The International Sexy Game Controversy

Today’s episode will make you an expert on one of the biggest (and might I add sexiest) controversies in video game fandom. Ever.

To start, some history. I believe that we can pinpoint the exact moment video game fans grabbed the wheel of video game culture, yanking it from video game designers. In 2012, the team at BioWare culminated their blockbuster roleplaying game trilogy Mass Effect with the aptly named Mass Effect 3. The directors and marketing team had promised players decisions would influence the outcome of the story in crucial and profound ways, but a not-insignificant number of outspoken players claimed the ending failed to deliver on those statements.

The campaign, Retake Mass Effect, demanded the studio produce an ending that met their vague expectations. To be clear, this was hardly the first campaign of this kind, but it was the most effective. A month after release, BioWare promised a free DLC expansion, addressing fan concerns. And a mere three months after release, that expansion was made available to appease the fans.

Since then, gaming fandoms have felt increasingly empowered, from pressuring the creators of the Sonic the Hedgehog movie to redesign the character – perhaps a wise decision, considering the film’s exponential success – to the unquestionably shitty and evil GamerGate movement. The latter used pressure campaigns to harass women and people of color across game development and media, kill ad partnerships, and intimidate game publishers who acknowledged the existence of diversity.

These days, a month can’t pass without some fan campaign making demands of the media they claim to love. And though fan demands reach across all of entertainment, they remain particularly intense in gaming. Some anime game doesn’t have the localization they want. Perhaps a Nintendo game has been, in their view, censored. Meanwhile, game developer executives pander to fans on social media and convention stages as they make sweeping layoffs across their workforces.

I can’t count the number of fandom campaigns I’ve witnessed over my career, and yet, a new fandom controversy is so big, so personal, and so oddly overlooked by mainstream media, that I have found myself, for the first time in years, surprised.

Love and Deepspace, a romance video game, has become an international phenomenon on the backs of its five dashing men, who cater to a variety of romantic preferences, from the withholding and dominant to the doting and sappy.

But a new character’s kinks, along with years of mounting demand for new content, have turned that fiery passion into an inextinguishable flaming rage. The frustration isn’t simply between fans and game makers, but fans against fans, government censors against artists, and one culture’s romantic norms versus another’s.

It’s an unbelievable story, and that it’s not the hot-button conversation in entertainment, let alone games, raises questions about who does and doesn’t get to steer popular culture.

To get those questions answered, and guide us through this international shitshow, I’ve invited not one, but two experts.

• Act 1: The Sexy Game That’s Taken Over the World

• Act 2: A Werewolf Man, Dung Deliveries, and the Chinese Government

• Act 3: Loving a Game That Will One Day Disappear

• Patreon Bonus: Just How Bad Is the EA Sale?

• Ash Parrish: Senior reporter, Kotaku

• Natalie Checo: Community + social media manager and writer, Sunset Visitor

• Rebekah Valentine: Senior reporter, Kotaku

• Closing Song: “Band on the Run (16 Bit, SNES)” by spaceyori

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• In Love And Deepspace, Intimacy Is The Ultimate Gooner Bait (Kotaku)

• Nobody Told Me One Of The Biggest Games On The Planet Is Super Horny (Kotaku)

• Hit Romance Gacha Game Love And Deepspace Circumvents Strict NSFW Laws By Using Stick Figures For Horny Scenes (Kotaku)

• Love And Deepspace Has Brought Out My Inner Video Game Developer (Kotaku)

• The Love And Deepspace Werewolf Man Is Possibly Dead For Good After The Drama’s Latest Twist (Kotaku)

• Love and Deepspace – Official Valko: Chasing Night Trailer (GameTrailers/YouTube)

• Meet My Love and Deepspace Boyfriends: How I’m Juggling a Vampire, a Sea God, and Spacefleet Colonel in This Mobile Dating Game (IGN)

• Characters (Love and Deepspace Wiki)

• Gooner (Merriam-Webster)

• A Tale Of Two Gooners (Defector)

• Yandare (Wiki)

• Love And Deepspace Isn’t Printing Money Like It Used To After Cancelling Werewolf Lover (Kotaku)

• Caleb (Love and Deepspace Wiki)

• Spending Money in Free-to-Play Games: Sociodemographic Characteristics, Motives, Impulsivity and Internet Gaming Disorder Specificities (National Library of Medicine)

• How do you use workout feature? (and work/study as well) (r/LoveAndDeepspace)

• Hear the full segment at Patreon.com/PostGames

[Above: The YouTube channel mentioned by Sierra, AngelsCornerr.]

From Sierra on the Post Games Patreon: Great episode! Love Ash’s and Natalie’s perspective about the LaDS controversy and why this game has such a hold on player emotions. Literally nobody is catering to this market except for LaDS (there is one competitor I’m aware of on the horizon, but there is no release date yet) and I feel like this is a major reason why this controversy has gotten so much scrutiny - for better and worse, Infold is setting the precident for this untapped “girl gooner game” market (and yes I do mean “and” because they do some great things and some stupid things).

One of the limiting things about producing such a high-quality podcast is that it can only ever be a snapshot in time. This conversation does a great job of covering a specific time period in the controversy, but the situation has evolved! Long story short, in subsequent weeks, due in part to positive actions by pro-Valko fans (like raising money for wolf conservation organizations), more discussion has come out from branches of the Chinese government and media about how while Valko’s marketing was a miss, upon further investigation the character itself wasn’t “guilty” of promoting things like domestic abuse. There has also been reporting about how while the game is rated 18+ in China, minors have been going to some wild measures to get accounts, and then spending thousands of their parents’ money on the game, leading to more discussions about how to keep kids out of spaces they’re not supposed to be in.

If this fantastic episode piqued your interest in the situation, I highly recommend checking out the @AngelsCornerr YouTube channel. She has a few episodes out explaining the situation as it progresses, what it means for the lore and creative integrity of the game, and the evolving conversation in China. While this whole situation is bleak, honestly, I’m not ready to bury my werewolf husband’s code yet. I think the Chinese game market could seriously suffer if harassment campaigns like this end up controlling what developers can and can’t release.

• Your Guide to August’s Family Friendly Video Games (Crossplay)

• BEAST OF REINCARNATION REVIEW: It’s not perfect, but this parry-centric scrapper has a distinctive mood and often excellent combat. (PCGamer)

• The Steam Library of Babel (Matthew Seiji Burns)

• I miss touching my waifu (The Stacks)

• Dear Brother, Have Some Sake With Me (Stop Caring)

From the game’s summary: 500 STABS. 20 MINUTES TO ESCAPE. A horror roguelite about stabbing yourself in the hand 500 times to escape a deadly trap. Can you make it out with all your fingers? Or will you bleed out on the table? (Steam)

“The demo for 500 FINGER FILLET taught me that none of you should let me anywhere near a kitchen knife, also can someone call a doctor” (RPS)

• Inside James Turrell’s 100th and most ambitious Skyspace (BBC Global/YouTube)

• Fred Armisen & Carrie Brownstein on the Best Music Films | Adventures in Moviegoing (Excerpt) (Criterion)

• Antonio Banderas’s Acts of Faith (The New Yorker)

A cover of “Band on the Run” by Paul McCartney and Wings.