Papergames
Chinese studio behind otome hit Love and Deepspace and open-world game Infinity Nikki.
On the record
Checkpoint: Love and Deepspace v7.0 content update, testing whether fans return after the Valko cancellation
The call
Papergames runs two of China's biggest live-service games and just canceled a character after fan backlash, showing how fast player mood can turn.
Papergames creates mobile games where players date fictional characters, earning around $850 million to $1 billion per year. The main hit, Love and Deepspace, has made over $1 billion total. These games are hard to replace because they have loyal fan communities and popular characters that have been around for years, but giant companies like Tencent and NetEase are already building very similar games to compete. The biggest question is whether Love and Deepspace fans stay engaged and keep spending money after the company cancelled a planned character in June 2026, which made some players angry.
Why
01
AI pressure: Character.AI, Replika (AI companion chat apps). Papergames already sells AI companion romance inside Love and Deepspace, but cheaper standalone AI chat apps could pull lonely spenders elsewhere. Could AI do the core job? Only partly.
02
Bigger players: Tencent Games (Light and Night), NetEase Games (For All Time). Tencent and NetEase have shipped their own live otome titles chasing the same players and the same spending habits. Could a giant copy it? Yes, easily.
03
What protects it. Years of built character story, a fanbase already trained to spend, and switching costs from years of in-app purchase history.
What would change this call
Love and Deepspace MAU or monthly spending trend through v6.0/v7.0 (2026). Shows whether Valko backlash caused lasting player or revenue loss.
Tencent's Light and Night or NetEase's For All Time revenue ranking vs Love and Deepspace in China charts. Shows whether a rival otome title is pulling share from Papergames' flagship.
Infinity Nikki's post-2.0 monthly mobile revenue trend on Sensor Tower or similario tracker. Shows whether Papergames' second franchise sustains or fades after its rebound.
Tencent's Light and Night or NetEase's For All Time revenue ranking vs Love and Deepspace in China charts. Shows whether a rival otome title is pulling share from Papergames' flagship.
Infinity Nikki's post-2.0 monthly mobile revenue trend on Sensor Tower or similario tracker. Shows whether Papergames' second franchise sustains or fades after its rebound.
Key numbers
- Love and Deepspace passed $1B cumulative player spending
- Papergames made about $850M worldwide revenue in 2024
- Infinity Nikki hit 10M+ downloads in its first 4 days
Named risks
- Fan backlash volatility, as with Valko cancellation on 2026-06-30 losing ~1M followers.
- Well-capitalized incumbents Tencent and NetEase shipping direct otome/gacha rivals.
- Generic AI companion apps (Character.AI, Replika) commoditizing scripted romance content.
- Revenue concentration in two franchises, Love and Deepspace and Nikki series.
- Inconsistent public data on HQ, headcount and valuation limits transparency for investors.
Rivals, as read in July 2026
| Rival | Direction | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Tencent Games (Light and Night) | contesting | Marked a genre turning point in 2021, per Sixth Tone report dated 2025-02-12 |
| NetEase Games (For All Time) | losing to | For All Time lost opening week revenue race to LADS on 2024-01-18 ($8.2M) |
| Lingxi Games (Ashes of the Kingdom) | gaining on | Reportedly broke 300M yuan/month revenue mark after Sept 2024 launch |
| HoYoverse (Tears of Themis, Genshin Impact) | contesting | Established otome and gacha rival competing for engagement and wallet share |
| Shift Up (Goddess of Victory: Nikke) | contesting | Global gacha companion rival surpassed $1.3B lifetime revenue by 2026-05-14 |
Questions people ask
- Is Papergames profitable in 2026?
- Papergames is private and does not publish profit figures, but Forbes estimated worldwide revenue near $850 million in 2024, driven by Love and Deepspace and Infinity Nikki, suggesting a cash-generating business as of February 2025 (as_of 2025-02-15).
- Who is Papergames' biggest competitor?
- Tencent (Light and Night), NetEase (For All Time), HoYoverse (Tears of Themis) and Alibaba-backed Lingxi Games all ship rival otome or gacha titles; Papergames' Love and Deepspace beat NetEase's For All Time in opening-week revenue on January 18, 2024.
- Could AI chatbots like Character.AI replace Love and Deepspace?
- Unlikely soon: Love and Deepspace already uses in-house AI voice dialogue, but its multi-year IP, voice casts and parasocial fanbase, evident in the intense June 30, 2026 Valko backlash, give it defenses a generic AI companion app cannot quickly replicate.
- How much revenue did Papergames make in 2024?
- Forbes estimated Papergames' worldwide sales at approximately $850 million in 2024, largely from Love and Deepspace and Infinity Nikki, and put founder Yao Runhao's net worth at $1.3 billion as of February 15, 2025.
- What happened with Love and Deepspace's Valko character controversy?
- Papergames announced a sixth love interest, Valko, in late June 2026, then cancelled it about eight days later on June 30, 2026 after backlash including physical protests in China and the loss of roughly 1 million social media followers.
- Is Papergames publicly traded?
- No. Papergames is privately held, founded in August 2013 by Yao Runhao, with its last disclosed funding round a ~$21.1 million Series B in 2015; no IPO or acquisition has been documented as of mid-2026.
Timeline
- 2026-07-09Love and Deepspace v6.0 'A Shattered Quiet' launches with Home 2.0 and AR Photobooth
- 2026-06-30Valko love interest cancelled after fan backlash, ~1M Chinese followers lost
- 2026-04-25Court upholds Papergames defamation win against rapper PACT, who apologizes
- 2025-11-27Infinity Nikki hits $69.9M Y1 mobile revenue with version 2.0 update
- 2025-06-11Infinity Nikki wins 2025 Apple Design Award for Visuals and Graphics
- 2025-02-15Forbes estimates $850M 2024 revenue and $1.3B net worth for founder Yao Runhao
- 2025-01-10Infinity Nikki generates $16M in mobile player spending in first month
- 2024-12-05Infinity Nikki launches, Papergames' first cross platform open world title
- 2024-05-22Infold Games launches as Papergames' international publishing brand
- 2024-01-01Love and Deepspace launches, earns 60 million yuan ($8.2M) in first 3 days
Revision history
26 July 2026
First assessed. Protection under test. The text above is fixed as of this date and is not edited afterwards.
In the same band
Sources
- Papergames | IGDB
- How China Fell in Love With Woman-Centric 'Otome' Games (2025-02-12)
- Infinity Nikki's version 2.0 update arrives... (2025-11-27)
- Love and Deepspace Cancels New Wolfy Love Interest Valko (2026-06-30)
- AI boyfriends make Chinese entrepreneur Yao Runhao a billionaire (2025-02-15)
- (academic paper)
- Infiniti Nikki: Revenue Now vs Six Months Ago (2025-09-10)
- Infinity Nikki generates $16m in player spending on mobile (2025-01-10)
- The Chinese Gaming Industry Reaches a New Turning Point (2025-06-11)
- Infinity Nikki studio made almost $1bn last year (2025-02-15)
- The Chinese startup that brought female-oriented games mainstream (2019-09-27)
- Paper Games 2026 Company Profile: Valuation, Funding & Investors