There are two wolves inside the Love and Deepspace fandom: one wants the newly announced (and then swiftly canceled) furry-coded wolfman, Valko, to remain gone, and the other one has signed petitions over 300,000 times in a bid to get Valko back.
Valko is, or rather was, a tech CEO werewolf–the literal kind, not the type that owns Tesla–who was announced for the hit gacha romance game Love and Deepspace towards the end of last month. If you’re unfamiliar with the game, it’s, no exaggeration, one of the most popular mobile games ever made, with over 80 million unique downloads.
Valko was supposed to be the sixth sexy hunk added to the game, but those plans were axed by developer Papergames following his rather mixed reception online. While some fans were merely upset that the attention was being drawn away from the five beefcakes that are already in the game, others straight up didn’t like Valko’s vibes and accused the China-based devs of catering to Westerners. Also, someone may have mailed cow shit to the devs’ headquarters.
However, something strange happened following the announcement that Valko’s release had been canceled: he started to amass a following. As of writing, the two biggest petitions for Valko’s return, which include this Change.org petition and this iPetitions petition, have amassed over 310,000 signatures. The Change.org one alone has over 91,000 signatures. In case you’re curious, the biggest petition against Sony’s announcement that PlayStation will be going fully digital by 2028 only has 75,000 votes.
From an outsider’s perspective, it almost seems as if Valko’s removal is the very reason he’s suddenly gained so much popularity. In fact, there are posts on the r/LoveAndDeepspace subreddit stating exactly that, as the drama surrounding his removal has enticed parts of the fandom to him.
That being said, considering that Papergames removed “Valko’s Interactive Sessions” from the Anime Expo event this weekend, it does seem that the developer’s mind is made up on this one. Still, over 300,000 signatures in roughly 4 days is hard to ignore. The iPetitions Valko petition is, no exaggeration, one of the site’s most-signed petitions of all time, and if you list the current petitions on the platform by “recent signature volume,” all four of the top spots are held by Valko. If only PlayStation discs were sexy wolf men. Then we might actually have a shot at convincing Sony to do a 180 on its all-digital future.