There's actually a more complex explanation on why Valko is cancelled. It involves a lot of issues on the CN side that go beyond the game. I'll try to translate and explain them below and include links to references if possible. However, the references will be in Chinese so you will have to translate them yourself if you want to check them out.
There are multiple layers to this:
1. Lack of resources: As you've also mentioned, players need more ways to obtain rewards + current LIs are being neglected. This is nothing new, but an additional LI might worsen the situation, which is one of CN players' concerns. You've talked about this so I won't go too in depth as I'm sure you understand the issues as a player. This is the least of the issues.
2. Controversy regarding Valko's promotional material trivialising women's safety issues: On bilibili, the CN video-sharing site, they posted Valko's promotional video, which included this sentence in the CN version: "引狼入室有什么不好?" The meaning is different from that of the English translation so I will explain. It does not simply mean "wolves being at the door" as the translation says. The idiom "引狼入室" used has no direct translation in English, but the literal meaning is "leading a wolf into the house", and it means "to invite danger". The behaviour described by this idiom refers to the violation of personal boundaries. It can roughly be translated into "What's so bad about inviting danger inside?". Paired with the context in the video (him breaking into the MC's home in the beginning, with MC being a woman living alone, and later pushing her onto the grass while she tried to push him away when this sentence is shown), this reminded people of the very real danger women, especially those living alone, face. There's no need to explain why insinuating that there's nothing wrong with this is a bad thing. Under this context, the next sentence is worse: "只要探头进去瞧瞧，他便会为你敞开大门" doesn't just mean "one peek" like the English translation. Rather than simply peek, they are, specifically, poking their head in. The sentence can be translated to "As long as you poke your head in and take a peek, he'll open the doors wide for you". The sentence in itself may be just another line, but given that the previous line basically said "there's nothing bad about violating personal boundaries", the sentence seems to be an innuendo for something far worse. This is made worse by the fact that he was planned to be a LI: because of that, he can't be too unlikeable, so these actions would be painted in a better light than they should be. That is not all: the company was planning to make and sell door hangers with this exact idiom printed on Valko's. You can imagine what might happen if anyone actually hung this on their door. This is a major issue which has caused a lot of backlash as they have many female players, and the company has been criticised by official news sources for this, namely The Beijing News (government owned) and China Women's News (a major news outlet focusing on women's issues). Taiwan and Hong Kong newspapers have also covered this (Sing Tao Headline, Liberty Times, etc.). You could argue that it's a case of blue curtains, but when that's the impression so many Chinese-speaking players from different regions and even the media have gotten from this video, there is clearly a problem with the presentation of ideas.
Either way, with such controversies and accusations surrounding Valko, it would be terrible for business if they insisted on releasing Valko, making this one of the reasons he was cancelled.
The video in question, posted by the official LADS account. The sentences start at around the 2:10 mark:
【不速之狼、野性难驯、天敌路窄……当真如此？——敖尹「本能沦陷法则」PV公开！-哔哩哔哩】 https://b23.tv/GUnBK4X
The Beijing News article:
https://m.bjnews.com.cn/detail/1782659738169609.html
China Women's News posted the official statement on their WeChat account so I will link a source from Beijing Daily (another government owned newspaper) with the full original post copied:
https://www.sina.cn/news/detail/5315205490022122.html
https://www.stheadline.com/zh-hans/realtime-china/3588467/%E6%81%8B%E4%B8%8E%E6%B7%B1%E7%A9%BA%E5%B0%91%E5%A5%B3%E5%90%91%E6%89%8B%E6%B8%B8%E7%8E%B00731-%E8%AF%95%E8%8D%AF%E5%86%85%E5%AE%B9-%E7%94%B7%E4%B8%BB%E6%B6%89%E4%B8%8D%E5%B0%8A%E9%87%8D%E5%A5%B3%E6%80%A7%E9%81%AD%E7%8B%82%E8%BD%B0#google_vignette
https://news.ltn.com.tw/news/world/breakingnews/5488948
3. Political reasons: Valko's planned release has caused a wave of players quitting. Some of them were recording videos and taking screenshots so they could go back and rewatch it after deleting the game, and while doing so found some text in the Abyssal Chaos that possibly alluded to atrocities committed by the Japanese during the Second Sino-Japanese War:
Text on EVER's human experiments from Xavier's Abyssal Chaos, added in late April, had the number 0731. This number can be considered taboo in China as Unit 731 was a Japanese facility that carried out human experiments on Chinese people during the war. In the same file, the researcher's name has the same Mandarin pronunciation as that of a Japanese war criminal. This had been changed to 0611 in these few days, yet that is the date when the "六一一惨案" happened, where Japanese soldiers used poison gas on Chinese civilians. Now, the numbers have been entirely removed. These are all incidents taught during history lessons in China. Infold is a Chinese company, with Chinese employees who should have all learnt about this part of history and should understand that the number should be avoided in general. Infold claimed that these were coincidences, yet such coincidences should have been changed before release or edited asap, not two months after it's been released. The possibility of three coincidences in a row is also low, and definitely raises suspicion, making this an extremely weak argument.
This has always been a sensitive topic, and now it has escalated to the point where the game could possibly be banned: The Beijing News reported that malls are requiring stores selling LADS merchandise to remove them from shelves, showing the game is getting closer and closer to being shut down entirely. Infold needs damage control urgently.
Now, what does this have to do with Valko? He is, in a way, the straw that broke the camel's back, as it was because he was the reason players were quitting and found these details. What's more, as western players might have heard as well, CN players are very much against his release and very vocal about it. I believe Infold was hoping that by cancelling his release, these more important issues would be brushed under the rug and CN players would return to the game. It seems to be less "caving in to CN players' demands" and more "desperately trying to keep the company from going under".
The Beijing News article:
https://m.bjnews.com.cn/detail/1782813821169633.html
Overall, this is just very poor damage control that does not address the key concerns and issues players have raised directly or even at all. There are some things lost in translation and other cultural differences, so I understand why western players might feel frustrated by Infold's decision and not get where CN players are coming from, but hopefully this clarifies things. You may not agree with these opinions, but these are the main criticisms I've seen on the CN side. It is not just a matter of him not suiting their tastes or disliking the addition of more LIs.
hello nonnie !! first off, i just want to say thank you for taking the time to type this all out, because i know there have been many controversies and incidents leading up to this eventual blow out over the last two years with valko ultimately being the final straw for players' frustrations, and compiling the references must have taken time + translating the points into an understandable and respectable tone !!
i completely understand and sympathise with the points, especially given how these are portrayed in a romantic scenario where situations such as this can be taken advantage of despite being fictional, especially in south east asian countries where the police and the law system aren't the most protective for these situations. i think for en the translation is much milder, and can be taken playfully (as i initially did since we don't know the context of the scene and valko and the mc might already know each other + have plans during that part, with him arriving by the window because that's just his character), but of course english doesn't have the same nuance in the language as chinese does, so something like that can easily be lost in translation and lose the severity of the meaning just like previous scenarios have seen (such as caleb being mc's brother, with english taking that as a literal blood relative translation, when in southeast asian cultures it is commonly used for non blood relatives). the team should have thought about this more when in development of his content, especially given the real-world issues that occur by the day, and either written that scene to be less of that tone, or reworked it entirely to avoid that implication.
my condolences are out for the cn community for the company's lack of awareness regarding the political issue, especially for something that runs so far back into the history and still majorly affects people to this day. i also don't buy the coincidence talk, as the similarities are too much to be reduced to that explanation when they would have had a team create the scenario and have multiple people check it over before releasing it into the game. it is crude and tactless when considering many other issues that have been brought up, and i'm not surprised they're under fire for having that specifically.
and i agree that all of this has been a very poor way of damage control, especially rewarding 1 limited ticket for 30 days seems very shallow in my opinion as a cheap apology and a way for players to keep logging in. if they were going to give out rewards, it would have been better to give it all at once or, better yet, actually focus on the issues that players on all sides have been trying to feedback them on. them cancelling an entire character's release when they have everything prepared shows they are capable of addressing the imminent issues that need to be fixed, which honestly makes this entire thing even more sour. because they can, but they won't. his cancellation has also set back story content and lore will need to be reworked in order to work without him, which is another point of discontent within the players as the lacking story content is another driving force.
what i don't agree with are the racist, homophobic, misogynistic, and xenophobic behaviours that have been going around ever since his announcement, which is one of the prevalent causes for the global side's frustration at the cn community who have displayed this behaviour. there was no reason to be so harmful and toxic, sometimes downright disgusting with the words which have been said. i understand the frustrations, i also understand that the global side isn't completely innocent either with the arguments between both sides and within the communities having horrible words said, and i also understand that it isn't everyone who thinks as such, but a very loud crowd which ended up generalising each playerbase due to the violent negativity that has been spreading more rapidly, especially under each other's comment sections on posts about valko to the players who were genuinely looking forward to him. this has been happening for a while before valko was ever introduced, and it was bad before, namely during sylus and caleb release times but all of the love interests have some form of controversy within the fandom, but this time around has really shown how ugly people can be, even driving off multiple people who contributed to the community, such as artists, and then celebrating that fact afterwards.
our frustrations should be directed towards the company who caused all these sentiments to pile up without properly addressing anything until now, with even now being a very poor example of addressing the issues surrounding the main story and character content amongst so many other things, instead of hurling vitriol towards fellow players. we all want the same thing, we all want the content of our favourite(s) to be updated with substantial and meaningful content just like they promised. at this point it feels like it's only a matter of time before everything goes under given all the other things that have yet to be addressed alongside the game's longevity past this incident.
thank you again for sending this information nonnie, as some things i wasn't aware of in its entirety and this ask cleared them !! we can only do what we can to help raise awareness and do our part in making petitions/sending emails for what should be resolved by the company, but honestly i'm not getting my hopes up considering how things have been 😭
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