I'm curious, since I see this topic get brought up a lot now on my twt timeline, since we're approaching the end of july... what are the odds of infold not addressing us by the end of the month / beginning of august?
because I see valid points to consider for both cases.
why infold should make an announcement on end of july:
their revenue / numbers of downloads, probably DAU has gone down significantly due to our boycott. this, for a live service game, is not something they can just ignore for months on end. they need to fix this somehow.
I've seen the rhetoric going around that there are people (idk how many so I'm not going to throw in my guess, but there ARE people) who will completely lose their trust in infold if they don't address things / acknowledge our efforts. rightly so, honestly, I'm not blaming anyone. mental and physical health has been greatly affected by their fuck up, and frankly, I understand that some are just fed up being ignored and will just not play the game anymore. I've also seen some state that they will stay away from this game even IF valko will be released in the future. that, obviously, will not bode well for the company's longevity either, for obvious reasons, losing trust of their players (and spenders).
if they proceed as normal / release raf's myth in the midst of things, it will only add fuel to the fire and will, again, give us the impression that infold is NOT listening. which will, again, just make people lose trust in this company entirely.
iirc, ALL our goals were achieved with this boycott. we are loud, the game's app store rating is LOW, their revenue is in a freefall, valko has been trending for the entirety of the boycott, infold has lost a lot of followers on their official plattforms. we have EVEN cleared valko's name, with older articles being deleted or corrected. from what I know the current consensus on lads from cn media news is not focused on valko at ALL, his name and image has been cleared, there were no violations found within his story. now, media seems more focused on the antis, the rumors that spread like wildfire without any factchecking and that minors are playing a game made for 18+. NOTHING to do with valko. so there really isn't a reason NOT to drop him, right? hell, cn media even acknowledged that global players need to be considered, we make up 40% of the revenue, ignoring us would not only tank infold's reputation, but potentially all other live service games originating from china.
so, at the very least, imo, they need to address the elephant in the room and openly communicate what their plan is to us. I don't think many would have a problem if valko were to be delayed, IF, and that's a massive fucking IF, infold were to communicate this as such. ofc, best case scenario is that valko were to be reinstated in game by the end of july or beginning of august, and that is what I'm hoping for myself, but I could maybe wait for longer IF infold told us why they can't release him now, and if they give us a release date / month.
now, reasons I saw why infold might not address the boycott / valko entirely and will try to proceed as normal:
the biggest reason is probably that they're trying to keep a low profile, still. reinstating valko will likely cause another outcry and another wave of massive hate from antis. reminder, that antis were not shying away from stooping as low as to send cow dung and posing a physical threat to infold and their employees to the point that police had to be called, so I don't think infold would be that happy for it all to start again.
while not confirmed to be directly linked to lads and what has happened, there are investigations ongoing about cyber harrassment, water armies, coordinated hate on the internet etc in china. personally speculating, I'm going to assume that they're investigating the antis that have spread reputation-damaging rumors and bombarded infold with hate, given the time the announcement was made about the investigation. maybe infold will wait things out until these investigations are over / or at the very least start to bear fruit?
then again, if these were to be the case, I think refusing to even acknowledge us would be the stupidest fucking thing infold can do at this point, no matter the reason. they can't stay silent for almost a month and expect us to be fine without any form of "we hear you" especially not if they promised to do better with communication and listening to player feedback (although that might've just been corpo speak)
if you couldn't tell, I'll be FUMING if infold chooses to NOT give us any statement at all, and I am choosing to believe this company isn't completely dumb to ruin their reputation, revenue and future growth like that.
besides, I'm pretty sure that delaying valko is not the move infold might think it is. it might keep the antis happy for a while, but does infold really think they won't start throwing a tantrum again the moment infold decides to release valko, even at a later date? they don't want him in the game point blank period, so obviously whatever "calming down" might've happened in the span of time would just become void and they'll explode again not to mention that the momentum is NOW, and the momentum is fragile. so they will not only anger the antis again by reinstating him, but also the people who were patiently awaiting for valko's rightful return might not be around anymore.
however, IF infold really were to still ignore us... well. I'll still proceed with the boycott lmfao.
I won't be logging in, I sure as hell won't be spending a dime on the game until valko is back (maybe not ever, who knows), I will still be talking about valko in a positive light on social media and I WILL be annoying as hell and bring him up on every social media post, if they were to start posting again.
I'm interested in what you guys think.
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