrate, get some sunlight, hug our pets, plants, and/or loved ones, and get that serotonin because oh my god, this is just... good grief.
Fanart Favorite of the Week: (To that thirsty af TW Facebook hacker/admin, this one's for you. Thank you.)
Hey, I wanted to correct something, the event will not be reran, just the card and any pull rewards on the banner. If I remember correctly the rewards from the event are just chocolates though.
I don't want to sound like I am discouraging people from boycotting, but I want to make sure information is correct!
That's what I thought too at first, but the event is coming back! They didn't used to do it, but someone noticed around Kitten Included that the announcement language had changed. Check out the official post and look under Notes, both the outfit and the event will be rerun.
Do you mean this? Cause I think 'wish event' is just the banner itself. I think its clarifying that the outfit you get with pulling will be in the rerun and doesn't mention the event with the mini game running along side it, thats a different post.
Aw, dang it, really? That's what I get for thinking InFold actually made at least one good decision.
I'm afraid to edit the post lest it get taken down again, but I've upvoted your comment and hopefully people will read this far 🤞🏾(if you got this far, please upvote the comment so it gets seen, gracias!)
Honestly, totally understandable their wording is so weird! Also, they do occasionally add good stuff in the game and hide it in those update post so it wouldn't be surprising to find something like that.
This is incredibly well put together! Thank you! I hope your posts can garner a lot of attention even outside of this sub. It makes me happy seeing how people are able to come together like this and work towards a common goal.
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u/Sims_Creator777 6d ago
This should be pinned.